Opinions Requested: Informal erotic stories vs formal creative writing content in the Gay Stories forum

[KaraBulut]

We would like your feedback on the type of content that you would like to see in the Gay Stories forum.

This forum has a special appeal to members who enjoy written erotic stories. The content in this forum has two types of content:

1. Formal works of erotica. These threads are various types of erotic creative writing. These stories are usually the type of written content that would be suitable for publication. An example would be long standing serials like "The Coming of Josh", which has been a multi-chapter serial story with a 9 year history.
2. Informal stories. These threads are less formal and more in the "It happened to me!" type format. An example would be the, "Tell me about your wildest hookup experience" thread.

There is an audience for both types of threads and that audience overlaps. But the two types of threads are different types of content. The more formal threads are usually a single author and are posted in sequential chapters. The informal threads have a more casual sentence structure- more like spoken English- and these informal threads provide an opportunity for other members to participate in the thread to add their own ostensibly "true life" stories.

We're considering creating a new forum to split the two types of threads into different forums. The Gay Stories forum would become "The Writers Forum" and the new forum would be the "My Story- It Happened to Me!" forum. This change would allow the fans of the serial stories to follow their favorite writers in the Writer's Forum. The addition of a separate My Story forum would create an outlet for members who want to share their personal stories in a less formal style.

If you have an opinion, please feel free to vote in the poll. You are welcome to post your comments in a reply this thread.

 

[EJMichaels]

I voted in favor of splitting it, but it's not a strong preference. In a large forum, it can help to have the content more focused and distinct. I'm wondering if some stories won't neatly fit into those two, but if the focus is formal versus informal, regardless of the story length or it being true or not, the described separation would work.

 

[KaraBulut]

I voted in favor of splitting it, but it's not a strong preference. In a large forum, it can help to have the content more focused and distinct. I'm wondering if some stories won't neatly fit into those two, but if the focus is formal versus informal, regardless of the story length or it being true or not, the described separation would work.

Something to disclose that might also help with those who are on the fence: There are a lot of random run-on posts from the Writers forum that we currently delete or move to other forums. In some cases, the post is fetish-y and we can move it to the Fetish forum, or it's a bisexual encounter story and it would fit in with the Straight/Bi forum.

We have a problem when it's a gay story but it's clearly not fiction and it isn't formatted into paragraphs with reasonable grammar. We don't have a forum that is gay-oriented, allows NSFW content and is geared toward less formal creative writing.

 

[KaraBulut]

The poll results were close. We'll be adding a new forum for informal stories and we'll start moving the threads that are more geared toward self-reported "true stories" into the new forum.