Author:
Mosaic was my very first web-browser back in ... 1993 (I think).
In those early years of the internet commercial websites. largely, did not exists. A few amateurs wrote a single page of Hyper-Text code in text editors and and ran an Apache web-server on their home computers that allowed the World to connect and read their page, see their pictures, understand their lives. It was before Google and most search-engines.
In those day we had 'start-pages' - we would type a known start-page link into our browser, choose a topic, click a further link and behold we might land in someone's hobby-room or garden.
Each landing place had on overwhelming feeling of camaraderie and generousness; each link took us somewhere new and away. Each page-author was sharing an aspect of their life but saying - 'here I like this too, go there!' I talked to people in Japan and Holland, for example, by leaving visitor comments where we could. The World felt kind, people felt helped and comforted, differences between races became insignificant because we were all surfers seeing each other in a new light and realizing their hopes were like mine. Their family photos looked similar to mine; their lives similar to mine. Differences were being broken down. The World was on its way to becoming a community. We were able to surf anywhere.
And we did. It was possible to spend a whole evening just 'surfing the Internet'. Advertisers picked up the meme - it was that important - the phrase became part of our vocabulary. Today it has no meaning because surfing the internet is not possible. Conspiracy theorists would say 'surfing stopped by design' with the Nationalists not liking it. Occam's Razor would suggest it stopped because of commerce - your eyeballs began to have a commercial value - the more those eyeballs could be counted as having seen an online-advertisement, the more money the web-site owner made. There became reason to trap your eyeballs on their pages for as long as possible.
Around the year 2000 came Web-Two. Dot-com became the plague of the internet. Commercial interests smelled the money, the power, the influence, the fame and almost overnight web-surfing stopped. All generosity, (well almost all), went out the Windows 2000. If you landed on a web page, links were only to things deeper in the web-site. People were no longer surfing the wave-top but sinking, drowning even, below. Commercialism had made its succession.
The innovator and early-adopter web-site slowly began to disappear. My site providing weather data for Private Pilots, the first in the World to calculate Airfield Density Altitude from meteorological data closed too. Costs for just being connected and having web-traffic began to increase in the way anything popular does. But even in that environment some sites continued and a few new ones started - niche sites - as they became known,
Bigcloset was one of them. And it too has gone through the cycle. It started with generosity, with help at its core; the stories were free; readers were invited to constructively comment. Now almost every author wants money and the story link is to a pay site. Oh shame on you Bigcloset! You've allowed money changers into the Temple.
What authors probably don't think about is their manipulation. By posting their story - dross of otherwise - on a pay-site - the site owner takes their tithe. Happy days to be a site-owner - all these slaves brainwashed to follow convention, just typing-up cash for free. Please wake up, you authors, and realize your pay-site gives you only a few percent of your possible readership and you help perpetuate Web-Two.
[I write computer code as a hobby. I have several Repositories on Github and software available elsewhere. One source program I am able to monitor had 22,705 downloads, up to the middle of last month; it has achieved some small acclaim.
I provide all I write for free.]
Comments
re: Now almost every author wants money
I'm one of those who are not in it for the money. Just this week, I received my first payment from Amazon in respect of a few book sales. I donated it all (and more) to a local 'Mens Shed' charity. It wasn't a lot, just £17.81 but as the slogan of a UK supermarket says (I hate shopping there), 'Every Little Helps'.
I do donate to this site whenever I can. I hope that more readers do that or we risk losing this wonderful site.
I'm old enough to remember when the first web server was released and even went to a lecture on HTML given by Tim Berners-Lee himself in Geneva. Every page was hand coded To me, it was just another language to master. I still code for fun and am currently deep into writing an app that will optimise my firewall rules (using the Lazarus Delphi clone)
Samantha.
Samantha.
Think you will find
that most story links on BC will take you directly to a free to read page. Yes, some authors try to monetize their work, me amongst them, for literally the last 10 years, sales of my written works through 'big dot com' has been my only income but i still make pretty much everything i write, at some point, available for free here on BC.
