that using an e-mail in the e-mail field is the new norm

WELL ITS FOCKIN DEAD FOR ONE
ALSO WE HAVE THE RAGE THREAD FOR THIS


not that it matters

>>23578

There's nothing inherently wrong with supplying a contact email. Don't you think it's time we stop perpetuating "chan" culture?

>>23579

It's kinda nice to have a place to discuss grievances with activating caps lock, right? But yea you're right, there is a lot of overlap.

My own inability to keep going at sub-nanowrimo speeds. Such grief! Such outrage!

...Is this how I do it?

I don't like it when new people don't lurk enough and end up creating completely unnecessary threads, when there already exists one that has the same function and works just fine, while also posting their own email addresses to total strangers in a imageboard like the complete newfags they are and still have the gall to say we are the ones who should change.

>>23581
>Don't you think it's time we stop perpetuating "chan" culture?
Don't you think it's time for you to stop posting?

Festivus is a terrible meme that should have stopped with Seinfeld.

>>23585

Could always be worse. It could be a Seinfeld crossover involving Festivus or something.

Same underlying problems as every year. A lot of "someone else's problem" and not a lot of anyone actually doing anything. Bystander effect in action, lack of real community, and so on and so forth.

I've tried to do my part, but it doesn't mean a whole lot in isolation.

>>23587

Yea, kinda difficult to see any kind of change with a stagnant userbase/population. If only there was some way we could entrust some money to a responsible user of this site for site promotional purposes.

>>23588
>entrust whatever to a responsible user to blah blah blah
No, see, that's part of the problem. We could bring new people in left and right, and they would either leave or fall into the same "blame X, not me" mindset. We'd just have more arguments about whether how slow things are is the fault of "lazy" writers or "apathetic" readers. Those arguments are clusterfucks of everybody being wrong and nobody being right.

The problem starts at home. We have lots of anons who only follow one story or one board and rarely have anything to do with the site beyond that. A lot of that traffic is biased towards certain boards too. It's the same problem of everybody clustering around /th/ and /others/ (though /others/ has dropped off a little, I think).

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying everybody should just go out and force themselves to read stories that they can't like. There's plenty of active stuff here that I don't care for. But I do think that a lot of anons could stand to branch out.

And, yes, a number of writers could stand to update more often. That said, I think it's a DIY solution. You don't like someone's update speed? Write your own story and see how that turns out. You'll gain a real appreciation for things you never even thought about.

I'm a little drunk, so I should probably stop here while I'm making even the least bit of sense.

>>23588

Even then it\'s not so straightforward. You have to find a viable place to advertise. Places where you could find interested people, like 4chan, are difficult to reach partially due to the popularity of adblockers (and in 4chan\'s case, increasingly justified given recent changes made by the administration) and very dispersed user base (both between boards and between chan clones themselves). Other non-imageboard places have other problems such as not generally having ads as well as a lack of understanding of what we are and how we operate. We\'re used to it, but finding content on the site (especially stuff that you might be interested in) is tricky at best as the various boards aren\'t really logical to the type of stories and their content nor can you really see what\'s actually active and what\'s dead. Taking all that into account, it\'s hard to justify having a broad-based approach in promotion if you\'re not going to attract many people and within that group a lot of them bounce off right away.

That\'s why, of the extra money currently being spent on the site, most of it is on coding and the technical aspects. There need to be features and reorganizations that minimize the downsides to being a very spread out and (generally) inactive imageboard. It\'s just that before you can really expand and reorganize, the foundations of the code base needs to be reinforced and cleaned up. A lot of it is 10 years old and and wasn\'t written in such a way to accommodate new tech and that much modification. Hence, it\'s a lot of fucking work for me to refactor and rewrite. Once that\'s mostly all in place, then I feel you can reach out to new blood in earnest since it\'ll be easier for them to integrate, coming from different backgrounds.

All of that said, we do get a trickle of new users already. The ones that are just looking for porn links and don\'t post are pretty useless. But there\'s a non-negligible amount that come in through recommendations on tvtropes and other places. It goes to show that if you\'re active in any other community such as reddit, forums or whatever else, it does make a difference if you talk about the things you like and recommend it to your peers. If you\'re thinking "what can I do to help?" then this is a fairly simple way of helping out.

Of course, the best way you can help out is by actually reading, writing and most importantly voting and posting. We get a steady amount of traffic at almost all hours of the day, every day of the year. People actually do check bumped threads (not just for the images that are sometimes posted). It\'s especially mystifying when you see how many people spend a non-negligible amount of time in an active story thread and then you don\'t see any resulting new posts/votes. Activity begets activity. You\'re all quick to jump on these kinds of threads and posts but it\'d be nice to see that kind of \'enthusiasm\' elsewhere. Commenting in stories (can be a reply to another user or just something to the author besides something about the update), saying something about a new game or musical arrangement, discussing canon or fandom interpretations, pasting an image you like in one of the image threads. It really feels like those basic bonds of community we shared have degraded almost completely at times. I try to do my part as a user as well with those things, but no one ever really seems to follow up. So yeah, if this is just "board culture", then fuck that. Culture is useless when there\'s no one left to enjoy it.

Also, drunk guy: keep on being drunk and fighting the good fight. I hope to join you soon on your side of inebriation.

tl;dr - Stop being a bunch of lazy assholes and do your part, THP.

>>23595
no

(USER WAS TAKEN TO A REEDUCATION CAMP)

In THP Anno Our Lord Mima 2017, I have been disappointed by:
(X) My five-month hiatus brought forth by real life circumstances, which should not have weighed on my creative efforts, but did. My big, big bad.
(X) Moral not updating. Like, at all. Cunt.
(X) I was disappointed during one period by a lack of response from my readers. Thankfully, upon being whinged about pointed out, I got the response I both wanted and, perhaps on some level, needed to keep going.
(X) Teruyo moaning about votes even 8 years later.
(X) This guy: >>23581

On the other hand, since I’m a big, contrarian piece of loo residue, I have been pleasantly surprised by these:
(X) People still being willing to support me after those 5 months. Seriously, I would have long given up on myself. Then again, I haven’t given up on Moral yet, and we know how that guy operates, so perhaps not.
(X) Said people still being hilariously appropriate an audience for my story (if this remark doesn’t give a way my identity, nothing will).
(X) Moral not having been mauled yet by an especially impatient reader, thus enabling hope for an update in the future.

>>23597
>(X) Moral not having been mauled yet by an especially impatient reader, thus enabling hope for an update in the future.

Give me a chopper and friendly fire and I'll handle it.

>>23597
I will disappoint you in the next year as well. Time has proven me right, as evidenced by the general sorry state of boards and stories. It's rare to see more than four votes in stories now. I won't change because I believe in the site and will continue to fight (or 'moan' if you prefer) for people to get off their collective asses.

And, it seems, you're as unlikely to change. I, too, have a long memory. 8 years or more and you're still the same self-satisfied and pompous prat. The same guy who bullied and ridiculed on IRC (not to mention the site) before being driven out. The same vain creature who would bump his own threads and quickly delete posts to hide the deed. Maybe your flippant and self-centered ways will mean that this doesn't get through to you and, yeah, maybe you'll have the last laugh when the site finally dies. All the same, you can do better than this. Be helpful for once. You're part of the community, too.

You may not believe it—but I do wish you a merry Christmas all the same, YAF.

>>23599
Stepped on a toe, eh?

>>23599

That's kinda funny. I, too, remain silent in most threads because I believe in this site. Once you authors get off your collective asses and go back to writing good stories again, I'll start voting/participating more.

Help. I don't know if I should spend $15 on Touhou and hope someone gifts me Tower Unite or if I should spend $11 on Tower Unite and hope someone gifts me Touhou.

The image was picked with much consternation.

>>23601
The invisible hand of the fanfiction market is always too busy jerking off.

>>23601
We have different definitions of belief, then. Many of those who have left have moved on for good. The active stories we have are basically it. Attracting new writers or old ones to return is made more difficult if there's little readership. Why bother to do a CYOA if no one is doing the choosing, after all? Thus the appeal is for those who are still here is to participate more. Like I said, activity begets activity. The alternative, your kind of belief, is continuing and certain decay.

>>23600
Hardly. Like I said, I believe in the site. Part of helping it is reaching out to everyone, even if I knew that all that awaited was a flippant remark. It's important to show that there's an alternative to the selfish behavior and demeaning words of cases like yours. Perhaps every ass will continue to be an ass, but if even one person is inspired to give it an honest go instead then it's worth it.

>>23604
Teruyo, you oversensitive, aggrandising, blithering moron. Take a step back and yummy down on some Letty pills.

