# Has Board Traffic Decreased?



## StrugglingWriter (Apr 22, 2015)

Seems to me that in general it has, although stories appear to go up at the same rate as of old.


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## agouderia (Apr 22, 2015)

Board Traffic has decreased massively; on some boards, like the BHM/FFA it has almost come to a standstill.

The Library seems to have enough loyal readers (and writers) to keep things halfway going. But if you look at the number of hits the newer stories, even by very popular writers, get though - and compare them to pre-sign-in times, then you'll see they've plummeted.

In my opinion, it would've been a lot more community friendly - and made more business sense - to lock off the sections of the Boards which have adult and explicit content (Paysites, Sexuality, erotic stories) and kept the open policy for everything else.


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## Tad (Apr 22, 2015)

I think also that some people got spooked by the change of ownership and some of the changes to the board layouts, set-up, etc that followed--one of those was the sign-in issue, but there was other things..... let's just say that different people would have had their own issues that may have convinced them not to keep coming back. And then falling traffic will cause other people to stop coming, because in web sites like in restaurants, a lot of people will go where people are.

I doubt that it is irreversible, in that traffic has had ups and downs before from what I could tell, but ups tend to be a lot slower than downs.


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## Imp (Apr 23, 2015)

I wonder if much of the library traffic has gone to deviantart.


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## stufferdude (Apr 24, 2015)

Honestly, I don't think many of the recent stories have "broad" appeal so to speak.


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## jason_grvin (Apr 24, 2015)

I come by and browse from time to time... though since lately the majority of the stories have been BHM related, and since that's not my thing, I'm not spending as much time as I used to here. I take a peek once in a while and move on to other things.


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## agouderia (Apr 24, 2015)

stufferdude said:


> Honestly, I don't think many of the recent stories have *"broad"* appeal so to speak.



Oh wow - encounter with a linguistic species which I had presumed to be extinct since the 1950's! Fascinating! 

On a more serious note - it is indeed too bad that so little compelling BBW fiction is being written and posted. Despite being an FFA - an interesting, convincing female character and how it deals with weight and weight gain is always appreciated, and very difficult to find.


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## lifelongpassion (Apr 24, 2015)

Why come to a place where the main boards are full of sjw's who hate you or think you a creep? I'm sure if they could just jettison the porn & fiction boards, they would.
I used to come here for the great BBW feedee fiction and more, but it's just not as vibrant when everyone has to be politically correct and watch what they say. 
Yes, I'm sure a lot of former visitors are now on deviantart for the stories.


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## FC Punk (Apr 24, 2015)

There's just not a lot of creative freedom.


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## fritzi (Apr 25, 2015)

lifelongpassion said:


> I used to come here for the great BBW feedee fiction and more, but it's just not as vibrant when everyone has to be politically correct and watch what they say.
> Yes, I'm sure a lot of former visitors are now on deviantart for the stories.





FC Punk said:


> There's just not a lot of creative freedom.



All I've noticed policed here on the Library boards is the age issue. As far as content goes, it seems to be a pretty tolerant place.

No longer having good newer BBW fiction mostly likely has to do with lack of creative inspiration and also writing quality. 
You can see the same on FF, where they're less new stories - and in the BBW section more of the same.

There are limits to how many stories you can write on "ABC was a 18-year old cheerleader who started to stuff herself and ballooned to 600 pounds with YYY breasts...." 
A lot of it is incredibly repetitive and in consequence boring.

In contrast, a considerable portion of the BHM fiction here actually are stories with a general appeal and professional level writing.

Some of the older SS/BBW stories here might satisfy fetish desires, fine. But many are simply very poorly written.

Where are the FAs who can actually write? 
Even if they're darker stories, or with fetish elements - as long as they're good stories about fat women - bring them on.


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## Matt L. (Apr 26, 2015)

I have to agree with Lifelongpassion. It seems to me that the people who ask for tolerance are the least tolerant of all. By the way, political correctness has no place in art.


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## StrugglingWriter (Apr 26, 2015)

lifelongpassion said:


> Why come to a place where the main boards are full of sjw's who hate you or think you a creep? I'm sure if they could just jettison the porn & fiction boards, they would.
> I used to come here for the great BBW feedee fiction and more, but it's just not as vibrant when everyone has to be politically correct and watch what they say.
> Yes, I'm sure a lot of former visitors are now on deviantart for the stories.




The "correctness" aspect is not particularly new. When I wrote my first story here ("What I'd Like to Say..."), the sexual assault I included (which the character had a difficult time acknowledging as an actual rape) had it banned to the Special Interest board to languish in obscurity, as if it were some fetish scene. This was, oh, 2007 or so? But board traffic was much healthier long after that time.

Maybe I'd agree with you more if I knew what a sjw is.


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## Xyantha Reborn (Apr 26, 2015)

I do think the traffic has decreased. I know it took months and months for me to even log on after the sign in rules came into place. Also, the site gave me a wicked virus years ago and I avoided it for a long time after that. Finally, if you get notifications and the update is short, you don't even have to log in to get updates on stories. They come right to your inbox.

I think for me, a lot of the stories became repetitive. I don't mind BBW stories, but as fritzi mentioned after I read the opening paragraph I could anticipate with accuracy exactly how the story would end...which took all the enjoyment out of it. And the story offered nothing to my mind and emotions that filling in as a sort of porn substitute. There were/are some excellent BBW stories - I just mean in terms of mathematical percentages, they are few and far between.

I can definately agree that my stories are not written for a broad audience. They are too long, put too much stock in character development, the F/FA component is not necessarily dominant, and I also try to bring in too many real world issues for the casual reader who simply wants to 'burp the worm' (as one of my friends so eloquently said recently). 