I used to have my own site, which i enjoyed writing code for, in the end it died not from apathy but from a clunky uploader. I did try to resurrect it on several occasions but i was let down by the folk who said they'd help and not having a big budget i couldn't afford to use a commercial service. As an author, it would be great to have but you need income to cover those costs and as a fully independent writer, i don't have that luxury.
Maybe do a little research before making such blase accusations?
Madeline Anafrid Bell
Congratulations
I think you managed to violate each of the site’s three simple rules in a single post. An achievement, I suppose. Give yourself a medal.
Rule one. “Keep it friendly.” Coming on to someone’s website, for free, callings its contributors brainwashed slaves and the people who run it exploiters is as rude as it is inaccurate. Almost everyone here posts free stories, for our own reasons. As expression. As a way to share with friends in a supportive community. The site is barely able to stay running and maintain a massive twenty-five year archive of stories through a combination of advertising revenue, sales of stories by the affiliated Doppler Press, and Erin having to beg for donations every month. They do what only they can do, to maintain a space where this community can exist.
Rule two: it’s not about you. Whatever your beef is with how commercialization of the internet has ruined everything, this site is about community. Try to understand it before taking a dump on it.
Rule three: Give everyone the benefit of the doubt. I give it to you here: I believe your comment was made in ignorance, based on a misreading of what you looked at. Yes, the site has advertisements, and yes, some stories are not free. But something like ten free stories are posted here every day. Rather than jumping to the conclusion that we are all in an exploitative relationship, give us the benefit of the doubt. Talk to people. Try to understand just how hard it is to keep this enterprise going. Erin could easily have shut BC down when things got tough — as you did with your own website. Instead, year after year, she found ways to hold this space open for us. You may have no respect for that, or appreciation, but . . . honest to God, it’s not about you.
— Emma
The truly wonderful thing about this site……..
Is that it is a community. Yes, I come here to read - and I get great enjoyment from many of the stories I find here. Not all of course, but that is more a matter of my own personal preferences than anything else; after all, we all have different tastes and none of us will like everything.
But more than that, I have found a place where I can enjoy time chatting with others without having to worry about being ridiculed for who and what I am. I have found friends - people who truly care about me. And those people supported me when I was at one of the lowest points of my life. Those friends cared for me more than my own blood, more than nearly all of those I had called “friend” before coming out to the world and transitioning. Those friends literally saved my life.
And they asked for nothing more in return than my friendship. They desired nothing more than my sticking around for a while longer. And hopefully I have in some small way been there for others as well.
If someone can only see this site as a means to make money, can only see this site as a road to riches, then they are sadly mistaken. Most authors who post here get nothing more out of their work than the satisfaction of accomplishment, and hopefully a few nice words from their readers. Yes, some of them do publish their work commercially, and in doing so they utilize sites like Amazon. And yes, I am not a big fan of Amazon - especially after Jeff Bezos sucked up to Trump, and most especially after Amazon paid $75 million to buy, produce, and distribute that piece of drivel Melania, but one must use the tools which are readily available.
As Maddy Bell pointed out already, many of the authors who post here have no other options. This site is not populated by rich people; in fact, I am probably better off financially than most who frequent this site - and I am not rich. My family and I are what is known as “upper middle class”, and I do what I can to help others - but I am certainly not amongst the wealthy elites. I know that many who visit this site struggle daily just to meet their needs. They are not in a position to spend money they do not have being selective in how they publish their work, and as Maddy has also pointed out, her work represents her sole income. She is actually one of a very few authors who post here who don’t have to work at another job to support themselves in addition to their writing.
As Emma has also pointed out, constructive criticism is one thing - but that is not what your post contained. There is a fine line between being constructive, and being hurtful when criticizing. I know that I have perhaps wandered too close to that line before, and I spend a great deal of effort trying to express my thoughts without crossing that line. I have probably failed at times, especially when expressing my thoughts regarding forced feminization - but I hope that I have learned not to lean too far over the line.