The state of this thread is entirely an effect of your error. You are the site’s owner and administrator. Advertising and self-promotion should be no one else’s responsibility but yours – unless you hire someone else to handle this aspect of webmastering for you. The blunt reality is, an average user of the site – such as I – knows sod-all about that beyond the basest “maek thred on furchins,” bumbling excuse of an idea. It’s your job to handle these – or, failing that, to reach out for informed help. Not make a vague-arse, whingey thread on the whingiest board of the site, and anticipate constructive feedback. That’s insanity. I don’t know how to mend this wilting pot of thorny roses you’ve come to own. Neither does the next Anon over, nor the next one. About all we can do is make a sarcastic comment and keep contributing.

Which, incidentally, I have continued to do faithfully across the years this place has been floating on. Why, I keep doing it even now! And yet you tell me I want to see it fail? What kind of backwards, butthurt-spawned logic is this? Ooh, but I know! The only reason I’ve kept scurrying back with my tail between my legs is because THP is, by some improbable happenstance of unlucky stars, the sole place on the whole wide web willing to stoop and give me attention. Isn’t that darling right? Well, if this is the mythology you want to subscribe to, be my very welcome guest. Think me whoever, whatever, and however-configured you very well wish. If nothing else, it is of some self-deprecating amusement to me. But the harsh fact remains that I have provided, and continue to provide, your little corner of the Internet with content and activity. And, in spite of your wild accusations, will likely continue to do so, as long as my real life circumstances permit. Because it’s fun, and because it’s a useful exercise in my eternal ESL-dom. I probably wouldn’t stop even if you offered chocolates and asked politely. Too bad for you, hmm?

Adding to my list of disappointments:
(X) Site administration being whingebags and throwing up hurtful accusations on my new old man sweater. Grandma’s gift, it was.

Merry Cuckmas to you as well, you needlessly hostile idiot. And don’t imply again I somehow want this place to crash and burn – because of all the things you said, that yanked my armpit hairs something awful. QED.

Give me those pills when you’ve taken yours.

>>23604

That's...just not how things work dude. That's not how life works. You can't expect payment(votes/discussion/community) before doing the work(making quality content deserving of those things).

But yea, I don't want this thread to turn into a back and forth bitchfest, so merry Christmas to all you fucking losers as well.

>>23597
>>23599
>>23601
>>23604
>>23605

Ugh... how many toes did I step on this time?
Anyway, I'm out of this shitfest a.k.a. this argument, see you in my next update.

>>23605
Ah, you see, this I can respect. At least partly. You're actually being genuine for once. No, I didn't make this thread and no I'm not whinging out of the blue. I made what I thought was a fairly informative and frank post at >>23595 in response to what I think is the wrong expectation that I can just fix everything by myself. You followed with something that was, at best, glib regarding both me and other people with concerns. So I called you out on it. That shit isn't helpful.

I don't particularly want you to leave nor do I want you to stop. You've been a hostile jerk all the years you've been around, this thread included, so I just responded in kind. The implication isn't so much that you want this place to crash and burn as such but that inaction will make it happen. This is a community-driven site and I can't force activity from the top all the way down. I can ask, reason, beg and do all the other things that can possibly be done but I can't do it all by myself. It needs to be a group effort. There is hope and some of the elements necessary for increased activity are in place, like I said in that original post. Be as disappointed as you like with me, I don't care, but my hope is that you'll see we have a lot of common ground and purpose if only by virtue of being living fossils in this community. Small but significant action from the little guy is very possible.

I don't think I can be any clearer than that. Getting the community that is still around but mostly inactive to step it up a little would help kickstart things. That's how it works. People have fun, share their fun with others, sometimes get inspired to write as well and it's a positive feedback loop. The reverse is also true and you get a self-reinforcing negative feedback loop when no one does anything.

>>23606
We have a community. Or remnants of it. A large part of it is dormant. A lot of them check threads without saying anything. What I'm saying in very practical terms is: give other stories a shot, share recommendations, post in non-story threads about other stuff if you have an opinion. Hell, ask writers about updates if you're on IRC or if a thread is silent for a while. Yeah, writers need to step it up, too, and I already prod (and try to motivate) the few I talk to regularly. As for new writers - there's little reason for new people to join a moribund community. If you're waiting for divine intervention to make things suddenly livelier, it won't happen. Again, it needs to be mostly bottom-up. Just try a little is what I'm asking. Enough people do it, I guarantee it'll make a difference.

I invite anyone, yaffykins included, to chill and talk to me at any time over IRC (or discord if that's your preference). I truly do believe we can find common ground and understanding (if not solutions) through dialog and a mutual love for the site. Mobilizing manpower is important. 'sides I'm not that big an oniogre in person, as it were. At this point, what do you have to lose? If you're just waiting for godot activity day in and day out then you might be disappointed forever. At the very least, you can call me a faggot to my metaphorical face if that makes you feel better. Find me on #eientei on rizon (same server as #thp) or the thp discord channel.

Like I said while less sober, a clusterfuck of everyone being wrong and nobody being right, this strain of discussion is.

Though, in a display of hell freezing over, I do have to agree more with our resident moon man than anyone else. That’s quite telling.

Good hustle, THP.

Imagine being so mad about voter inactivity that you write a long-winded post about how much of a faggot a local tripfag is. Now imagine getting so mad at THAT post that you write an even longer post where you blame voter inactivity on the guy that wrote it, being passive-aggressive about your case of autism and using QED unironically.

>>23597
>Give away my identity

Oy, I think you are, like, a year late.

>The eternal discussion in how to promote the site

I have no friends so I still dunno what to say or do besides a thread on 4ching or leddit, and they don't seem the best ideas

>>23608
Cri-bleeding-key, Teruyo, my “glib” wasn’t directed at your tl;dr clusterfuck of a post. It was directed at your tendency. The same, in fact, as was yours – at my perceived hostility and jerkiness. Jerkity? Jerkattitude. The difference between us is, I treat ribbing and light insults as camaraderie. You go flying off the bloody handle. The handle is bloody because of your butthurt, by the way. Ooh. Jerky!
>That shit isn't helpful.
Is this thread? Was it ever meant to be? No, I think it began as yet another pointless /blue/ space for flinging corny poop at nebulous issues and each other. Which, may I point out, is precisely what is happening. Catch!
>IRC
As much as I… really wouldn’t, but it doesn’t hurt to tell a white lie… love to to pop up on IRC, I unfortunately quit using the thing altogether a few years back. The pace and volume of conversation are too high for my brain these days. I just don’t have the time or the necessary attention. I dare imagine I’m not alone in this affliction. As I said, about the only thing I – and presumably a lot of others – can do is keep contributing in spare time. And while I have, recently, gotten a friend author of mine – one with a somewhat successful OELVN under his belt, even – to consider joining us on this glacier (and he is, soon), that is the extent of my ability. I’m but one man – and not even a very friendly one, if you believe certain present parties.

Imagine, however, that you – the site’s administrator, with your unique insight – had a better idea. An outline of an idea, even. Something solid to build on. Then, if you would share that foundation with us, perhaps – maybe, hypothetically, between dashes – we could pitch in our pennies. It’s a lot easier for rabble to act when given a direction. But this direction has to come from someone higher up. That’s you. You’ve the higher ground and a better view. Come up with something. Or, if you can’t, call for a serious debate. And, that time, not in the middle of a shit-fling. Think fast!

>>23610
Mad? I’m livid. This is taking time away from my update, for fuck’s sake!

>>23613
>Mad? I’m livid. This is taking time away from my update, for fuck’s sake!
Having a life takes the time away from updating. Become a ghost today and haunt this site to get more people to write!

>>23613
>The pace and volume of conversation are too high
>#eientei
lol

>>23614
I’m already a demon.
>>23615
Well, I wouldn’t know that, would I?
>>23612
>Oy, I think you are, like, a year late.
I will beat you purple if you let that out, hear?

>>23613

I checked out the IRC a while back, and it was fuckin weird. Couldn't even private message people without getting caps locked/meme'ed into oblivion.

Also:

You wouldn't happen to be talking about Deme, would you? He made a post saying he would be all for continuing AWiY if it was profitable a little while back, so I called his bluff by pledging to the Patreon he uses for other quests yesterday. I also saw that Kahi finished his schooling this month, and is updating again over on QQ, so I offered him the same deal to continue PQ.

It worked to get me and a whole bunch of other people here all those years ago, so I kinda though it might be worth the dosh, ya know?

Also got some other 2hu related commissions in the works for the /at/ board.

The logic there is that getting writers with a big readerbase to post content here will naturally funnel new readers here. Also I regularly buy porn commissions anyway, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

>>23617
>getting writers with a big readerbase to post content here will naturally funnel new readers here
It's an almost sound theory. However, what I noticed in practise when AWiY was active was people flooding in to read that and only that. Not a very compelling case of trickle-down writer-nomics.

>>23617
>Kahi
please, please don't
it doesn't work anyway, we know from experience that his readers stay confined to that one story and don't even look at anything else

Also, I remember some guy basically handing out money left and right to people on IRC to write porn and... well, the porn never happened. Like, I'm not trying to naysay, but I also don't think it's going to quite work out the way you'd expect, based on what I've seen.

