The other day Erin made a comment about Big Closet being open to a very eclectic group of people.
She has made this statement hundreds of times. She lives this statement every day.
Running a site that is opened to a huge variety of ideas is a recipe for disaster. Asking people who don't unanimously agree on everything to feel welcome under her tent is like begging for dispute, especially in today's world.
Erin knew this the day she opened her doors. She had watched the debacles in the mosh pit on another similar site.
Erin knew that when she welcomed people to write whatever stories that wanted to write within a set of loose criteria, that stories would be written that appealed only to a small minority of readers. She knew that some stories would be found repulsive to by majority of readers.
She also knew that the majority of what is published here would be found repulsive, or at least be seen as uninteresting or perplexing by the general public. She once stated to me, "If not here, where?"
The broader she opened her doors, the more she has made her site a target for internal conflict.
Before you write a comment on a story, ask yourself if the author was writing that story for you. If a story doesn't appeal to you, I'm sure there are hundreds of stories here that are your cup of tea.
Start from the perspective that the author was writing the story for herself . . . and invited you to read it. Hopefully the author gave you enough keywords to screen stories that are offensive to them. I'm not big on keywords, but if my story includes certain things, like rape, I'll try to give a warning.
Just remember, 42% of people are afraid of . . . clowns. I love clowns. I would put clowns in stories all day long and probably wouldn't give a second's thought to who might be scared by them.
What makes your skin crawl is your business. It makes your skin crawl and that's that. No judgment! But if a story makes your skin crawl, you don't have the implied right to make a snarky comment just because it wasn't your cup of tea.
Erin really screwed up. Life could be easier for her. She should have limited her site to people who think exactly like me. But then -- she would have one author and one reader.
That wouldn't work so she developed a few simple rules. One is a paraphrase of the Golden Rule. Know the rules and abide by them OR watch this site dwindle to stories by me, comments by me, blogs by me -- and when I can't find readers here ... pfffftt . . . everything will be gone.
Jill
Comments
That's one of the best things I like about this site.
The variety. The stories that I love and adore. The ones that aren't quite my favorite genre but are good enough that they got me hooked anyways. The ones that are definitely not my genre but were short enough and intriguing enough that I read them anyways. And some of those ones have stretched my definitions of which genre I enjoy most.
I think that one of the best things about this site is that there is such a huge variety of genre and sub-genre here and that it is very rare for there to be negative comments. Especially since I think that it is rare for comments to be removed by moderators. We appear to me to be mostly moderating ourselves, with only the rare reminder like this one above that we need to keep doing this. And, quite frankly, I try to do my best to make sure that my comments will not discourage an author or potential author from writing something because, among other things, you never know if they will come up with something I like or something that I can learn to like.
BTW, the other best thing I like about this site are the people that run it and the users who contribute the stories and comments to this site.
Key words & Tags
I really like that authors have key word and tags to let us know what kind of story they are posting. I have read a few stories where the author failed warn me about elements of the story. On those occasions I've PMed the author with the request that they add the tags to subsequent stories or chapters.
I think that some authors see those key words and tags as advertisement to attract a certain type of reader and they can be just that. But I see them much the same as movie ratings that allow me to determine if I want to pay the price for the movie. When I explained that to one author that was the response I got along with a thanks for calling their attention to the other side of the coin.
One of the great things about this site is that there is very little policing done by the administrators in regards to story content or subject matter. That means that all and sundry who are welcome here are likely to find something to suit their taste in reading. I even like that non TG stories are welcome. That means that stories like "Missing Without a Trace," by Charles Schiman can be posted here.
Great stories have no specific genre. If the authors use the tags and key word well and give a fair synopsis in the teaser, then we readers have no one to blame for reading the story but ourselves.
On another site (different genre) I sometimes frequent, there is a particular story category that is popular with a specific group, however, even though that category is clearly labeled in the tags and even often in the disclaimer at the beginning, there seems to a half dozen readers that go ahead and read the story and complain in the comments about the content and make scathing remarks about the protagonist and the author. Go figure. At least here, we see very little of that and when it does pop up the admins remove it and call the perps to tasks.
Yea admins.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
Self filtering
The writer will quickly find out whether there is an audience for his/her product by the numbers of reads and kudos so I am never worried by any outlandish stuff appearing here.
Wrong kind of tag, and I move on to the next story.