Holy crap. So much vitriol from an anonymous commenter. Troll much?
TL/DR version: what I think the anonymous commenter meant to say was “I’m a big baby! Make things the way I want because I said so!”
Longer version:
This is why we can’t have nice things. And I’m so glad I’m not running the site anymore and can say all this without worrying about pissing people off.
I have absolutely no idea what exactly you (the anonymous poster with the vitriolic comments) don’t like about the site now. You haven’t provided any actionable feedback. “The categories are screwed up and the design and layout suck” is not actionable. What exactly can be done to address that vague and completely wide open criticism with no specific examples of problems or suggestions for improvement?
Are you the same idiot that insisted in comments over a year ago that no one uses the site on a phone, and then ignored me when I pointed out that I had actual data showing that over 50% of all users on the site view the site on a phone. The new layout and design was specifically done in order to have the best compromise between a desktop site and a phone friendly site. Because most readers are on a phone. And because maintaining websites is very expensive in terms of time and effort (which at the end of the day, equals cost).
Martin paid for the site for the first year after he took over. The first year on the host is discounted, but even then, it’s still over $10 a month. And at this point, Martin has definitely spent over 100 hours working on the site. Let’s pretend that Martin doesn’t get paid exorbitantly for his day job and only makes $30 an hour. He works in tech, so probably makes more than that, but let’s pretend he only makes that. At $30 an hour, putting in 100 hours, he’s already donated effectively $3000 towards the site.
If he makes an extra $30 a month off of the Patreon pledges, he still won’t get paid back for this work for 100 months.
You seem impervious to facts or numbers. Robin is correct about the number of new stories being posted now (meaning you’re flat out wrong), and you don’t seem to want to spend any time actually thinking about how much time and money Martin continues to put into the site. From the overwhelming number of comments on here, most people like the site and the direction it’s taken. And I know from the majority of the feedback I received from authors that they are mostly happy with how things are and where they are headed. When anyone constructively makes suggestions, Martin tries to improve things. Hell, he even tries when the comments aren’t constructive.
You are not being constructive or useful with your comments.
Essentially, what I think you really mean to say is: “There aren’t enough new stories I like, I don’t like the way the free site that I don’t pay for or contribute to in any way looks, and I’m angry that someone else isn’t fixing all of that for me.” Or like I said at the top, “I’m a big baby!”
If you really care, try thinking up some ideas for ways to improve the layout and design (and communicate them in a less assholish way), or get involved with the authors you like to help them write more of what you like (constructively and gently).
Or fuck off and make your own site, with a layout and design that doesn’t suck and categories that aren’t screwed up and all the new stories you could ever want, written by the army of authors that will flock there to write what you want, whenever you want, all for free. Because that’s how the world works, where other people’s time, money and effort doesn’t matter, your wants are the only ones that anyone needs to consider, and good authors and programmers grow on trees and don’t have their own needs or wants.