>>23618
>>23619

I'm not going to pretend I care all that much about the community or the site, to be brutally honest. I just really liked those stories. Still, it would be nice if my plan could magically solve all our problems. Not holding my breath though, that's for sure.

>>23620

I'm honestly not expecting anything more than the porn. Anything that does end up happening would be a pleasant surprise.

THE WRITER OF SCARLET TYCOON IS A FUCKING LYING TEASE SWEET BABY CHRIST SUCKLING A GOAT'S DICK I AM MAD AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

>>23622
I concur. He needs to die, revive, turn into a vampire and then finally update.

I wish we could go back to the days when people didn't think shitposting was cute or clever. We don't need things drenched in twenty layers of irony.

>>23572 is exactly what it feels like when I update and it makes me not really feel like updating at all.

And I know some anon's going to walk up all smug and be like "well, you should update more often then fagget", but you know what? Fuck you, hypothetical anon. If I updated more often, you know what I'd more likely get? Even more apathy. Fuck that, fuck you, and fuck this whole thing.

shut up I'm frustrated and hung on an update

>>23625
You're updating on a slow site. What's more, people often don't read or vote on stories that they don't like. And most of the times when there's no discussion going on, there's not enough stuff that warrants discussion.

oh and, well, you should update more often fagget

>>23626
What's the point of continuing a CYOA with middling CYO?

>>23626
>hurr durr slow site deal with it nerd
I know you think you’re being cute and trying to get a reaction but god eat a fucking dick

>>23625
That post was directly targeted at me, though. Misspelled something I otherwise said verbatim elsewhere. Guess it's funny that it applies to how a lot of people feel.

>>23624
Think you'll be hard pressed to find those days. Humanity has been doing it for thousands of years.

>>23618
There were a few people that came from that wave that then went on to start their own stories. Not sure they lasted that long, though.

>>23617
Yeah, #thp is kind of its own special reality. That's why I said you could find me either in #eientei or on discord. Both are less... chaotic.

>>23613
I did put out an outline, ya twit. The post you dismissed as tl;dr. Doesn't matter what the thread was supposed to accomplish, someone says something about the site or the administration and the objectives (in this case advertising) it bears a serious explanation of what is happening and why. Otherwise down the line people think that I'm the only one who can do anything around these parts. You losers also have the power to enable change.

And another thing: I've lost track how many friggin' times I've asked on the boards and on IRC for ideas on what can be done for the site. Hardly anyone bothers replying and you get a lot of shitposting nearly every time. Instead of deflecting the painful feeling of your own prolapsed arse every post, use some of that energy to get your thinking cap on. I'll accept a 2000-word plan of action but, if not, any simple idea that's not telling me to do what I've already done will suffice.

>>23616
>Well, I wouldn’t know that, would I?
The last time you were in #eientei you were fleeing from the disgruntled masses because you had been too much of a dick. You barely stayed, instead choosing to argue and fling shit at someone else who joined you from #thp. Not exactly the best impression for someone allegedly so friendly, eh? Didn't even say hello! And haven't really given me much of a reason to change that impression until perhaps now. it was like 6-7 years ago, so fuzzy about the details but you were being combative definitely[spoiler]. [spoiler]Fuck I miss some of those people from the early days. Bottom line is that I'm not asking you to commit to anything, it just sucks to be talking back and forth through posts like this instead of instantly. More fluid conversations deal with different topics and ideas better.

>>23629
>trying to use nestled spoilers
lrn 2 post newfag lmao

This would be so much easier if you authors would just make a Patreon. Forcing yourselves to provide a service free of charge is sooo last presidency!

>>23629
>I did put out an outline, ya twit.
Which means nothing to me. I’ve not once pursued TVTropes beyond the articles. I had a vague understanding of there being a community, but never even laid an eye on its forums. I do know KC’s thing can be found on another site upon Googling passages, but I couldn’t tell you its name or even subject matter. This is the core of the problem, Teru-chan-san-fampai. A user like me – and presumably others, unless I am the daftest plotton-picking punk on here – has no good idea of where or how much THP intersects with other places on the web. You do. Or, I assume you do, anyway – what with referrals and all that nonsense.

This is where direction comes in. Make a list. “TVTropes and other places” means jack-fuck. Compile a target list of sites that may be susceptible to intrusion, desirably with basic instructions, then let our userbase work. And, by all with a functioning frontal lobe, don’t post it down in /blue/’s newest cesspit.

To wit, my unglamorous friend, “talk about the things you like and recommend it to your peers” is not an idea. It’s non-advice. But consider this: “There are pages such as X, Y, and even infamous Z, which have an overlap with our interests. Consider mingling and dropping the name of our own little corner while there. Also, watch out for the captcha in registration. It bites.” This is what I have in mind. Specifics. A focused effort. Not name-dropping 4chan and Reddit and other Mariana-trench-deep arseholes of the Internet and counting on our scattered farting to shake the seabed.

>#eientei
Where my memory stretches, I’ve never used that particular channel. And, for the record, I quit using IRC altogether in 2009-2010. I hadn’t even hung out on #THP for months prior. I did, however, regularly piss off the normies in #hard-light, to which I confess freely, your honour. Otherwise, I only dropped by #THP literally once or twice in the seven years intervening to ask after some relic of the past, spoke with HY around this and that January, and a few times around the year with Vodka. The sheer task of setting up mIRC makes my teeth ache these days.

Or maybe I’m wrong all across the board, and the average THPawn these days churns out upvotes on Reddit and slavers over KaguMoko at Shrinemaiden as a rule. I don’t. And your inexact suggestions combined with an implied expectation of responsibility make me want to roll you up into an accordion and play Night of Nights.

>>23632
>This is where direction comes in. Make a list. “TVTropes and other places” means jack-fuck. Compile a target list of sites that may be susceptible to intrusion, desirably with basic instructions, then let our userbase work. And, by all with a functioning frontal lobe, don’t post it down in /blue/’s newest cesspit.

This will get me (you)'s at an insane rate, but I'd rather have the site as it is now, with certain types of standards in regards to writing and not acting like a complete faggot instead of a glorified touhou fanfiction subreddit. Do this if you absolutely must, but if you let this site degenerate even further into self-important asshats, people that don't know how to grammer and kusofiction you might drive away decent writers that are here right now. If that happens, I'll use unlimited proxy works while Teru-kun is asleep to kill this site.

“muh culture”

>>23632
I'm not appealing for a concerted campaign to specific sites yet. It's for the people who do have that overlap or have interests in those other places to consider being a little more proactive because we do get referrals from those places and editing an entry on a wiki or posting a link can make something of a difference. You, Sir Knight of The Most Wordy Order of the Purple Prose, don't need to actually do much right now in that regard. If it does come down to unleashing your snark on hapless demographics and communities, I'll let you know in a plan timed down to the minutes if that's what you'd like. For now, if you have broadish and specific ideas and plans that can be refined and primed for when the time is right, that's something I'd note down.

As for the irc stuff - I'm fairly sure of the general premise of what I said. I do have decently complete logs but fuck me if I'm going to look through nearly 10 years worth of the stuff just to score internet points. It may be easier to ask another witness, but those mostly have moved on. At any rate, you can just use the web client on the front page of THP instead of bothering to set up whatever ancient client you used to use.

>>23636
This site doesn't have "(you)", something of an ironic thing to mention when attacking hypothetical unwashed masses who just don't get how our secret club works. That aside, people have always adapted or sodded off. Given this thread and others like it, I wouldn't worry about oversized egos and questionable quality content displacing existing oversized egos and questionable quality content.

>>23631
tree fiddy gets you a paragraph about the nape of her neck. Additional body parts have to be add-ons. But seriously, ain't no one gonna pay me jack shit for writing. Nor should they, probably.

>>23638

Alls I'm saying is that our writer/reader relationship would be so much simpler if you took the plunge and shilled out. I happen to enjoy your stuff, and would tottally pay to skip over our yearly "you whine about votes leading to months long hiatus followed by me trolling ya until you update" tango.

But I do understand the importance of choice in a CYoA, so in this case shilling probably isn't the optimal solution. I just wish you and others wouldn't look at people plying their trade in a decent and honest way in such a negative light.

>>23638
>I do have decently complete logs
Oh my. That is a sword dangling over my head, right there. As I said, old chap – you are at complete liberty of choice for whichever school of literary analysis on my character you desire. Only, don’t suggest I want – or have ever wanted – this place to fail. That irritates me. Not liking me is fair – even preferable. But at least dislike me honestly.
>You, Sir Knight of The Most Wordy Order of the Purple Prose, don't need to actually do much right now in that regard.
Well, that puts a damper on me, right enough. WHAT AM I POSTING FOOOOOR?!

Actually, here is a spur-of-the-moment, uninformed-and-uneducated, haphazard idea, courtesy of mister brain. That TVTropes recommendation page you linked is a god damn shambles. It could do with a clean-up. Also, it could do with neater categorisation. As it is, it’s a Berlin Wall of text with little rhyme or consistency. Some stories have tags; some don’t. Naming the primary cast would also immediately attract readers who find those characters appealing. That is, I think, the first consideration for any 2hu fic reader.