In this decidedly uncivil world, we would all do better to try to be more civil to our friends (family?) here on this site.
I find myself unable to “turn the other cheek” to those who support our current administration, but I also try not to attack those who use tools like Amazon. How can I when I find myself reading via Kindle daily, or when my spouse and I received deliveries from Amazon twice this week? We live in an imperfect world. Join the rest of us in trying to make it a better place for those here on this site. Help, but don’t ridicule or attack. Save that for those in the outside world who are more deserving of disdain.
D. Eden
“Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir.”
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
"Now almost every author wants money "
Really ? Do you honestly think that, or are you just trying to get a rise?
As Sean Bean famously said in the Sharpe series, Sorry, come to't wrong 'ouse Miss
Please forgive my Yorkshire bluntness and stupidity, but I am somewhat at a loss as to your point here.
As others far worthier than I have already said, the vast majority of stories here are free. The only charge? The slight obligation to say Thank You when you read something which strikes a chord.
In the decade or so in which I have visited, I have read stories far better written than those of published "stars".
Some have touched me, some have resonated, and many made me cry. Here I have met friends, some of whom I now meet in real life, and others who are closer to me than sisters, with whom I correspond every day.
As the other people I would presumptuously call my friends Emma, Samantha, Maddy and Dallas have said above, this is a community of friends. It may not be your "thing", which is absolutely fine. Please go in Peace and find your own Happy Place.
But please do not sneer. This is my community, and I love it. To quote the marvelous Morgan Freeman in Shawshank:
You go on and stamp your form, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I really don’t give a shit.
Lucy xx
"Lately it occurs to me..
what a long strange trip its been."
Web Three
Community you say? The responses feel hostile and I certainly don't feel community here - I never have. The adjective that comes to mind when I think of Bigcloset is pretentious.
Shouldn't one make points against the thrust of an argument rather attacking the author or accusing them of rule-breaking or being self absorbed. ( ' Probably slightly guilty of that - autistic qualities go with the territory you know?)
It's pretty clear no-one here can take on board an alternate view.
Someone talks of 'free' in the same way as an advertiser does - as if it were a bonus. It isn't. There is a whole movement of open source materials on some small part of the web - computer code and 3d-print models - for instance. People create for others for free. Care to join us? Care to be part of Web Three?
I discovered recently that in the country I was born the local tribes settled the land but had no concept of land-ownership - it was owned and used by all but they respected each others right to dwell. Then the Romans invaded and introduced commercialism. Commercialism is not God-given; it is a construct. You do it because you've not thought of doing it any other way. Web One was Good. Web Three could be even better!
And remember change is the only certainty in life. But I get the feeling you are all hostile to change. Try to get over it!
The nice thing about freedom……
Is that if you don’t like what people do or say here, or you don’t like the authors - the community, you don’t have to come here.
You have the freedom to stay or to not stay - but you don’t have the freedom to insult.
Personally, I tried very hard to express why I stay here. Apparently you took that as an affront to yourself, or perhaps you simply don’t like it when others don’t agree with you.
It is your right to feel however you choose about this site and the people here. It is not your right to insult the authors who post their work here. Or the authors who choose to commercially publish their work.
As I said previously, I don’t like every story posted here - but then I just don’t read them. Are there authors whose work I read and love so much that I want more? Absolutely! Sometimes that means that I have to pay to read it, but how is that different than 50 years go when I had to go to a bookstore and buy a book? Why should I begrudge an author the right to make a living from their talent? The nice thing about this site is that I can at least decide who I like before I have to buy anything. Not to mention the fact that many of them post everything they write here for free. All they ask is a thank you, a well done, or perhaps a constructive comment. And if you really enjoy the site, you can help support it financially - but even that is your choice!
