Hey, I don't really like how much emotion's suddenly coming into this stuff! Let's try keep it a bit more upbeat on both sides, nothing'll get done if we're all weird about it.
For my part, I've gotta agree with insertnamehere a bit more than I do with you, Marinus. In my specific case, I just kinda started going, and I super duper would've been scared off if there were such strict limits and standards. One of my favourite things about places like this is how awesome they are for improving your writing! You can get feedback, but the generally required standard isn't mad high because it's all accessible for free. It's one of the few spots where you can actually practice writing for real, outside of super expensive university courses that I'm not overly keen about the quality of, and taking that away would be a super big bummer.
Letting people dip their toes in and test the waters is a really cool thing to do, but it for sure can lead to stories getting abandoned in some cases. I'm not so sure that stories with more than 6000 words would get abandoned any less, and a big chunk of my favourites haven't been updated in years, but I still really enjoy the bits that are around and don't really mind that they weren't ever given a conclusion! It's part of being a place where stuff gets uploaded for free. Nobody's getting paid here, right? So I feel like forcing people to write 6000 words would scare a bunch of people off (especially since in your own words it takes months, and this is just a free-time no-pay sorta gig), even people that would potentially pass that by bunches later on down the track (like me!), for not a lot of benefit. Plus, even if it doesn't go for more than a couple of chapters, those chapters could still be well worth reading! You won't find many stories at all with definitive conclusions here, it's the nature of the style.
I guess what I'm saying is that forcing people to act like professionals would have a ton of downsides without really many upsides. If you just want to see longer stories, you can only click on ones with a buncha likes or favourites or a big chapter depth. If you want to see big stories that have an ending, you probably won't get too many here even on the MASSIVE ones. It'd just push away all of the littler people that are just starting out, and have boatloads and boatloads of potential, for no gain, ya know? Emptier stories will always exist, but they're easy to avoid and I don't think we should start shootin' stories down just on the basis that they could end up empty. I mean, also, how many stories have you seen be picked up by someone else (or even the same dude!) again after ages of inactivity? Punishment/limitations based on assuming the worst is no good, I feel.
One of my favourite authors on here, Somburliss (HUGE recommend), has all of her stories privately run and original, and it seems sorta crazy that she could be expected to start out just doing chapters on other people's stories (which, by the way, wouldn't even change anything! You'd just have stories with as many empty routes as there are a few empty stories now, maybe more!). I know you weren't saying that people HAVE to do this, just recommending it, but even still. I'd for sure not be around here if to get started I was recommended/soft-forced by rules to try publish in a place where another author has to APPROVE my chapters, can edit them however they like, and all a' that. It'd be such a huge turnaway! Privately-run stories are also a much huger market here than I think you might realise. Juggernorth, Midbossman, Fiftyfiftyfifty, Somburliss, koorook, insertnamehere, brevdravis, and plenty plenty more are all HUGE names that like the entire site'd recognise, and they all have mammothly-recognised stories that are either privately done or done in a small group. It'd be so intimidating for somebody looking to have a bit of a relax and get better at writing in their free time to have to go to those stories, or instead write something that takes months! Not to mention, if people are encouraged to be adding to the sorts of stories with a bunch of people on them, it'd be even harder to get recognised (especially if their writing was so high quality!).
Sorry for being so long, and I hope you don't feel like I was going in on ya or anything Marinus, I just wanted to ease the tension a bit and add in my thoughts and experience. I know you're not coming at this like some evil-intentions dude or ever anything CLOSE to that, and I know you're just trying to have a discussion and share your thoughts, so please don't take this as anything against you. I'm all for talking about stuff! I think sharing opinions and trying to find out what's right is great, and I'm also super ready to change my point of view if I get convinced to, but let's try keep it a bit less head-to-heady if we're able to. Thanks for givin' this a read!