It could alternatively do to sort the stories by genre, or to separate THP stories altogether, since we deal in a very specific format here. Maybe under those expanda-tab things wot the rest of TVTropes uses? Can that be done on a recommendation page? Hecked if I can say. But it would ease perusing the page in my unsubstantiated view.

>>23639
what exactly would a patreon accomplish for a THP writer? certainly not more votes or more activity, and it'd barely make for beer money considering the size of the audience here

what a silly thing to bring up

>>23639
Hold on a sec - I don't have anything against the concept of people getting paid to write. And, in theory, I wouldn't be against getting paid for writing either. It's just that when you add money to the equation, it becomes a job with certain parameters. You have to deliver content within a reasonable time frame (not usually a problem for me), meet a certain level of quality at all times (debatable if I adhere to that) and you have to take into account what your (literal) patrons more or less expect. Additionally, a job takes a minimum amount of time per day, I have to price my time accordingly. As it competes with any other economical or leisure activity I could be doing instead, I can't just charge virtually nothing. Has to be at least close to the going rates of some jobs per hour. Obviously I'm spitballing here and simplifying variables for the sake of illustration, but pricing $8/hr for something that takes me 2-3 hours (not that short an update) can be over $500 in a month, assuming daily updates. Ain't no one going to pay that.

Sure you can set fixed quantities for (actual) short stories, novel length entries or whatever, but a similar calculus needs to go behind all that.

As it currently stands, I write as mostly a leisure activity and the only "payment" I ask for are votes from the readers. It's a different sort of focus altogether. Currently, the potential pool of people who would be interested in a different scheme other than votes=>updates is already small. That's evident from the limited numbers of votes I do receive. There may be a larger silent readerbase that never votes, but if I'm not getting their votes despite trying just about everything, I sure as hell won't get their money. So selling out is a non-starter in that regard as well.

Unless you're willing to foot the hypothetical bill by yourself I suggest instead you tell others to read and vote, recommend the story to people you think might be interested (either on the site, in real life, on whatever other communities you may enjoy that have overlap, like aforementioned tvtropes) and all that jazz. Getting people to read something and then choose something that they want and (nominally) enjoy shouldn't cost them more than a few minutes of their lives.

>>23640
You see? That pretty little head of yours does have not-terrible ideas. Genres, mentioning characters and the like are pretty natural things to include. I'm not really familiar with the template and format guidelines of TVtropes but presumably the people who added THP entries in the first place are. I doubt they're still around, but that'd be a good job for them to do. Or someone else here with too much time on their hands. Outside of search engine queries from the Chinese (looking for porn), it's out biggest single source for hits and has a bounce rate that is under half of all hits (which isn't that bad, considering the internet). So people who always have wanted to recommend a story, if you're reading this, this is your chance to make a difference.

And yaffy, please cut out the whole "you don't have to like me" shtick. I know you're a self-centered ass with logorrhea but that doesn't mean I hate you or anything. If anything the scales are tilted towards the opposite end, slightly, because you're actually around after all these years. More than I can say for all the other malcontents and quitters. Still going to call you out when you're being a dick, much like I suspect you won't stop needling me.

>>23641

Yea, you're right. I was picturing some of the other writers I follow who have a devout reader-base when I typed that out. I suppose we really don't have anyone like that hangin around these parts anymore. Maybe back when Teruyo was writing a story you didn't literally have to be a Tengu to understand this might be applicable, kinda like how Deme puts out a bunch of updates all at once, then lets people change their pledge to however much they think the content was worth. Oh well.

>>23643
>Still going to call you out when you're being a dick, much like I suspect you won't stop needling me.
It’s war, then!

>>23643

Jeez dude, don't make this awkward for the both of us. I ain't looking for some nappy headed, song-singing, slave to write every day. Just..like...2-3 updates a month or somethin. That way you can still have a job, and keep this as a hobby or whatever. Assuming you enjoy writing, and would normally write in your spare time. That's what most of the dudes I follow do, except with 2-5 stories/quests/commission slots.

Also, my dude, my bro, my famalamasenpai; I would definitely pay 500$ month for something if the returns generated we're worth it. Keep in mind there are people who pay for all those English translated visual novels, movies, and hundred page porn anthologies you take for granted.

Alright, how did we get from an honest discussion about how we could improve this imageboard to a pile of posts where we are shit-talking each other?

>>23647
Yeah, I have no idea what other people do. Nor any idea of what's fair to ask for or even how to build up a group of people who would even be willing to pay me. I've been completely out of the loop when it comes to the whole quest deal.

And, well, I'd willingly choose to write most days of the week in my free time if I could, like I used to do in the past. It's just that it kind of wore me down to spend so much time and put in a lot of effort into stories and updates and just see ever-decreasing votes and comments. I know it's selfish and kinda gay, but it's hard not to feel despondent after years of trying your best and putting in quite a bit of your heart into the experience. It really does suck to have to drop a story out of lack of interest, something I've regrettably had to do to some of my favorite pieces, and it's something constantly on my mind when I'm struggling to shrug off low turnout and soldier on. As much as I enjoy writing and especially the CYOA format (particularly audience participation and how they react and feel), it's hard to get motivated when you feel that there's little chance that the situation will improve. That's just how I feel as a so-called writer, though.

>>23648
This is absolutely nothing new. It happens anytime somebody mentions the state of the site in any fashion.

This is THP's final form.

>>23648
And, besides that, you started a thread based on a terrible meme and dedicated to bitching. Did you honestly expect anything better?

It's harmless. You're all such sticks in the mud.

Belated Christmas, everyone.

>>23581
holy fuck stop posting. Leave. fucking IP ban plz
>>23629
>nested spoiler
C'mon man, you run the website. You should know by now.
>>23648
Holy fuck stop namefagging and using your email you fucking newest fag jesus christ lurk you nigger we have ten years of archives for you to learn from.
>>23653
Merry Christmas nerd where's my awoo

>>23654

You got a lot of nerve tryin to stir up trouble with a post like that.

>>23652

I dunno if harmless is the right word. It's harming all the uptight losers who spend time complaining about it. Myself included since I'm complaining about them complaining.

>>23651

Say what you want, but I thought it was nice to have a thread where we're having a decent conversation amongst the tiny user base still here.

>>23655
>I dunno if harmless is the right word. It's harming all the uptight losers who spend time complaining about it. Myself included since I'm complaining about them complaining.
They deserve it then.

NERD

>Say what you want, but I thought it was nice to have a thread where we're having a decent conversation amongst the tiny user base still here.
If your idea of a decent conversation is a sterile exchange of pleasantries while trying your best not to be offensive, then you're in the wrong place. Here's a free one: go fuck yourself with a christmas tree.

>>23653
Stay where you are.

>>23656
Is this how 4chinners actually behave nowadays?
Guess I know what's worse than a bad joke: a dated bad joke.

>>23653

Happy holidays you son of a bitch.

>>23653
Merry (belated) Christmas
>>23654
re: namefagging
Change is good

>>23653
AWOO FUCKING WHERE YOU SHITTER

Saging discussion in stories is silly. I like to know what people think.

There. That's my big complaint about this site.

>complaining about people saging

I've noticed this more than once and am puzzled by it. I'm guessing this is people who... only watch the front page for activity? Otherwise, I'm afraid I don't see the problem.

>>23664
>I'm guessing this is people who... only watch the front page for activity

Yes. I find that checking the front page is the handiest way to keep track of activity, compared to manually checking each board or using the buggy thread watch.

Wait saging is something that pisses people off? I always thought it was the polite thing to do if I wasn't voting or it was an old thread. Is it really making people that upset?

>>23666
Complainer here. I'm not upset; it's just an inconvenience for me as both a writer and a reader.

>politeness
Unless it's necro, I don't see how sageing discussion is polite. Discussion is interesting.

>>23664
Front page is the most convenient ways to track threads. Otherwise I'm manually scanning, like the other guy said.

>>23663
I agree. I only do it in a particular writer's stories to piss him off.
Otherwise, it is silly. Discussion is as important as voting after all.

>>23667

>necro

Nah. Bumping one super old thread every few months is a proven effective way to cast Summon Writefag. So long as I strategically employ the newfag card when doing so, the backlash is always worth the potential gain.

>>23668
>I only do it in a particular writer's stories to piss him off.
Which one? I want in.

>>23670

Don't worry about it. The subtle-yet-not-so-subtle contest will lose it's meaning if more people get involved.

>>23666
Literally no one gets pissed off by saging, compared to the dozen or so people that get angry about bumping threads when it's not a vote or an update.

>>23672

It irritates the heck out of me as well. Even worse are the people that sage on a freshly updated story, mine or otherwise, strangling a story of free marketing on the recent activity list. I know of at least two other authors who feel similar sentiments on the matter, too.