Do you watch sports? Why should professional athletes get paid millions to play, but an author shouldn’t get a few dollars? And why should a college football player make literally millions when they are already getting a free education? I got a “free” education too - but I gave up years of my life to the US Navy for the “free” education; oh, yeah, they paid me $300 a month while I was going to school and gave me free uniforms. Let’s not forget about that! And for that I got the right to be away from my family roughly 80% of the time, get shot three times, have shrapnel dug out of my body twice, and spend the rest of my life having nightmares. Yeah…….. that’s a good deal!
Not everyone will agree with everything you say - just like they won’t agree with everything I say. If you can’t deal with that, don’t visit the site. It’s that simple. You always have that choice.
D. Eden
“Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir.”
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Free?
I started using the internet in the early 90s, a bit after you, but I remember free newsgroups I even hand coded a website and posted it on Tripod. They put up banner ads so they didn't charge for it. But for the price of ignoring those it was free.
I have over 70 stories or chapters of stories posted on this site. About half a dozen are posted "by permission" of another author. I have 10 that are also available for sale on Smashwords. On a good month, I get enough for a latte, but none of then have been removed from here.
This is my home, my community. I've been here 21 years & 3 months, plus a couple of lurking and reading for free. I became a member because I liked what I saw and wanted to make comments. A year later I posted my first offering. I've stayed all this time because it became my community. It fulfilled my need to belong.
I see you've been here 20 years & 1 month; only a year and 2 months less than I have. 20 yeards is a long time to hang around if you find the site objectionable.
That brings to mind several questions. If we don't meet your standards, why have you stuck around for 20 years? If we were to accept your premise that the site is a bastion of crass commercialism, what are we to do? Pack up and leave?
I see little point to you post other than to lament the loss of the good old day and rant about it.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
I'll take issue with one thing here
"Now almost every author wants money and the story link is to a pay site."
Um, no. That flatly isn't true, and you know why I know it isn't true? Because I actively take time and put out the effort to make sure it isn't true.
There are at least four or five free new stories//chapters per each story post that links to an offsite paysite or ebook for sale. And even so, many of those, are available here for free, chapter by chapter.
There's a BC Patreon, which has paid memberships, but 90%+ of stories there are free to read for free memberships. The ones that have to have a paid membership to read are restricted based on Patreon's definition of adult content, and there are few of those.
I could not run this site without the small amount of advertising we carry, the small profits we make from sales of ebooks, and the generous contributions from readers and authors.
I remember the early web, too, It was chaotic and sites came and went like bugs hitting a windshield on the Will Rogers Turnpike. But we're still here after more than 25 years. :) And most of the stories and chapters, thousands of them, posted here are still free to read. Most means more than half, and I think it is more than 80%.
Some authors use their contributions of free stories here to promote their presence elsewhere, which may pay them in some way. That's within the terms of the site. But that is a very small minority, and many of those authors contribute here in ways beyond posting free stories.
I understand your concern, but I think you misrepresented the character of this site and its contributors.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Just Not True
As one of the authors here and an almost daily reader I think I can accurately say that the great majority of those who post here give a free service. I personally have never made a single cent out of my stories other than small cash prizes won in site competitions. Those winnings I donated back to the site. If I ever did achieve an income through commercial publishing I would donate it towards keeping this site running. I know that many already do just that.
However, I cannot condemn authors who first post here and then are published for keeping some or all of such income for themselves. Not everybody can afford the luxury. Some are on the breadline.
I have no experience of Web 1 or 2 but I have been a contributor to this site for over 17 years and it is a haven for TG folk, assisting us to maintain our sanity as well as entertaining each other. It certainly does not make money and is only "commercial" in the sense that it accepts advertising and revenue by way of gifts to stay afloat. That is not a sin, it is a necessity.
You accuse us of being hostile to your comments and why should we not be, when they are ill-informed, incorrect and unfriendly? If your criticisms were factual your reception would be better. If you do not wish to modify them then I suggest that you just leave us alone.
Two sides to selling your work
The first is naturally, the income. As I have said, I have one story available on Amazon (paperback and kindle). I didn't do it for the money. Far from it, the cost of my 'Author's Copies' far outweighs the income.
