Young Writers Society

Quick Explanation:

In celebration of YWS' third birthday, you will not have to spend any points to post in any forum beginning November 1 through November 22 (Thanksgiving in the US). Otherwise, everything else will remain the same regarding points.

After November 22, a decision will be made regarding whether or not to continue with the pay to post policy.

For a more detailed explanation, see below.

What Are Points?

Points are used to help determine the featured member. To earn points, simply review stories/poems, join a usergroup and post there, or post in any forum that says "You can earn points here." The maximum per post is 50 points.

Every two weeks, all points will be reset to 500 after the featured member is chosen.

Longer Explanation & A YWS History Lesson (joy)

YWS first implemented the pay to post policy in certain forums back in January 2006. At the time, most of the activity on the site took place in The Lounge & Randomness. The payment policy was meant to redirect interest & activity toward the Literary forums, and it was an instant success.

Today, only a small sliver of site activity takes place in the General Discussion (GD) area. Rather, the majority of activity is in the Literary forums, and even a couple usergroups have greater activity than the GD area. In fact, so little activity takes place in the GD area that it appears that the payment policy is no longer necessary.

So I want to try an experiment. If activity in the Literary forums does not decrease, then the payment policy will be indefinitely suspended after November 22. However, if activity on the Literary side does decrease, then the payment policy will be reinstated. Of course, this is all within reasonable bounds. A decrease of 2% is most likely attributable to fluctuations in site activity. But a decrease of 10% would be quite significant.

Of course, the policy will only be indefinitely suspended, meaning it can be brought back at any time. Now that the code is in place, it only takes me a couple minutes to make the necessary changes.