I can see avoiding necroing, but there comes a time when sageing is more rude than anything.

Wow. All this discussion is going all over the place.
Really >>23648 is right - degenerating into a shitposting fest is just stupid.

I am not an oldfag. I have to post more for sure. But this is not the right way to encourage people to post more.

Don't add your personal grudges to this, never. Because that is only worsening the situation. And possibly driving away more users. Posts like the second half of >>23599 are not related to the subject I feel.
And, in all honesty, I don't think we are a dying community. Teruyo, you are far too pessimistic. We are slow, not dying. That is a world of difference!

As for going back in topic, there is something that I wanna say: the sage thing in old threads is not good. I think that poking authors once in a while helps, a lot. I mean seeing that my story is missed would push me into writing more right? All the people yells at users that do it instead though. I don't understand.

Other ideas are welcome. Just this:
Teruyo, have more faith in your site. The approach of the site owner helps a lot into driving up the ones of the community too! Be more positive, in general. It will help THP, and it'll help you.
This is valid for everyone here. Do your small part, start a discussion, reply with your thoughts. If an answer doesn't come right away, wait some time, it'll come. If an author remains silent, shamelessly poke him. Tell him why you miss his story. And more importantly, remember that we are just writing fanfictions about laser-shooting cute girls. Take it easy damnit!!

Things will change only that way.

>>23685
>Teruyo, have more faith in your site.
tbh, his posts pretty implicitly convey a pretty strong faith in the site, considering he's said in a couple of different ways that the site's issues can be solved by everyone taking action, no matter how minor. I don't think someone who's pessimistic about the site overall would say that.

In any case, I think this thread is past its prime, and we should probably shuffle back to the rage thread if we want to whinge about things.

>>23685
Dude, if I didn't love the site and want the best for it, I wouldn't own it, have paid for it out of my own pocket for years or be telling people to do their part to help out. It's indisputable that the site is far slower than it was a year or two ago — let alone at the beginning. You don't need to have seen visitor and post statistics over the months and years to see that. Just look at many of the boards and you'll find stories that were last bumped 2 or more years ago on the first page. It's a continuing downward trend which at some point, logically, will end in the site's virtual death.

What I'm saying is that it's something that can be reversed and things can be improved. Part of it necessitates reforming the board software/organization, part of it requires new users arriving and sticking around, and another requires the existing community doing its part. It's optimism over the potential of the site and its community that drives the calls to action made here and elsewhere. You're telling me to have more faith and that the site needs the exact things that I'm saying already. Standing up against toxic shitposting when I'm being genuine and giving a fair explanation about the state of things is something I feel compelled to do, again because I already have faith we can do better. But it seems we're all more or less on the same page now so, really, moot argument.

I'd rather be posting about other things now, like cute awoos.

>>23686
>>23687
Well yes it us a moot point now. And yes rereading all your posts Teruyo I overlooked a couple of lines. I have to stop reading this fast in a language that isn't mine. I misread the 'dying' part of the reasoning.
So yeah I have to partially retire what I said. Apologies, Teruyo.

>What I'm saying is that it's something that can be reversed and things can be improved. Part of it necessitates reforming the board software/organization, part of it requires new users arriving and sticking around, and another requires the existing community doing its part.
Yes basically this. Not much more to say really.

I've just been sitting back and letting the people with brains make all the good points, but there's one thing I think has been overlooked.

THP is a site for writing CYOAs about Touhou.

That's kind of specific. And THP's own culture, for better and for worse, is even more so. And hey, these things go in and out of style. That's normal. Yes, THP has been slow lately. Yes, there is a general downward trend. It doesn't mean the site is dying. It's just lost its new car smell. Getting wound up about how the site needs to be updated and the need to advertise more and all the other things people have been throwing around isn't going to change anything, if the community just isn't interested in what THP has to offer right now.

That doesn't mean it's not worth doing! To all you folks still fighting the good fight, I have nothing but gratitude. And a bit of snark in some cases, but mostly gratitude. Just remember what this place is about - and what you want it to be about - and remember that lack of interest is not necessarily your fault. Fans come and go. Popularity waxes and wanes. Maybe we should get the word out a bit more. Maybe we could stand to be a bit more welcoming. That's up to you to decide. But ask yourself: why are you here?

Me, I'm here to write CYOAs about Touhou.

(Oh, and to anyone who thinks the site is dead: come visit One Yukkuri Place. We have no active content creators and nobody who can fix the failing board software. But we're not dead yet, dammit - even if we probably ought to be.)

>>23689
You know this is kinda hilarious since I used to be a pretty active member of OYP. I slowly stopped since a bit of lack of interest plus all the fatigue from doing lots of stuff by myself (one time I think I've retagged like 15 pages of stuff or something since 90% of uploaders don't do it at all...).

Still I see it is some what still active yes. The point is that too - some slowing down is typical after the initial 'hype' phase.

So yes tl;dr the answer is always the same: be more active as a community.

>>23690

Oh wow, I didn't think I'd actually meet another OYPer here. Take it easy!

> doing lots of stuff by myself

Thank you, whoever you are. I probably only joined after you left, but I did try to take up the torch for a few years, and it's thankless work.

>>23692
>I probably only joined after you left
Nah I don't think so. I was active until mid 2015. I may become active again though, seeing how slow OYP is made me want to use it again. If I come back I'll mention this place. Maybe we could catch up there, who knows.

Alright, you guys want some non-person related grievances? Because I’ve got some technical grievances about the site that is likely related to the issue of low activity. Namely, the Storylist.

See, /tg/ gets away with doing CYOA quest threads on an imageboard, one of the most inhospitable mediums for long-form writing, partially because of the update speed and reader speed constantly keeping them alive, but also because of suptg. Suptg provides a way for unaware readers to find and locate quests and stuff they want to read, and therefore raise interest without needing to advertise.

In particular, for the site to be more popular, at the very least the system for readers to find the damn stories they want to read needs to be updated. Namely, these changes (just clone the suptg codebase if they are willing to share):

- Tags for story entries (characters, genre)

- Writer descriptions

- Ability for writers to submit their own threads to the list

- Search engine integration - Both to facilitate content searching and so that newcomers can actually find us through Google (I googled An Excuse for Awoo and came up with nothing)

This should improve the imageboard traffic by a large margin, as I don’t exactly see a shortage of touhoufags in the wild right now. A spam filter may or may not be needed. Site quality should be the same as we can just deal with shitty posters ala that one ReijiTabibito guy. I’m actually willing to throw some of my own money and time into this if you want, Teruyo.

Also, editable posts of some sort would basically make the site perfect, but the story visibility improvements are probably more crucial.

>>23721
that's the largest obvious improvement nobody brings up because it's a fucking ton of work

but i'll volunteer to go through old stories and exhaustively tag and categorize them when it comes to it

>>23721
I agree that the storylist is overall unsatisfactory for a lot of reasons. I'm not going to go into the why things are the way they are right now since it's a long and boring tale. More importantly, the various points you've identified in being important are also things I've contemplated. Putting aside the issue of whether or not implementing changes would improve traffic by a noticeable margin, an overhaul of that is in the cards just not the highest current priority. There are many technical hurdles to be overcome, especially if you want to provide some automatization, and not have to depend so heavily on manpower to keep any solution up to date. I've also wanted to get some other elements from related systems in place first, as they could potentially be used as a base for some things and the last thing I want to do is make something too unwieldy and ad hoc from a coding perspective if I have to later integrate it with other stuff.

Probably not what you wanted to hear, but it's a fairly quick explanation of a complicated situation. At least it's definitely not an issue that's been forgotten.

As for money or time — currently the majority of the money that's being spent from the site's Patreon (other than operating costs) is going towards coding endeavors. I'm working through a long list of issues and features that I've wanted to address for a long time. Feel free to chip in to that if you like. I'm not planning to spend on advertising or anything else before I get quite a few things in place (better mobile accessibility was one of them) likely including some sort of reformation for the storylist. If you're offering a more hands on sort of help (like researching alternatives, coding etc), that's cool too, but best to talk to me on IRC about it so we can figure out how to best spend our time.

Oh and post editing is likely never going to happen with our current anonymous image board model. There just isn't a technically sane way of doing it without some form of persistent user accounts. There actually are a few workarounds but fuck doing that kind of unreliable hacky shit. That said, there are a few things that should be done soon enough that may prevent the need to edit after the fact.

I have grievances with the fact that these boards are set up based on location. /th/ gets a bunch of stories because it encompasses the entirety of Gensokyo and /others/ is fairly active because it is home to any alternate universe story, but the other boards are all needlessly constrained. We are always complaining about how the boards are dead, but having the boards be location based is what leads all the boards to being dead.