That leads me to the other side of making your work available on places like Amazon.
That is for the kudos of being able to point to the finished work sitting on your bookshelf and saying, 'I did that!'. That is something to be proud of and as joanne says, helping us keep sane in a world that is turning against us bit by bit.
Seeing my name on the spine gave me a very different feeling than simply posting words on a site like this and I'll continue to post my work every week free of charge.
Samantha
If All You're Looking For...
...are Free Stories, there's a tab for that at the top of the page. (That's what I use; IMO there used to be too many (and too large) ads for Kindle material in the story list on the front page for my taste, so I switched over.) It's generally the admins, not the authors, who promote the paid stories. Doppler Press and its offshoots are a source of income for the site. And the proportion may be misleading: despite the current dates shown, the Kindle/Doppler listings often aren't new.
OK, just looked. I'm getting just six out of 36 individual front page stories that would link to a paid site. The single-line list at the top pf the page seems to be 32 out of 93, only two of them new, as far as i can tell. (Most of those are concentrated at the end of the list; perhaps they should be delineated separately as "featured books" or something like that.) Still, that's not "almost every author".
If you're not looking for a community, fine. (I'm not here for that either.) But for those who want or even need one, the option is here, and I can't see how it interferes with anyone else's enjoyment. Along the way, I'm certainly not going to object to having people respond to my modest group of stories here, and I like having the option to comment on those of others on the relatively rare occasions where I feel I have something original to contribute, or need to ask a question about something there. But I'd read and post here even if interactions were difficult or impossible. (There's no money involved there other than my voluntary subscription payments to the site. I have trouble even imagining people wanting to pay for my short fiction.)
Getting back to your original point, though, I can't see where Web 3 is going to happen in the age of social media, which provides at least the illusion of independent content creation even if may be tough to fight the algorithm to find the content you want. I think the best that one can hope for would be a co-op successor to the current for-profit hosts with their ability to tilt -- or topple -- the scales. If they do too much of that, it might even happen, though the odds certainly don't seem to be running in that direction now, Or so I gather; I avoid social media myself,
Eric
It's probably because I'm a San Francisco Bay Area product who went to UC Berkeley in 1968-72, but almost every time I use Free Stories, my first thought is Free Huey. (Huey P. Newton of Oakland's Black Panthers, if anyone's really looking for an explanation. The phrase was ubiquitous at that time and place.)
Memories
As my father’s dementia deepened, he became less and less able to think and speak coherently about recent things, even breakfast. He was fluent with old things: bringing his pet goat into the house to forestall his piano lesson; the reactions of the goat and my grandmother; his first day commanding artillery fire in the Marines; his favorite duty (payroll); the day he met his future wife. As his filters collapsed, I heard of the day she returned from a trip: I was conceived in the back of a Volkswagen.
In the beginning stories were
In the beginning stories were all free on BC. Now they are not. No-one has addressed why the site changed.
I may have been a member for 20 years but that doesn't equate to visits. Once I calculated an 11 year gap between dropping-by.
I sometimes return to read TG fiction decades after my transition and I wonder why? I think I'm and looking for new insights and, probably, validation of my feelings, those that I had then and those that I have now.
Good fiction can provide insightful moments into our psyche we otherwise might miss. Good fiction call allow us to make sense of the feelings we were told, in one way or another, were wrong to have. Good fiction can help me vindicate myself. At a time in my life when the exit door is now clearly marked, I am presently reviewing; taking stock; checking and confirming change.
That is why I sometimes pass-by, looking for good TG fiction to help to confirm, to validate, to motivate who I am.
Sadly, I find most stuff here trite and undemanding; the piecing together of the usual tropes and norms of TG fare into Yet Another Trans Story. (That is not to say the stories have no use - I imagine the authors enjoyed and learnt something writing them.)
The site is drowning in YATS. The true TG fiction, from a thoughtful, discerning author - few and far between - tends to be behind a paywall. But even that is not assured; authors self-select to be paywalled; their output maybe just YATS too; who would know?
