Listen up, silent majority!

This is my open letter to Library members who comment less than once on every 50 stories they read (because I can't believe, with all the help provided in locating a favourite orientation, implement, genre etc, that they don't find something that stirs them at least once among that many reads).


Dear Member,

Unlike many sex-related sites on the internet, this Library is completely free. It doesn't even have adverts. It is provided for your pleasure by 3 administrators, some editors and over 500 authors, all of whom donate their time and work – just for you.

Please, don't be afraid that you are being tracked – nobody is interested in exposing you! There are many thousands of us, and we are completely safe here to enjoy this thing we love.

And please, don't project any guilt you might feel onto this site. Don't treat it as somewhere just to get your kicks and disappear. We deserve the same respect you'd give any other public service website. Hang around and get involved – there's nothing to fear!

In return for the pleasure you find here, we simply ask that you comment occasionally on what you've read. It doesn't have to be in good English – just your feedback, however you want to express it.

It's easy to do – just click on 'Make or view comments' at the end of any text, and join in.

Thank you.

I second the motion on this sentiment. In fact, I'd even suggest an appropriate story for you to read on this topic, if I myself hadn't long ago forsworn a particular activity.

Good luck TEM, but the folks you'd like to reach are unlikely to be even reading the forum. It's difficult to watch the activity here and not wonder. I get anywhere from 30-60 hits a day, over 100 if I have something new, and maybe a comment a day or every two days (again assuming nothing recently published). What do all the others think? What does the guy who just downloaded a dozen stories think? Do they like what they read? I see a lot of handles in my stats column that appear with some regularity who I know have NEVER lodged a comment. A puzzle, to be sure.

I know Februs is planning further restrictions on non-commenters. Besides a limit on the number of stories that can be viewed each day, they will lose the "Latest Loaded" list, and perhaps other features. I don't know whether he is planning to change the threshold at which the restrictions kick in - currently 1 comment for every 500 stories viewed - to be closer to TEM's suggestion of 1 in 50. I'd support such a change.

Well I'm afraid things are getting tougher for those who simply refuse to comment but have read over 500 items since, as of a week or two ago, they now find that a substantial number of the site's features won't be working for them including the Latest Loaded list. Browse, Latest Commented, Latest Read, Search, Latest Validated, Lucky Dip and jukebox, and the links on the home page to stories have also been disabled. Of course, this heralded a flood of duplicate registrations as it appears they prefer to go to the trouble of re-registering rather than make a comment once every blue moon. The bad news is that those we find doing this will most likely discover that their new and original accounts will be blocked from story viewing altogether.

The question is - will this produce any more comments, or just fewer views?

And, of course, there are the many readers who DO comment every 400 or 500 stories, who will maintain full functionality, yet still provide little in the say of feedback. I can't imagine reading FIFTY stories without having something to say, let alone close to 500.

EnglishMaster, your letter is shrewd & gets to both the reasons I think I have never left comments on any other spanking site besides this one. In fact I left no comments here either until I started to post stories. Then I realised that the Comments become part of the experience of reading the stories. There's also such a thing as gratitude for the pleasures I've been given.

This is a rather complicated question. First of all, I think Rollin is right that most of the non-commenters don't follow the forum; they are here to read stories, no to chat. Next I think that many of them are concerned about security — I definitely was when I started signing up for sites like this — and they have a feeling that the stiller they sit, the safer they are. Finally, I am not sure how well the 500 rule is communicated; I don't remember it from when I signed up, and I have spoken to a couple of non-commenters (not quite at 500 yet!) who registered much more recently, and who still don't recall the rule. Would it be possible to send out a gentle reminder when people pass (say) 400 views without commenting (if such a thing doesn't exist already)?

I feel that the focus should be on getting people to comment because they feel it's a polite, natural and sensible thing to do, and not to chase the chronically shy away. If they have bothered to read 500 spanking stories, they definitely belong here, comments or no comments!

Hear, hear TEM.

Currently, someone who has never commented or who has a views to comments ratio of greater than 500 to 1 sees a permanent announcement message encouraging them to comment. It's hoped that will be sufficient to remind them that the occasional comment is expected.



I agree that it seems incredibly little to ask that someone comment every 500 views as a minimum but the likely outcome of asking them to comment once every 50 or whatever will be a whole batch of meaningless "great story" comments and yet more attempts to re-register on the site each time they are required to make a comment.



Based on limited observations a number of previous non-commenters have started commenting, some genuinely, some merely cynically in order to get round the limit and about a dozen have simply tried to re-register under a different name.