Lets take /border/ for example. /border/ is by far the deadest board, which is appropriate because this board is for afterlife stories. The only characters that live in the afterlife are the Prisimrivers, Yuyuko, Youmu, Eiki and Komachi. The most obvious plotline for a Prisimriver story would be a quest revolving around making music. However, such a story would be best told through a medium that actually allows you to make and listen to music such as youtube, meaning that hardly anyone on this website is interested in writing a Prismriver story. A story revolving around Yuyuko would not have much of a plot because she is already dead and therefore all of her problems are over by definition, and most of her remaining plotlines can be instantly solved by her deus ex machina "poof you're dead" power. There are several potential plotlines a Youmu story could take, but since she lives isolated from the rest of Gensokyo alone with Yuyuko in Hakugyokuro, most such stories would require her to leave the afterlife and deal with problems in the land of the living, which means most authors would prefer to write it in /th/ instead. An Eiki story could be interesting, however it would probably involve dealing with the bureaucracy of the afterlife, which would require a lot of original characters since Eiki and Hecatia are the only canon touhous we know of that are involved in such a thing. Since most people come to this website to read and write about touhou characters, any story involving lots of OCs would be largely unappealing, and so Eiki doesn't get much love. Komachi could get some interesting stories about hunting down wayward souls as part of her grim reaper job, but this would probably involve leaving the afterlife, once again making it more likely to appear in /th/ instead.

/border/ is also the board for stories taking place along the Hakurei Border. This means stories dealing with the Outside World. Stories taking place in the Outside World are largely unappealing because the main draw of Touhou is the magical land of Gensokyo, so most stories taking place in the Outside World would probably want to leave it as soon as possible in order to get to the fun Gensokyo stuff. The only characters that live in the Outside world are Sumeriko, Renko, and Maribel. Sumeriko spends most of her time in Gensokyo, meaning her stories would probably be in /th/. Renko and Maribel, being stuck in the future, are the two most isolated characters in all of touhou. Most stories involving them would either need a lot of OCs to fill out their Outside World adventure, making such a story largely unappealing for those who come to this website to read about touhou shenanigans, or would involve them finding Gensokyo early on and having adventures in it, thus relegating them to /th/.

/border/ also includes stories about the Yakumos. The Yakumos live in their own little pocket dimension away from everyone else, so unless you want to write a cute slice of life story about their family shenanigans, most stories involving Ran or Chen would probably be better suited to /th/, or possibly /shrine/ if they are helping Reimu. Stories involving Yukari don't work at all because she is a walking deus ex machina. The plot of any Yukari story can be summarized as thus: "Once upon a time Yukari had a problem, so she manipulated the boundary between problems and solutions and solved her problem instantly. The end."

Pretty much every location based board has problems like this. /shrine/ is for stories in the human village, which are unappealing because all the awesome magic shenanigans take place outside of it. Stories involving Keine's teaching job could happen here, but since there are hardly any canon human characters it would involve a lot of OCs, or involve her teaching the youkai children characters from across Gensokyo, arguably making it more suitable to /th/. Since most of the high school age and older touhou characters don't really need to go to school in canon, most other Keine stories end up in /others/. /shrine/ also includes the Buddhists, Taoists, and Reimu's shrine, which could make for some fun religious war quests if it weren't for the fact that hardly anyone here knows anything about these three religions. Such stories would therefore require more research than most writers or readers are willing to put in.

/eintei/ stories are few and far between because most of the people who live her are walking deus ex machinas. The most obvious plots for eintei would be medical dramas, if it weren't for the fact the Eirin has canonically invented a cure for death and can just wip up some magical deus ex machina pills to instantly cure any disease or injury. Kaguya's rivalry with Mokou could lend itself to some interesting stories, if they were not both immortal. Since neither one of them can die or be seriously injured, unless you want to write a comedic Roadrunner and Coyote style story, most of the tension for such a story would be sucked out of it immediately. Any Yorihime story can be summarized as thus: "Once upon a time Yorihime had a problem, so she used her magical deus ex machina sword to summon the God of Problem Solving to solve her problem instantly. The End." Toyohime can just disintegrate all her problems with her magic fan, or get her sister Yorihime to solve any problem that can't be disintegrated. Sagume is a reverse deus ex machina, so her plots would go like this: "Once upon a time Sagume had a problem. 'I have a problem,' said Sagume. And then she didn't have a problem anymore because it was reversed. The end." The only interesting stories that can be found in /eintei/ would revolve around the rabbits dealing with their rabbit problems, and in fact the only currently active story in /eintei/ does just that.

/forest/ doesn't get much action because not many touhous live here, and those that do are isolated from everyone else. Marisa lives by herself, so any interesting story involving her would probably revolve around doing things outside of the forest, which would mean it belongs in /th/. Alice lives by herself, and could have some interesting stories about trying to bring her dolls to life, but there aren't very many ways to spin that plotline without leaving the forest. Rinnosuke lives by himself in his shop and has no real interesting powers, so unless you want to write a story about economics, there is not much you can do with Rinnosuke without having him leave the forest. Mystia could have some quests about making her grilled eel stand a successful business, but it would probably require her to expand beyond the forest. Team 9 ball could have some fun adventures here, but since Cirno is the leader of this group, most stories like this would probably end up in /sdm/. /forest/ also includes the flower fields, which means Yuka and Medicine. These two live in completely different flower fields all by themselves so they can only rarely interact with each other. Neither of these flower fields is located within or near the Forest of Magic, so they can't really interact with the other /forest/ characters much either. Yuka could have a quest dealing with her old mansion, but since few people know or care about the PC98 characters, such a story probably wouldn't get very far.

/shorts/ doesn't get much activity outside of the writing contests because this website's main draw are CYOAs. Most people who would want to write a one off non-CYOA story would probably be better served posting it on fanfiction.net or something. Every now and then, someone will write a short story here, but unless it is somehow connected to a CYOA in one of the other boards, no one ever leaves a comment on them.

/sdm/, /youkai/, and /underground/ tend to see decent amounts of activity because these areas have many characters that can freely interact with each other and, with the exception of Remilia's dues ex machina fate hax powers, most characters here are weak enough that they could have interesting plotlines.

I say we need to rearrange the boards somehow in order to make them less dead. Maybe do it by genre or something so we have /love/, /adventure/, /drama/ or something like that.

>>23724
✕/eintei/
◯/eientei/

>>23724

Even genre wouldn't work so well, honestly. It assumes one has only one genre going for a story, and for those that have others, you get none of the audience from that subset. It would need to be more broad than that, I feel. SoL kinda broad.

Maybe Slice of Life, Crossover, Comedy and Horror? Those are the only four broad enough that I can think of that even would work. As we have things currently, /other/ and /th/ feel redundant a lot of the time, as many stories that go in one could go in the other. Redundancy is something that takes away from both, not to mention muddling their meaning.

>>23727
>Horror
While there are darker toned stories, no Horror stories come to mind. No active ones, anyway.

> but since few people know or care about the PC98 characters

Hmm.

>>23733
Them sound like fighting words, aye?

You can't read Border House without loving at least Kana. And Mai... Let's just say you niggas should read (un)fortunate Life With Magical Girls, pronto.

>>23734
Aye. (You're making me think of the image that I attached.)

<rant... sort of>
Although, here's the thing: That story seems to be inactive or on hold (real life obligations, I'm assuming). Some non-saging anon posted a "where'd you go" post sometime in the last 24 hours on the 4th thread of the story. Still not sure if the author just abandoned the story or what.
<end pseudo-rant>

From a first glance at active and semi-active stories on this imageboard, we have the following stories where PC-98 characters are present (and not just a cameo or anything of that sort)...

1: China Grove by Kurzov
2: Resurrection Quest by Eric von Zipper
3: "Unfortunate Life with Magic Girls" by Headwing Consulting
4: "Otherwise" by Fell

Those are just the first four that I found, I bet there's more that I would find if I looked harder.

>>23617

FYI:

Deme added AWiY into the update cycle with his other stuff.

>>23736
Why? Can we ask him to go somewhere else?

You know, that guy searches 4chan archives for mentions of his own name and then comes to IRC to brag about how le trole he is. I think any community would be better off without him.

Also his story sucks.

>>23737

Be at ease my friend, he'll probably do the restart on the other media channels he commonly posts content to. Or he might not, who knows.

Also, what criteria do you use to judge CYoAs? I opened a few random AWiY threads and saw at least 20-30 votes per update, right up there with the other big name stories.

>>23735
That'd be "Erik" von Zipper, with a K. Also, "Reincarnation Quest", though resurrection is the central plot device.

Have you ever noticed how stories that start out with a "choose your character" vote tend to die almost immediately. I can't recall any story in recent memory that did this that made it past the first thread. Just think about it. Seven Sensual Sirens? Anon created a fairy protag and the story didn't make it past the date with the first siren. Poker Night in Gensokyo? Anon chose 5 random Touhous and the story didn't even make it past the first round of betting. Wish Upon a Star? Anon picked Argo Navis, which turned out to be Hatate, and the story didn't even get far enough for Hatate to get a single key. Here Be Dragons? Anon made a temperamental dragon that chased off Marisa, and the story hasn't updated in over a month. Granted a month isn't long enough to call a story dead, but considering the pattern I have concerns.

