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Date Posted: 04:07:26 04/21/25 Mon
Author: AusNick
Author Host/IP: 1.43.214.67
Subject: Re: Quick State Of The Library
In reply to: Bazzle 's message, "Re: Quick State Of The Library" on 11:07:13 04/20/25 Sun

I'm right with you on lack of engagement. It's something that has disappointed me for the past two decades. SbD (the original version) took me the best part of a year to put back together and I got Fvck All feedback, I kept people informed of my progress, and while I did get some assistance, doing something people wanted, I got very little, pretty much no feedback. And then when I dropped it, crickets.

NSC was the same when I started with that the next year, SSN was still a thing at the time, still active, so I figured my series would exist as an archive of what was already there, I let people know, kept plugging away, no feedback. Three volumes in, I got fed up. If nobody else cared, why should I, so I went back to working on SbD, gradually filling in gaps, it wasn't because anyone cared, I wanted to finish what I started. It took 10 years for NSC to become relevant, a decade. And when I learned why, I understood, Loring Holden had stopped updating SSN in 2012. I didn't know about that, despite being active, but nobody had mentioned it, there had been no engagement on the topic, no discussion, so no feedback.

2026 will be a decade since I rebooted NSC, and over that time, almost no feedback. Yourself and maybe a handful of others have taken the time to respond when I've posted something, dropped links to new files, and I genuinely appreciate that, at least I know a few people are downloading and reading the stuff I've created. But otherwise, the silence is near deafening.

And it's been that way since I started. For some reason, we've become very quiet. And I can't understand why. Sure we've lost people, but we've gained people. Nothing should have changed, but it has.

It takes time and effort, personal time and effort to write a story, craft it. It takes the same for me to pull it all together, and at times, a lot of times, it seems that nobody appreciates it.

I've said it before, but the community is being crushed under the weight of it's own apathy.

I have no doubt that people download the content we produce, but I have no way of tracking that. It's been stolen and posted on other sites without permission much less attribution, and that really sucks. I created the NLL to protect people's IP, but it seems to have done FA.

To be blunt, the community have become parasites, welfare recipients, who take what's offered, and offer nothing in return. Everything is someone else's problem. For you it's been 9 years, for me it's been 20, I've become jaded, frustrated, disappointed and depressed, and honestly, a bit fed up with it all, I keep going because I know what goes into the writing process, and I keep telling myself, if I didn't do what I do, nobody else would, and it has become abundantly clear that nobody else will. SbD I did for me, it was to be my gift to the community, me giving something back. That was supposed to be the end of it. I figured I could sit back and enjoy the adulation, be a rockstar hero like the Loring Holdens and Matt Landrys and Michael C.s of the community. That never happened. The library is still obscure, and I'm still a nobody. I feel that nobody appreciates what we do. I used to think I was helping build a community, and a community resource, now I'm just hoping it survives, that's what the Library is for, it's not for me any more, hasn't been for years. It's for you, and the few authors that still contribute, and people who still enjoy a good story, or just want to know more, and to say that we were here at all. And in recent years, it's become an insurance policy. Especially recently, stuff in the library had been purged from the net, stuff you now can't get anywhere else. And the work we've done collectively has become incredibly valuable, nothing else like it exists. We've all done and do what we can despite how shitty things might get, because the only alternative is to walk away, or simply stop giving a shit. And we all know what happens then. It goes away. And while fragments might exist across the net, and on people's people's PCs and phones, it'll never be what it was if we let it die, a lot of people over a lot of years have have put in so much, to disrespect it like that.

You're not retiring? Thank you. I want to, but I don't have that luxury, I've already said why.

SFK is on borrowed time, my login credentials have vanished, don't know why, I hope I can remember what they were. That place is an open sewer anyway, but it's the only community hub we have left.

Reddit is simply fvcked, so is Literotica. And I expect Voy will boot us eventually, all it would take is one bogus complaint.

And as to your stories, I tried being a hands-on Editor, all it did was piss people off and turn them away, and give me burnout. And I can barely call myself that. Just keep doing what you do for as long as you enjoy doing it, mate.

The Library has been in dire straits for a while, we peaked pre-plandemic, on my end, most days it was like I was working a full-time job, unpaid and underappreciated. After the plandemic, we've never really recovered. People have said what I've done has been a labour of love, and while there have been fun bits, a lot of it is tedium. It's a labour of necessity. The content DU furnished me with recently has refilled the filler pool a little, questionable stories, but I took 'em with thanks. That'll keep the Fiction series going for maybe a few months. I've figured out a way around the lack of content, but it's not without cost. It's been ages since I've seen an essay, and if it wasn't for the few stories, your model profiles, and Curious' reviews, things would be dead already.

The cloud storages I use are running short of space, and could go away for any reason at any time, there's the Git repo that RuEm set up, and I hope people make use if it while it still exists, because not even that is safe. RR has offered repeatedly to host, and it's getting to the point where that might be the only option if anything drastic happens, I've been hesitant so far because I don't want to make my responsibility someone else's.

Realistically, the Library should be everywhere, the works translated into other languages, the stories and essays turned into audiobooks. I can't do it, I've tried. People have wanted a website, I can't do that either, don't know how. Private server, same. I'm running out of options, and time.

You're part of the 1 percent of the community that creates content, I'm the 1 percent of that, that makes it available, and we're part of the 1 percent that maintains the infrastruture your effort and mine relies on to make it possible.

Everyone else has the opportunity to walk away, I'm the one that has to watch what we've built die because the 99 percent are too fvcking complacent to lift a finger to save it, by contributing something.

That's where we're at.

Sorry for the rant, I needed to let off some steam.

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