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Quote by rolandlytle
Let me ask this of every member of Stories Space. Do you read your friend's writings? I do. Almost all of them. If you do not, then what kind of friend are you really? Larry Nigh, a senior member of our site and good friend of mine, read, voted and commented on the 1st part of my new series even though I know he is not a fan of the genre at all. There is a true Stories Space friend. I have 76 'friends' on the site right now. The question is; how many will take the time to read my story, at least trying it? If recent history repeats itself, then about 1/4 will. It worries me what this says about our site. Do you think new writers will want to join a site that has almost no readers. I can tell you from 1st hand knowledge that they often pass us by because of it. We need more good new writers, because they we also be our new readers too.
Sorry to sound preachy, but this is probably the #1 problem on this site and that hurts me, because it is us doing to ourselves.
This is the nub of the problem, from what I can see. What is happening is that cliques are forming whereby ONLY friends of the author (to a certain extent) are reading, commenting and voting on their friend's works, completely ignoring pretty-much everyone else.
As regards leaving comments and constructive feedback, forget it! Surely you have not forgotten the shit-storm that blew up last year when I asked people to leave honest comments? No, Roland, honesty is what is needed but not necessarily what is wanted. It is for that reason that latterly I have not bothered to comment on a lot of the work I read - unless it is exceptional - because honest comments do not go down well.
I believe it is the saccharine 'niceness' of this site that is its biggest enemy. I'm sorry if that sounds inflammatory, but just look at the way in which anything remotely 'controversial' is jumped on, by fellow members and mods alike. This is an adult site and, as in real life, adult subjects and adult responses WILL crop up on occasion. It is in our nature to be argumentative and to disagree from time to time. By trying to nullify that instinct it is killing the site. Any casual visitor will see that wonder what sort of place this is!
I am all for trolling, bullying and flaming to be stamped out at source. That is right and proper. But to deny adults the right to disagree and express themselves in an adult manner? No, that is not right and it cannot be sustained. I expect people to disagree with this post: some because they disagree with pretty much anything I say anyway and others because they genuinely do not want to see the site change in any way. That's life.
People doing the "wave" 