Why don't these sorts of stories ever last? Is it lack of planning ahead? These writers didn't even plan out the main character, so I suppose it only makes sense that they don't have enough of a plan to keep the story going. Or is it something else entirely?

>>23773
It probably depends. CYOAs that lean more towards the game-y end require a fair bit of investment on both sides, and any imbalance in that respect ensures a dead story. For the other stuff... who knows. Stories die for Kanako only knows how many reasons (or no reason at all).

It's nice to see no mention of a certain someone here.

>>23802

Who might that be?

>>23803
>>23802

Speak not the name you fool! There are those among us who count HIS absence as the single, shining beacon of hope in this nightmarish imprisonment of flesh we call existence.

>>23728

Ah! What I would give for a good psycho thriller genre 2hu story! What ever happened to that dude who said he was gunna start a "your waifu is an eldritch abomination" themed story?

>What ever happened to that dude who said he was gunna start a "your waifu is an eldritch abomination" themed story?
Would that be me? I never claimed to be emulating Lovecraft - but I did originally consider starting my story while in a /blue/ thread.

>>23807

Maybe he thinks Sigma is someone's waifu? Stranger things have happened, I'm sure.

>>23806

You're making me want to know even more!

> "your waifu is an eldritch abomination"

Soooo... Yukari?

>>23808
>Maybe he thinks Sigma is someone's waifu? Stranger things have happened, I'm sure.
If it's not I, then I'm interested in whatever theoretical story they're describing. If it is I, then I'm surprised there's anyone left at this point who hasn't called judgement (in dismissal, interest, or apathy) on my story. Either way, I'm curious.

>>23810
>>23809
>>23808

see

>>23081

>>23811
Hello, me.

>>23724
I agree with you. I think there should be some way to categorize the stories aside from location, be it genre or something else.

/th/ and /others/ get all the fun because they allow moving between locations or cases where location is vague, which is fine, but then those two boards end up being a clusterfuck of different genres, characters, and writers.

Then again maybe it's an unnecessary complaint since most people just use the front page anyway.

>>23622
>>23623

OH YEAH WELL I finally got the update out, hooray

>>23849

I guess vampirism really is the solution to all of life's problems. How's unlife treating you?

>>23724
I tried, friend. I really did. But the sheer amount of butthurt backlash I got for trying to change the boards and shake things up made me give up at stage one.

As for the rest of this thread, geeze, people. I've said a million times by now, it's not rocket science. You need to write stories in a particular way in order to grow a readerbase, generate excitement, and keep attention focused. That nearly ten years later nobody has attempted to put my advice into action ... eh. Fuck me, why am I even saying this.

>>23860
It was a gamble... but I'm not sure you should regret it. You did what you thought best, with the information you had.

Okay, the post I made above opened the floodgates. This is going to make some people really mad, but after reading through the argument in this thread, I gotta say all this.

THP is dying because the stories are bad.

Why are they bad? Because nobody has bothered to learn the lessons from 10 years ago, the lessons from the initial few years of high activity and excitement and interest, from the first wave of CYOAs and how they were written and why they were popular.

Why was the first wave of stories so popular? Well, it sure as shit wasn’t because they were any good.

Go back and sit down and read the first wave of stories. Yes, they were fun, you can have fun reading through those stories, but try to analyse any of them and they’re all quite obviously trainwrecks. Incoherent narrative structure, characters acting in inconsistent and stupid ways, rock bottom awful pacing, blatant self-inserts, /jp/ in-jokes and references, unclear motivations and stupid endings. Exactly what you’d expect from a bunch of kids in their late teens and early 20s writing wish-fulfilment fanfiction about 2D girls.

(Here’s the secret: none of that mattered.)

The stories worked - and were fun and popular and exciting - in spite of all of this, because of the format we unconsciously adhered to, and the effect that had on us.

I’ll break it down into three things: speed, consistency, and fun.


***

Speed

I used to give myself roughly 15-20 minutes to write each update, with maybe a couple more minutes for a quick proofread, and another couple to select a picture to go with the post. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am.

Limitations breed creativity, and this limitation had several very specific effects. There was no time for lots of description or internal navel-gazing or exposition or wandering around, every single sentence had to do something, had to move. If I needed to describe, I kept to the most striking and important details. If I needed to explore internal conflicts of indecision or confusion, I kept it expressed externally, in what happened, what the characters did and said.

Each update had to give the reader something, and give it them fast, so every single update was action, dialogue, decision - bam. Because of the self-imposed time limit and the need to get an update out quickly, as I wrote I was always looking for what the next choice would be, what’s the quickest route to having the protagonist make a decision.

Something happened, something changed, something developed in every single update (and the ones in which nothing much happened I considered failures). This meant the readers were invested because they knew something exciting would happen in every snippet of story, and the choices mattered - they had to avoid death, solve a puzzle, or say the right thing to get into a touhou’s panties (because let’s be honest, that’s part of what we were here for).


Consistency

Back in the first wave we updated fast. Once a day, twice a day, multiple times a day. Even those who couldn’t update that fast still put out posts a lot faster than anything on the site today.

But speed was less important than consistency.

Consistency is key in any online periodical media, webcomics, youtube, whatever. CYOAs are no different, they’re just faster and freeform and don’t make any money. Back in the day we could all be pretty secure in the knowledge that we’d be updating once a day, or once every two days, or whatever, because of the speed of the format and the enthusiasm we had. And readers knew this. They knew that if they opened the site, new posts! New updates! New things to read, to see, to feel excited about!

Sure, we all dropped a day here and there, or had little hiatuses, but we let the readers know. And when we were back, it was back to normal. Consistent.

I can pinpoint the exact moment I knew THP was sick: the time I first saw a new writer in the IRC ask for a beta reader, and then complain they couldn’t post their update until it had been read and critiqued, and not a single person in there called them a dumbass and told them to just post it now and just go. Critique and editing and whatever, that’s great if you’re writing a novel, or traditional fanfiction, but it’s death for the CYOA format.

These days, I look at the boards on THP and, hey, updates are rare. Writers take a long time, sometimes weeks. If I was just a casual reader, rather than somebody who’s been here for 10 years, what reason would I have to come back? There’s things to see, sure, but they don’t change often. There’s little in progress.

One of the responses I’m going to get to this is “But what about the votes? We can’t write a CYOA quickly without votes! We need tie-breakers! We need an audience!”

And yeah, you’re right. If you tried to do what we did - wrote a first post and then came back 30 minutes later to write an update - you probably wouldn’t have any votes. And you’d lose interest. And the story would die.

You fucking weakling.

You’re not going to grow an audience by wishes and whining. The site’s in a hole. If you want it to grow you’re going to have to put in hard work. Write that first update, come back 15 minutes later to no votes and write the next one anyway. Decide yourself. Flip a coin. Roll a dice. Whatever. If there’s a tie? Flip a coin. Roll a dice.. Until you grow an audience you do not have the luxury of waiting. Write another update, and another, and another. If you get a vote, great, if not, keep going. Post in the IRC every time you write, let your friends know you’re writing, let people know, and stay consistent, every day. Do this for two weeks, a month, six weeks, and people will come and they’ll keep coming back if you stay consistent.

Writers screamed into the void for centuries before the internet existed. If you want to resurrect THP, you’re going to have to do the same.


Fun

The first stories on THP came from a very specific cultural background: early /jp/. We were reading type-moon VNs and comedic doujins, watching Code Geass and goofy anime. We filled our stories with video game references and in-jokes and memes about scrambled eggs. We argued about who was the best girl and were deeply fixated on romantic routes. We were primarily just having fun.

This might seem like a less important point than the first two, less technical, but it’s just as key.

We had tremendous fun with those stories. It didn’t matter that they were a little incoherent, it mattered that they were amusing. We knew how to blend wacky hijinks into serious drama, how to just enjoy characters doing things for the sake of it, that good storytelling did not have to mean taking ourselves seriously.

I’m not saying you need to immerse yourself in circa-2008 /jp/ to write a good CYOA here. I’m saying you need to be part of the culture. You need to have fun.


***

Every time I’ve given this advice over the last decade, the response has been the same: “Well you’re uniquely skilled, you could write in that way because you’re you, we need to do in this other way.”

Well bucko, I ain’t uniquely skilled now or I’d be a multi-million dollar author, and I sure as fuck wasn’t uniquely skilled a decade ago. Truth is, I didn’t have any idea what I was doing back then, and I’d wager none of us did. We stumbled onto a set of limitations and techniques that happened to work, and I couldn’t even articulate it until years later. The stories I wrote in the later years of the site failed because I was trying to write like a novelist, not a CYOA.

And that’s a secret, you can’t write a CYOA like a novel. You have to write like a CYOA.

My story was a fucking mess, I’m first to admit that. I’m infinitely glad people enjoyed it, that readers got something real from it, and it led to some of the best things in my life. But you know what? It was a hot mess. And anyone can do that. You can do it too, right now, with a keyboard and a little bit of thought.