Or maybe good TG fiction is here - but, again, who would know? There are no search mechanisms to find quality fiction. And it is not like this stuff gets reviewed anywhere!
And for those of you saying there is no route to abrupt change; I wonder if the Romans thought that before the fall of Rome?
None So Blind
As those who will not see.
I fail to see your motivation. Is it merely to denigrate this site, and if so, for what reason?
There is excellent TG fiction here, reviewed by its readers in comments, kudos and number of reads. Readers can also express their opinions in Personal Messages or simply ignore the stories that they don't like. What could be more democratic than that?
There is a compendium of all the authors who have published here and it's all free! Writers who are good enough to be published elsewhere usually leave their stories here unless limited by restrictions imposed by entities such as Amazon or Kindle and even then that occurs after the stories have been available free to readers on this site.
Your view is entirely negative. What is your beef? I think you are just intent on stirring up trouble. I suggest that you go and make love elsewhere.
None so complacent
As those who are unthinking.
Dissatisfaction leads to change. It is the best driver. Change for better is my reason - didn't you get that? Didn't that come through for you?
I am wholly dissatisfied with Drupal; with site navigation; with the lack of change here over 20 years; with thoughtless creep to paywalls; with links on the front-page - long-dead; with users who proclaim community but tell others to bugger-off; with YATS; with visiting here - like going back in time 50 years.
It should be evident by now
You are a minority of one. From the response you've gotten that while you have made your gripes clear the rest of us don't share your opinion and are not shy about saying so.
The only posts in support of your initial rant are yours. If you want a site totally free I suggest you go to FictionMania. http://www.fictionmania.tv/searchdisplay/new3.html They don't allow links. But be warned; the predominant tags are forced fem and most are rated X or XXX.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
Is every change for the better?
After a lifetime in Software and Systems, the answer is an emphatic NO. Some are visibly worse... The new (sic) Tesla Model Y is even blander than the original if that was possible.
My own website was put together in 2010. The Wordpress theme is 2010. Am I going to change it? Unlike the opinion of some, the changes made to Wordpress wrt site and page editing are a huge step backwards. I had the misfortune to have to design a graphical editor back in 1983/84 for a customer in Denmark. Wordpress full site editing is IMHO just like that... Dog Poo.
That leads me to Drupal. I don't like it but that is the tool that this site was designed to use so I use it. End of story.
As for paywalls... I made a decision a long time ago that I'd go somewhere else if confronted with one. Likewise, I will not read any of the stories that cost me $$$. That's my decision.
Do I have frustrations with this site? sure but that is more related to content than the site itself. As I have said before, do we need more stories about bets, dares, cheerleaders, prom bets and all that jazz? Personally, I think not. Like stories that involve forced fem, I avoid them like the plague. I am able to make that choice and still have plenty to read. Choice/Variety is the spice of life. Long may that remain.
I'll continue to post here. All my work is free to read and will continue to be so, comment and generally slag off at will and will remain that way as long as I have anything to say on the matter.
Samantha
This is my last word on this conversation
As "banging my head against some mad bugger's wall" to quote Roger Waters is not my game of choice.
angela go in peace, but as your game seems to be to cause conflict and discontent. Please, go elsewhere to do that.
A few home truths. Quite frankly I don't give a damn what operating system is used here. Like you, back in the day, I have programmed and written code in a huge variety of languages. That doesn't make me ( or anyone else) clever. It makes me old.
Secondly, Please don't disrespect the community here because you don't recognise what it is. It may not be to your taste. Fair enough. But please don't pretend that it is all about the "links on the front page - long-dead" (what does that mean?) or stories you don't like. For every one I decline to read, there are twenty which make me smile, which resonate with me, and none of them cost me a penny. No I am not American. No, I have no interest in "High school, cheerleading and proms" as I have never encountered any of them. So, you know what, I don't read them?
Erin has run this site for two decades now, and she has created a place where I feel happy to browse.
You clearly have an issue. That is fine, but it absolutely isn't fine to be nasty to the users here.