I think that for my part, I realized that despite me being open in my preferences and proud to point people to Dims in general (look at our boards; we struggle with some of these issues. It isn't just about fetishism)....the same could not be said for the story boards. It has a strong sexual/fetish component which is great...but less in the way of the more realistic side of life. Which, when I was a young FFA, I actually would have really enjoyed. Before I got my very own BHM the things I read made it seem like a lot of the fantasies were normal for people. Like thinking all sex is like a porn.

And I wanted to bring more of a novella type feel to some of my stories. There are hundreds of the same type of BBW stock stories, so I am really trying to step out of the box in terms of content and my own style. That means my audience is way more limited. The average reads I get on my stories are only 2.5K - some of the other stories have 30K.


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## Observer (Apr 26, 2015)

I was the original moderator of the Dimensions Forums Weight Related Fiction Library, succeeding the venerable Wilson Barbours who managed the Weight Room library until 1995. I am occasionally still active as an author over on writing.com (the interactive Madison's Freshman 15 for example). 

Due to health and time demand issues I had to step back after 2010, then got bumped out as a mod entirely last year with the changeover. No big deal - I had nearly ten years and a changing of the guard was needed,.

Is there a diminishing of certain types of new stories? Possibly. The new crew isn't as aggressive about getting BBW-positive authors elsewhere to post their stuff, so that could be part of the reason. 

There are definitely more BHM writers on every weight related story site than when I wrote my first tales twenty plus years ago. - the Dimensions Library in that regard is simply reflecting the trend. 

At the same time a lot of needed cleanup (weeding out the Discard Room archive for instance) seems to be getting done. 

Rather than criticizing the new team over areas that need to be improved I'd recommend volunteering time to Tad and crew - I'm sure they'd appreciate the help. If and when I ever get out from under my current burdens that's what I might do.


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## agouderia (Apr 27, 2015)

Matt L. said:


> By the way, political correctness has no place in art.





StrugglingWriter said:


> The "correctness" aspect is not particularly new. When I wrote my first story here ("What I'd Like to Say..."), the sexual assault I included (which the character had a difficult time acknowledging as an actual rape) had it banned to the Special Interest board to languish in obscurity, as if it were some fetish scene.



Indeed, art and artistic freedom needs to be exempt from political correctness and the rights to artists' creative expression safeguarded.

Not to be cynical though - claiming the right to artistic freedom for sometimes linguistically barely coherent feedee weight explosion fantasies? Remember that the definition of art has something to do with mastering a skill? 

Despite not being a 'sjw', but an open-minded person with some deviant tendencies of her own - alone as a woman I draw the line that blatant misogyny, degradation or even rape are considered prerequisites for true artistic self-expression.

In addition - this is not an erotic art or pornography forum. But in essence a general audience board which runs much more along the lines of press laws regarding freedom of expression, with protection of minors, etc.

The basic guidelines are not that restrictive. And - to be honest - the better the writing and story quality is on offer, the more generous the interpretations of these guidelines tend to be.




Observer said:


> The new crew isn't as aggressive about getting BBW-positive authors elsewhere to post their stuff, so that could be part of the reason.
> 
> Rather than criticizing the new team over areas that need to be improved I'd recommend volunteering time to Tad and crew - I'm sure they'd appreciate the help. If and when I ever get out from under my current burdens that's what I might do.



Thank you.

On the mod team, we definitely see the lack of good new BBW fiction too.

So we're really open to ideas and input. If anybody sees interesting recent material on any other sites, please give us a heads up. We'll be happy to try and contact the authors and see if the material can be included here in the Library.


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## Deviant123 (Apr 27, 2015)

I had a BBW WG themed story post that was declined for questionable reasons (I was told there was not significant character development or something like that, but it was a deliberately abstract story). It makes me think that other writers face the same weird constraints. Other forums are starting to seem more appealing.


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## stufferdude (Apr 29, 2015)

I think ultimately, _most _of the competent writers from previous years don't post stories here anymore (or anywhere for that matter), and a new crop of competent writers haven't surfaced to take their place. There's always going to be turnover, except this time around, an abundance of new talent hasn't surfaced. 

Now, I'm not saying that the current writers are not of quality—most are. However, there's just not the volume of work published as in years past.


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## Tad (Apr 29, 2015)

I think there is more stuff for BHM and FFA than there ever has been, and some fantastic quality there too.

I agree that there is less stuff of the traditional female weight gain, aimed at male FA.
That could be less writers around, that could be burn-out on that format as Agouderia suggested, that could be that in the past there was more effort to recruit those authors or bring in stories from other sites, as Observer said, it could be all of the above.

But this does bring up a great point &#8211; if any of you know of anyone writing good stories elsewhere, please feel free to ask them to post them here too, or let us know about them. We aren’t trying to have the complete and authoritative collection of all fat fiction, because a) in the internet age that just isn’t possible, and b) we’d rather have a few memorable stories than a huge amount of forgettable ones. But that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t encourage people to post here.

From an author point of view, assuming the author wants readers, I do think there is a case to be made for posting on Dimensions. There is a large enough repository here, and high enough search ranking if you go looking for fat fiction in a google search, that I think you can expect an ongoing audience of people looking for fat faction. I would hope some authors could be persuaded that this audience is a good argument for posting here.


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## Animas (Jun 28, 2015)

I think one of the reasons why fewer stories, especially those with a tad more creativity and quality, is that it's a lot easier for good writers to get paid for their work now. With sites like patron it's easier to just put your story up behind a paywall and actually get people who are interested to pay for it. Which means they lose money from posting their stories here.

Maybe if they, as Tad wrote, would see it as a way to get a bigger fan base (or customers depending on how you see it) they'd be more inclined to post them here.


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