I know this threat is just precum but I am a sucker for a good long foreplay! At this point, we are at 9,936 and we will reach the amazing 10.000 stories next month for sure. Who throws the party, who brings the beer and most importantly, who calls the strippers? But seriously: How about a joined story or something. Come one guy ( and elegantly girls) we need to celebrate this!
99% of those stories are BS crap that do not get touched with a ten foot pole as they collect and gather dust. I just hope the person who writes that 10,000 story doesn't post a one chapter story and leaves it alone. Oh...you wanted good news.... We do need to celebrate this is a huge event for a small site. I will listen to what others respond in this thread before responding again.
I hope you don't think the same about retirement castle residents. ^^ I don't think that CHYOA.com is that small...
May I point out that we have yet to crack the 'self-sustaining community' level on Patreon? We're fucking small.
Actually, we have at least once. From web statistics, it surely can't compete with lit but passed lush and several others.
We did at one point. I think the threshold for that goal was upped from like $420 to $500. Although I might be mistaken on that. I don't think chyoa is a large website, but I don't think it's small either. Comparing it to one of the largest(at the time) site on the internet and saying that "we're small until we reach this point" isn't really fair. Ambitious, but unfair.
In my only semi-informed personal opinion, this site could be SO much bigger that it currently is and I think one of the things holding it back directly relates to the 10,000 story thing. As a writer I freaking LOVE this site, I'm damn near addicted to it. As a reader...less so...much less so. There are SO many stories and chapters and authors on this site to try to navigate and sift through. So many stories abandoned after a chapter or two. Tags are used inconsistently, incorrectly, or not at all. There are a lot of stories with almost zero smut in them. A lot of stories with almost zero content in them for that matter, stories started with just a few sentences, chapters just a few words long. As time goes on these issues will only get worse. This site could really benefit from some form of quality control, if it wanted to grow that is. Now, I have no idea how that would work or if it would even be a good thing. There are some definite benefits from staying smallish. The readers are so much friendlier and more supportive here for one thing. Also, I hate the thought of a barrier to entry. I love the fact anyone can sign up and start writing here. Again though, that is me with my writer's hat on, not my reader's hat. All this said I don't think a choose your own adventure story site would ever get as big as literotica, it is just a more niche style of fiction. But I do think that there is huge growth potential for this site. Anyways, my two cents.
Well, you can't write choose your own adventure stories on lit but linear stories on CHYOA with the additional benefit that you can conveniently publish your progress piece by piece.
However, what grimbous says is true: lit is bigger than us for many reasons: 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. I can't handle the pressure that the community on lit puts you under, consistency, quality, output level: I'm just not capable of dealing with that kind of constant demand to perform. So, I write on CHYOA. That said, there is more we could be doing: a minimum chapter threshold to publish of 5 for example: making Grammarly native to the advanced editing suite...
Quality control would offer a lot of accessibility. I agree - this site is fantastic as an author, brilliant in formatting and execution, but leaves a lot to be desired as a reader. I envision quality control, would/should it be implemented, would be a kind of 'division' of stories. Where one could still write and publish as normal, but scrappy, low-quality and content stories would have their own section that could be browsed (mostly by authors interested in adopting, or the curious), but high-quality/content stories would be more somehow more readily accessible. ... Of course, such a division would likely lead to some sore feelings and increased animosity, not to mention a big workload increase (and a huge initial time investment as the backlog of stories was reviewed). There would have to be some objective measures, including content and grammar. ... Anyway, just musing here.
My thought on the backlog is simple: EVERYTHING that has not had one of the following conditions is treated as sub-par content: 1: has earned SotW. 2: has a top chapter. 3: is a top story. 4: the first chapter has accumulated at least 20 likes, and the story overall has at least a hundred. This would also require one simple but long overdue change: SotW can only be earned once.
Well, this is the first English literature site I have ever written on, and I love it very much because you can make this awesome games without any knowledge of scripting. It is so well done, I wonder why there aren´t more sites like this out there. In opposition to most of the commentators here, I also like that this side is not too strict about writing quality. I actually think this attracts more writers than it scares off. There are for instance people like me, non-native speakers who would be anxious to write any story if you would implement this two-class system loeman proposed. For me, it is liberating to know that it isn´t this bad when I make mistakes. It gave me the possibility to improve my English. I know it isn´t great yet but compared to my beginnings it is far better I think. This makes this side international and this is, in my opinion, a quality standard, not so much for the language but for inspiration. And let's be honest, the main focus on this site is sex and not literature. Sex and strange ideas. In this department, I think we are far better than Literotica. But of course, we should improve to attract more readers! I think the main problem is, that we don´t have a spirit of constructive criticism. At the sites, I come from ( German sides, non-erotic), people were much more engaged in commenting on other peoples stories. They said what they liked and what they disliked. They pointed out mistakes and suggested ways to make the story better. We don´t need a rating or dividing system, we need this atmosphere. When I started with Knights of Amra I made hundreds of spelling mistakes, and nobody said anything. Because of that I got lazy and thought it was okay. Only later someone called me out on it and I learned about Grammarly which made things a lot easier. What I mean is: If we want to improve quality on this side, we need to do it by ourselves. We need to comment on chapters and tell authors whats good and whats bad. Nicely and constructively. This way, people will try harder and eventually improve or leave. P.S. I love that my fun topic inspired an important discussion
That's great, we all love comments: BUT, here's the thing: I don't want to comment a lot of the time for various reasons. We're in a damnded-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don't situation with the comments. On the positive side, universally logged comments make trolling someone without consequences impossible. On the other, there are whole sections of the site that I might read for various reasons but don't feel comfortable commenting on, knowing my name would be permanently visible.
Fair point. It seems this problem is universal on this site. Same with the likes. People do not want to be visibly associated with certain topics. I can understand this up to a certain point, but in the end, this is all anonym anyway. And nobody is judging here. (At least I hope so. Otherwise, I am fucked ) But there isn´t a lack of comments on some problematic stories, its a lack of constructive criticism all over the site. Nobody really does it and this needs to change if we really want to improve the site. Also, there is no need to write public comments. The message system is fine too. I actually get suggestions for corrections every once in a while, but only because I actively ask for them in my stories.
Create a constructive criticism team will help improve, but also scare people away. A balancing act indeed. More rewards might be a better option
Hm awards for writing good comments and awards for better-developed stories... we could be on to something...