I know what you’re going to say. We don’t want to write stories that way anymore, we want longer, more involved stories, with complex plots. My way is the old way and we’ve moved beyond that, we can’t go back to that, we want to be artistic and creative and we need time and beta readers and blah blah whatever. Well, you’ve had ten fucking years to do it your way, and now the site is dying.

Try it my way.

Go on, I dare you.

>>23862
Teruyo will be really fucking mad at you. You know this.

Well, that aside, you are correct - ignoring the recent apprentice story, really. I've lurked for like two or so years and didn't start a story because there is no talent. Maybe just shitposting is the way to go.

>>23862

I mean, I'd give daily updates a try if I wasn't already doing it. As it stands, I might be overqualified for trying it due to that. Although, you're more or less saying how I feel in a way. How CYOAs are about speed and fun. Fast stories with even faster women and all that hubub. Especially recently, after burning out, I've been doing the low effort fast update thing. It's honestly been fun, though I feel guilty about going down to one update per day when I spend less than 30 minutes writing and at worst an hour finding a picture I can settle for. Before, I was doing 2 per day. Still, the story will be complete soon, after just a couple months of writing it, and I'll likely make another iteration of it down the road.

I wish more stories did stuff like this anymore.

Fun stuff.

Weird stuff.

Fast stuff.

I wasn't around for re olde tales of yore, but they are a large part of the inspiration I use to write. After all, I don't write for me, nor because I want to make something good. I want to make the best thing I can, as fast as I can, and I don't obsess over every nuance or tiny detail. I get it done as soon as I can when I have a chance to sit down, then proof it just once.

Do my stories suffer for it? Ohoho yes they do. But I wouldn't have it any other way, as I love to see the reactions of my readers and their take on things. Do I get ties? Yes. Will I break them myself? Yes, based on which vote I think would be more interesting. But I do at times let myself slow down because I fret over my readers caring if I technically am voting on my own story in a sense.

>>23862

>>23862
How about you do it your way first and prove to us your silly fantasies are true?

>>23862
>>23862
Almost wrote an upset response, but then I realised it doesn’t matter. Votes, frequency of updates, “mode” of said updates, flipping coins – none of it matters over writing an enjoyable story. You can keep whinging and whining about whatever, but it’s all on you at the end of the day to make the story happen. If you don’t – for whichever reason it pleases you to stab a finger at – then the rest matters not a jot.

I’ve a good reason to believe I know best.

>>23862

>Why was the first wave of stories so popular? Well, it sure as shit wasn’t because they were any good.

Because we didn't know any better. That's it, there goes your whole post.

The only think I can give is that the enthusiasm is lost. That can be recovered somewhat, but not with us old people with obligations and stuff, but with new blood. And that has been the issue for this site for a long long time.

30 minutes to write an update? It's taken me more than thirty fucking minutes to write this post!

Are you telling me I'm the only one that spent 8-10 hours a day on the Carnival? I feel cheated.

>>23870
You're not alone, friend. I couldn't keep the daily pace because of how long writing the actual (fairly short!) updates took.

Thirty minutes might get me a paragraph or two of grey prose but precious little else.

>>23870

It took 30 minutes to write four sentences?

>>23872

Yes.

>>23873
Don't worry, my friend. Sometimes the only way work ever gets done is if you yukkuri shiteitte ne, y'know?

>>23873

1.2 words per minute is still more than most writers on the site manage!

>>23875
My best is 0.000000000075!

>>23876

Watching you write must be exciting!

>>23862
You're a gosh durned idort.

https://www.touhou-project.com/sdm/res/62708.html

>>23882
>not knowing how to cross-board link
Yer both idorts

>>23883
I am, in fact, an idort.
Probably should go read the test thread actually.

As a reader who used to read a lot of stories here and then stopped doing that, the main problem for me was that I just got bored of Touhou fanfiction altogether.

I guess it is kinda inevitable - even with such a large character cast, and even including the "weird shit" kind of stories (like that D&D/Touhou one, or the one with Reisen assassinating people for no apparent reason), there are only so many different interpretations of Touhou possible before the stories get repetitive, predictable and eventually just tiresome.

The amount of "oh hey this story is actually pretty good, let me read a bit more... wait, why is the thread already over, where is the continuation???" shit (one of the prime examples being that D&D/Touhou story) that has de-facto become the modus operandi around here has definitely made it a lot worse than it would've been otherwise, though.

>>23885

That's kinda something that fan fiction and derivative works in general tend to suffer from, isn't it? It's not exactly just something that happens here.

>>23885

Yea I'm pretty jaded against reading/voting in new stories for kinda the same reason. Authors tend to copy and paste the commonly accepted fanon personalities to their characters instead of giving us anything new/exciting. It doesent help that most authors don't go for heavy romance themed stories anymore. I feel like waifu wars is one of key aspects this website was built on, that we've slowly lost over the years.

>>23886
That is indeed true. And I don't find it really fun to say that I just can't get excited about what used to be probably the most exciting fictional setting for me. I've had to say it, though. Lift that stone from my soul, you know?

>>23887
I'm fairly sure the "waifu"/character route wars was what pushed the first batch of writers away from writing stories with heavy romance.

I can't imagine it was very fun trying to write a story while dozens of anons were constantly engaging in an imageboard equivalent of a hooligan street brawl and forcing their threads into autosage zone after only one or two updates.

>>23888

No way dude. If I was an author, I would love seeing my hard work was having such a profound effect on others. I would soak up you nerds' tears like a fucking sponge.

>>23888

> write a story while dozens of anons were constantly engaging in an imageboard equivalent of a hooligan street brawl and forcing their threads into autosage zone after only one or two updates

This is the dream to which I aspire as a writefag. Truly there is no higher ambition.

>>23888
Why they were angry about? I remember Taisa and the D20 guy complaining about putting only one update per thread because discussion took over the rest. Why is that bad?

>>23891

Because it wasn't actual discussion, it was people screaming at each other over the internet on how other peoples waifu was trash and that they should go for their own waifu instead.

As for what was happening, it was a fight primarily between those that wanted Flandre versus those that wanted Rumia, with a smaller third faction that wanted Patchouli.

As was already explained, it got got far, far too heated.

>>23891
Most things on THP don't warrant that much discussion. When they do, it tends to actually be less discussion and more pissy slap-fights between mental midgets. Hardly the ideal to strive for.

>>23893

We might have to agree to disagree on this one. I feel like waifu shitstorms are indicative of humans operating on a higher level of understanding than the common masses. One free from the disgusting masks we put on everyday to fit in with society.
Similar to the enlightened intellectuals who typically frequent anonymous image-boards, but now championing the cause of our beloved fandom.

Like...we're all human beings here, right? So how can you say someone else's attachment to various abstractions are any less important or deserving of protection than you own? I say as long as nobody's rights are being infringed upon, we should embrace shitstorms like we embrace all other forms of discussion here.

>>23894
To be fair you have to have a very high IQ to understand waifu wars.

>>23895

See? This guy gets it. What others see as the raving of a screaming man-child, we see as a pure, untaimed expression of human emotion. Cheers, friend.

>>23895
You kidding? It is literally the worst 2d shooter app in existence. If it weren't for saltybet, no one would knew it exists.

>>23897

Wait, someone made a waifu war app? Why is it even a shooter?

>>23892
Excuse me? It was a majority voting for Patchouli, a close minority asking for Flandre and some guy or two asking for that other one.

Are you some kind of Rumiafag? Or do you enjoy pedophilia? I'll have you know that Patchouli's relationship with the MC not only devolped organically, surprising even the author, but it is the only option that wouldn't be some kind of abuse.

I'll concede that Flandre sometimes acts like an adult, but those moments are rare. And you can't even argue against her self-admitted mental issues.

The fact that the story stopped in the best moment is no one's fault but yours. If you'd just leave your desires for another (hypothetical) iteration we could just move on and confess, letting the story flow naturally into the influence that this new relationship has on the world and we could finally move on to the summer incident. No, the author has no fault whatsoever, his pacing was perfect. And the story cannot move before choosing a "route" because... I said so? And no, it is not hypocritical of me to use pedo arguments in a story about magical little girls with silly hats!

>>23899

Well done sir. The urge to craft a scathing response involving the lack of Age of Consent laws in Gensokyo is, indeed, very close to consuming my soul. I tip my silly hat to you.

>>23900
You know it would be answered by morality-based complaints (not without an implication that laws are the only thing stopping you from being a criminal) and you would answer by arguing the intelligence, maturity and actual age of the characters, which would be answered by calling out exceptions, which would be answered by you qualifying them as exceptions and so on and so forth.

It's an endless recursion of arguments.

>>23901


Acktualy, I would counter any morality based argument by saying the laws governing Age of Consent is basically the subjectuve aggregate of the community's opinion on the morality of the subject, which is why they vary wildly. Thus there's no moral, legal, or logical ground to stand on for opposing the MC/Rumia OTP.