OK, the current story archive is a bust because the software I'm using sucks, and it's divorced from the forums.  I have found a better piece of software to run a story archive, but it is not really compatible with what we're using at Amaz0ns.

So I'm considering launching a second site, just for stories.  It would have separate user authentication, excellent genre categorization options, user moderation and promotion of stories, and even some myspace-like features for readers and authors alike.  I would not extend the Amaz0ns user database to the new site, so current Amaz0ns users would register anew at the story site.

I'd close the Amaz0ns "Writing" archive and consolidate all the Amaz0ns Forum's fiction boards here into one, and nudge people to take their story discussions to the new site.  The new site would be focused on all powerful woman fiction.  It would be non-denominational as far as fetish, within the larger genre of powerful women.

I need two questions answered first: 

• Will authors participate and post their stories there?
• Will enough people volunteer to take editorial responsibility for it?  (Because I just don't have the time.)

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.  Thanks.

As one who posted in the story archive, yeah it was WAY cumbersome (perhaps as much so as my writing style!)  I actually had no problems posting to the forums.  That area seems to be alive and well.  I like having the stuff all on one site - the recent Fan Fic on Tetsuko is a big reason why.  I doubt it would have caught much interest if it had been on another site.

O Mighty One, I'm most appreciative of what you've done here and if the site is split I'll try to use both, but you could just trash the current story area and leave the boards and I think we'd be fine.  In the meantime you might be able to find story archive software with this site.

That's my 2 cents worth.  You get what you pay for.

While I understand taking down the fiction writing archive, I'm kinda antsy about moving the stuff in the forum... I feel like it's gonna be segregating the writers who can't draw from the rest of the Amaz0ns community.  I know that we'd still be looking at the artwork... but who out there will actively seek out the text stories?

I'm not doing a good idea of explaining this.

Right now Amaz0ns is a great content management system (CMS) for me and a handful of people who write permanent content.  It is not a good content management system for all of you.  A forum is not a content management system.

The major reason for this shortcoming is that it's hard to create content in Joomla, which is Amaz0ns' CMS.  But imagine a site where users could create permanent, categorized content entries as easily as they create forum topics now, and where other users could comment and evaluate that content like on Digg or Slashdot.  Good content would rise to the top, bad content would sink.

What I'm looking at doing here would establish a story archive initially, but the software I'm considering using would allow users to create custom profile pages, set up their own niche user groups, etc.  I'd embed some Amaz0ns content in the site - lists of most recent posts and most recent forum topics, etc., but the essence of it would be user generated content, well organized and optimized for search engines.

I'm not looking to make people stop doing things the way they like to do them.  Amaz0ns would be largely unaffected by this.  I just feel like we're failing in keeping up the level of story quality and output that we set in the 90s.  My speculation at the causes of this are that there's no good archive site out there, and that authors are unmotivated because lurkers don't give feedback.  I may have a way to alleviate both problems.