The decision makes sense. @Corin I would still highly recommend you look into adding an option for for authors to apply creative commons licenses to their work going forward as an opt in system. Letting authors make informed decisions about how they want their work to be used by others, and leaving less room for ambiguity for others who read and are inspired by work, would be a good step forward in any case.
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Well, hello there. I just saw that I was mentioned which was surprising to me. I have in fact contributed to the site for years as well as mentioned. I saw this idea and I thought to myself well thatās interesting and I wonder if it will go somewhere. I also believe in the power of your own personal identity as an author and intellectual property. I hoped that this would be treated with delicate hands and intentionality. Because when it comes to continuing stories that weāre not started by you. It is very important to get permission from the person who was writing story to begin with. What I didnāt like was that it wouldāve gone forward if you didnāt hear from the author at all. I think that is a mis-step and that it would be better if things did not proceed if the author did not agree or did not even respond. It is not our prerogative to continuous story without full consent from the original author in any sort of way. I apologize if this comes off the wrong way or it seems too direct. But I have some strong feelings about kicking somebodyās work and continuing it without expressed permission from the original author. This is of course, due to my own personal background and academia and being indurated into proper citations, using APA format and other types of citations throughout my time and educational settings. I believe strongly that signing your sources are given credit to the original owner is incredibly important and necessary. So I vote that this conversation to continue in such a way that we could create a way to continue the story with absolute 100 respect to the original author. If this idea where to come back, I would suggest that only stories that you hear back from the author and get permission from the author be used.
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At first I was opposed to the idea. But then I informed myself about this. And I see the advantages that this would grant.
Unfortunately, the options for using creative commons licenses are vast. And I wonder if and in what way most authors want to get into that.
But it could be a way for an author to consent to extending their universe right from the start. But in reverse, it would automatically mean, that any story which has NOT been licensed that way would be off-limits. And again, that will always be the vast majority.
Iāll think about it.
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Part of the reason for the backlash/frustration is a worry about rights and intention. As things stand, I assume that everything posted here is essentially under an āall rights reservedā clause, so yeah, itās already off limits. This would merely make it explicit, and provide the sort of clarity that some folks were concerned about, that going forward, the owner of the site could unilaterally change the rights attached to their work.
I know the intentions here were all good, but Iāve been visiting this site for two decades now, across several forms and owners. If this sort of precedent is set here, where any work on the site can be repurposed or adapted and the site owner (whoever that might be in the future) can decide to modify the license of any story on the archive, that erodes the rights of every other author on the site. Naturally, that makes folks suspicious.
I would limit it to one fairly restrictive CC license as an option, probably CC BY-NC-SA, which would a) require attribution and credit to the original author, b) work could only be adapted for non-commercial purposes, and c) any work added to the original would have to also use this same CC license and terms. I think it would be good for more creators to know about these tools, how to use them, and what they mean for their work.
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@Corin might not like me bringing this up as he seems to be a guy that never expects sympathy, but I would urge everyone to remember, whatever your feelings about this challenge, we are so lucky to still have this site to submit stories to or read stories on, due to the recent blow to the sites funding though sponsorship. Nobody can question the guys love or dedication to the site and I hope people will give him and his admin and appover team a break and make allowances for this tough time. Just wanted to pop that in as feels like there is so much devision in every corner at the moment in all media fandoms and even everyday life xxx
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This unit is actually irritated at the cancellation. Shame on those who were so stubborn about it. Itās hard to believe there are people so protective about smut they release for free and usually forget about within years.
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This was the right call.
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Well Iām disappointed but not angry at all with @Corin or @AsisAsio for making the choice that made the most sense to them. I am still open to this completely and still believe, strongly, that people have overreacted and ruined what could be very fun for many of us. So it goes, however. Offer still stands to fans or anyone else whoād enjoy writing an offshoot of one of my stories. Hopefully, in time, people realize itās really not that serious, especially on a free masturbation story site. And especially at a time when the world is, on the whole, kinda shitty with way way way worse stuff than continuing a story you enjoyed. But, well, we often have to respect the wishes of one group despite how much it disappoints those on the opposite side.