You seem to have taken quite exception to my quote from"Shawshank" , so I offer you another. This longer one is from Desiderata.
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Thank you and goodnight.
Lucy
"Lately it occurs to me..
what a long strange trip its been."
I believe that you are correct……
It has become increasingly obvious that angela has only one desire with her blog - to stir up controversy for her own personal enjoyment. Sounds a bit like a few MAGA assholes I know!
As such, I would suggest that we simply ignore any further comments from angela, and allow this string to die on the vine.
I know that I for one will waste no more time trying to convince a horse to drink.
D. Eden
“Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir.”
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Exactly
Nuff said.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
Epilogue
After battling the hoards with viewpoints mired in small 'c' conservatism, keyboard-amazonians claiming to speak for everyone; hoards mixing that particularly paralyzing, cloying-style of transgenderism that renders subjects unable to think; unable to imagine a better future state; unwilling to comprehend; unwilling to try-to-comprehend; after being ascribed beliefs so off-the-wall but with such certainty, it induced a violent hilarity in her, her chest rose and fell with a gentle-heaving rhythm , her small necklace jiggling in sympathetic vibration, Angela concluded her cause was lost.
They had been at the cool-aid for far too long, she surmised. But they needed words from her, something, anything, to register no change was imminent to their World. Their trite; their tired; their banal; their repetitive; their paywall; their annoyances could continue joyously unabated.
" I'll take that as a 'No' then!"
She said, with an oppressive feeling of déjà vu.
Somewhere in the ether a 20 year promise evaporated.
Thank You
And Goodbye, Angela.
Just so you know...
Thanks for the effort at communicating the ways in which you felt BigCloset did not measure up to your expectations and desires. I listened.
Your style and attitude grated, but you had valuable and cogent things to say amid the misunderstanding and aggressive phrasing. You've spurred plans for a redesign of the front page, the first in more than ten years. Congratulations and no hard feelings. :)
Hugs are still not behind a pay wall,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Not agressive
I explained earlier that some measure of neurodivergence is present in most trans individuals - me included. With me, as a consequence, my language is direct and lacks the fudge and uncertainty, perhaps the sociability, of others. But I don't attack people and I try not to label them either. I argue against ideas, concepts and things and some, insecure in themselves, took it personally.
Making a cake and needing to break eggs comes to mind.
I had to ask ChatGPT to explain the meaning of something I read recently:- "Enter the casino. There are 4 tables. Go to the second table on the right". What does that even mean? Would I go to table 3 or table 4? I had an inner debate with no solution and needed to be told most would choose table 3 - they would count back from the right rather that rightwards from the centre. I am not most. My brain does not run with the crowd or do group think.
It is good that you are finally prepared to look at correcting things. However if I were you I'd let this site die. Keep it as an historical record by all means, but start again. Drop all the mistakes you've made and try to meet the mission-statement and the dreams you once had, 20 years ago. This is not it! You know you cannot make a silk purse from a sow's ear. Drupal really is that bad!
Ban the mediocre, ban the episodic drivel that or may not get completed. Moderate your platform to showcase the best transgender fiction that reflects who we are, how we got here and how we now live our lives. Go for it Girl!!
Platforms
Aggression is not in the eye of the aggressor. :)
But your points, however bluntly they may have been presented, are out there, and Piper and I and the crew are considering some of them. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Aggressee
"Aggression is not in the eye of the aggressor." Err, it probably would be ... if they were being aggressive, that is.
But the aggressee, the one being aggressed, would not have aggression in their eye - I would have thought it would be more like surprise or shock, Who is to know?.
Either way no-one can see into my eye from their house, and I certainly cannot see yours. And what's that got to do with the price of eggs?
I am, however, beginning to see where misapprehension might have crept in.
Love, snuggle-hugs and bunny-noses, may your path be strewn with sweet-smelling-posies,
Angela
PS is that the style - sycophantic schoolgirl? Is that what I need? Will people like me then?