but key among them IS quality control: I've seen many stories on this site that the editorial community of lit would not give the time of day: in truth, that's a big part of why I'm here.
That kind of quality control sounds quite like censoring...
One reason is surely the development of both sites, as chyoa's precursor was difficult to use for a long period.
Though I think that the graph of CHYOA changed recently. Within the last 16 months, the number of stories increased by 25,8% while the number of chapters increased by 38,8%. So nearly 30% of all chapters aren't older than 16 months.
That said, there is more we could be doing: a minimum chapter threshold to publish of 5 for example
I don't see a reason for these minimums. They would make things only more difficult for the small, thus privileging the big.
Single chapter stories which won't get Likes, neither for the idea nor for the writing, will quickly disappear, so there is no harm.
I started my own story which started with a single chapter of "just" a thousand words and I actually can't imagine reaching chapter 5 before publishing.
4: the first chapter has accumulated at least 20 likes, and the story overall has at least a hundred.
Most old stories, no matter if they are good or bad, don't seem to have many Likes which could be related to the change from Rating to Likes.
I don't want to comment a lot of the time for various reasons.
Send messages. I mean, if you point out typos or grammar issues, it could be strange if there are comments about it, even if the author still corrected his work.
its a lack of constructive criticism all over the site.
Pointing out errors or wording constructive criticism needs some time which could be a reason to do it just once in a while.