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Couldnāt have said it better myself. I hope the community knows Iāll keep trying to find new and interesting ways to engage our community and give both readers and authors alike a reason to read and write.
I am hoping to create more opportunities for veteran authors to pass on their tips, tricks and skills to budding authors. Will keep everyone updated while I shift the roll out strategy of some of the plans in store to account for this loss 
Youāre not the only academic amongst the authors here and as an academic author I donāt understand why youāre even bringing up academic writing here. Fiction writing is radically different from academic writing, so what exactly are you getting at? To borrow the phrase from my high school physics teacher (may he rest in peace), say what you mean and mean what you say. Explain what the hell academic writing and citation has to do with fiction, if you will.
Let me first say to @Corin and @AsisAsio thank you for putting the idea out there and trying to do this. I know over the course of this discourse you both have taken a number of insults and still tried to proceed with civility and class; your humanity really shone through and we are truly blessed to have the two of you handling affairs on this site. While Iām saddened that you decided to pull the contest, I fully understand your decision to do so.
To the writers who were on the pro side, thank you for lending your voices and making the case for the pro side in the various ways that you did. Your advocacy was always wonderful to read and support from the sidelines as many of you said things that I was thinking and often in very thoughtful ways that I couldnāt really add on to. You all did the best you could to make the case, but things didnāt go the way you and I wanted to. I hope this doesnāt dampen your spirit to continue writing and contributing to this site and making it better.
To the con side, in the course of your arguments I saw overwhelmingly disrespect towards @Corin and @AsisAsio as well as the pro side advocates; I also saw a self-centeredness that gave no real thought to the ideas and changes the pro side was putting forth. To hear that authors were willing to pull their stories over the idea of this contest can only bring forth the image of Cartmen from South Park saying āScrew you guys, Iām going home!!ā Rather than say anything else about this and stir the fires, let me simply say I am literally shaking my head at you lot.
Since Iām made mention of my academic credentials over the course of this debate, let me draw upon that learning and put out some ideas that may help rethink things (if that is possible). Within the world of renga (Japanese linked verse), the standard exercise of practicing coming up with verses was to give a student a verse (maeku in Japaneseāthe verse prior) and the student came up with the verse that linked to it (tsukeku in Japaneseāthe verse that links/connects). The teacher would evaluate the way(s) the student and make comments and corrections as they saw fit. (As an example of what Iām talking about hereās an example:
Maeku
In my mountain home I wait for word from someoneābut it never comes.
Tsukeku
I hear rustling, and wonderā¦ but no, just the wind in the reeds.)
What the idea of this competition would have been would be similar to this; whatever story was selected would have been the maeku and authors would have written the tsukeku to link with and continue the ideas in the story. The judging wouldāve decided who did the most interesting continuation of the story. The one thing I would change is not claim the winner as the official continuation; I would just say that it was the best in continuing the story. But weāll never know if this could be of some assistance to help develop this idea.
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So a year ago I brought up an idea for our anniversary. It was, taking a beloved story and making a fresh take on it. At the time it was fully understood and stated that we would have to get permission from the original author to do this. As taking someoneās story and idea and then doing something different can be quite violating to some writers. I reached out to an author to get permission, sent him some of my work to show what I could do and even gave him the elevator pitch of how I wanted to do it. It took easily a month to get him to sign on to it and I felt then and now, that was the right way to go about it. I think there are tons of writers on here who would love their stuff to be continued, remixed or redone. And i think those writers should be given that chance, ask us to step up, offer stories weād love to continue and donāt mind, take that pool and let people run wild with it. There are people who want to do this and thatās cool, and there are people who want nothing to do with it, and thatās cool too. There is a way forward here, I just think we all need to take a look and see what we were trying to accomplish.
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I agree. Donāt quit this idea; just improve on it. Instead take what we have all said that was actually creative and helpful criticism and not just whining negativity and maybe create a thread so we can put in requests for specific stories. Then randomly pick a few and ask the authors. If the authors say yes use them if not move on to another author.
Also doing it this way may encourage the author themselves to continue the story that was brought up in the chat themselves. I mean, I mentioned a few of my favorite popular authors and one responded in here because their name was brought up. This even might ultimately work for authors that get mentioned by fans for their past unfinished work that are no longer active as well.
At least their is nothing wrong with creating a new thread for this and seeing the community requests and authors response.
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We are very lucky that anyone posts any of their work for free public consumption. I know itās common. But that doesnāt make it any less of an act of generosity on the part of authors. We may want more of a story. We are not entitled to it. Thatās not a āproblemā to be fixed. Thatās a fact of life. You donāt get everything you want. I think thereās something deeply hubristic in refusing to accept that reality.
The idea of taking over another personās work on this site, where the core subject matter is highly controversial, and every person has their own personal lines of comfort and sensibilities, at this time, when authors are fighting tooth and nail to stop large corporations from sucking up their work and repurposing it for their own profit, seems like a fully untenable situation.
I understand being disappointed because you think something would be cool but sometimes in life you just have to be disappointed.
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Iād like to thank AsisAsio and Corin for being willing to try something new and keep the site fresh, and also for being open and listening to the community. Your efforts are appreciated, even by longtime lurkers like me.
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My suggestion is to spotlight old stories (complete or not) and ask if people would feel inspired to write based on those stories either in universe or using the same concepts?
We very much had this in the plans, including using community nominated stories as incentives for authors to finish/continue their work.
I want to reassure everyone that every idea listed here, including allowing authors to opt-in from the get go, apply creative commons license to their stories, and directly nominate series that theyāre like āI actually donāt know where to go with thisā or āI canāt be stuffed to finish thisā or āI have massive writers block and have moved on to a new themeā with, was in the plans as possible additions and mechanisms introduced.
However, they all take considerable programming time and effort from Corin and I will take personal responsibility for explicitly telling him not to invest said time and effort into creating them until we were further into the trial and more confident that the core premise actually had legs with the community.
Hence why it was a trial. We wanted the community to join us in forming and launching this initiative, and changing and altering it through the year. Thatās why the initial sub-challenge was so bare-bones and stitched together, we wanted to specifically test its engagement and measure analytics for just the concept of a long-lost golden story being given new life.
Then like I said. Please create a new thread and topic called āWhat old stories are you disappointed never got finished?ā Then have people post a series name and the author and see what kind of feedback you get. Afterwards then randomly pick one to contact the author for permission to continue a fan work version.
Also you might not even have to randomly pick one because the author on here might just suprise you and step up and speak about their story and specifically say oh yeah I totally would love somebody to continue that for me or they might even say yeah thatās actually something Iāve been meaning to finish Iāll get right on that. Either way see what happens if you try this; donāt just give up.
We arenāt giving up. Just taking a moment to gather our thoughts 
.
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Your understanding of the situation is very flawed. Yes, authors contribute their works to the community and to the archive of stories. If you wanted to critique the situation you might have drawn from Jacques Derrida and say the pro contingent has archive fever. But the whole capitalist critique doesnāt apply.
You completely ignore that the balancing act that Corin and AsisAsio are having to do is between individual desires and communal harmony. In this case you have two approaches within the community and theyāve got to think about whatās going to do the last damage to overall sense of community on the site. And yet again you bring with your misunderstanding the patronizing, disrespectful attitude although this is first time weāre getting a paternalistic berating.
Letās get into the actual dynamics involved in writing and reading since youāre completely misguided. Letās begin with the fast that writing is an intentional act. According to the philosopher Edward Casey, intentionality plays out two phases: the act phase, where the actual act is carried out, and the object phase, when the act is completed and the object created is formed. Once the story is created, the author is in the object phase just like the readers. The author loses some degree of control over the story because the story is something that now exists independent of them and the author must also develop a relationship to their work. So yes, authors engage in the act of writing and we as a community respect that but the stories do exist and we develop different relations to them and thatās not something you in your misguided understanding do not get to dictate or control. So please get over yourself and try reading the room a hell of lot more carefully.
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