For sure the technical model that underpins the site is fairly simple, deliberately so. The story code handling and searching isn't all that complex once you see the meat of it. I also suspect its nuances might surprise you, particularly in respect to things like multi-part stories, story categorisation and other niggles that make it not quite so clean. And that's before you even get into the merits of static vs database-driven sites or the other core technical decisions. It's an interesting challenge, and if I retired from my day job tomorrow I'd almost certainly use the extra free time to build something I thought would be a really strong foundation, both for this site and others.
But as Jack points out, what matters is how you differentiate the site from every other site. Let's say I did find a
pocket watch that could stop time and used it to do that rewrite, how would it change what the site offers? Slightly less friction in editing and publishing; the ability to easily share stories between multiple categories; more efficient serving that you'd hope would lead to a reduction in hosting costs. What wouldn't it change? Anything about dealing with the authors, or the affiliates. Anything about the site designs, layouts or non-story content. Anything about content moderation or shaping the content to the audience. Those are challenges that all the existing sites tackle, in different ways, and I would say their approaches to those challenges define their nature.
I'm pretty technical, so I'm always looking for automation that might help, but I can tell you that the remaining stuff which
could be automated better, if I had time to invest, constitutes at most maybe 5% of the effort I put into the site. And while it's nice to think there would be volunteers out there that could take some of the rest of the work off my hands, that mostly just transforms it into volunteer-management work instead. And it
is work, for sure, so if you're asking a volunteer to do it, there has to be something to motivate them; love for a good kinky story only goes so far. Because as Jack points out, if they
don't volunteer, it's not like these stories just won't get out there. So I think a strategy based on hoping volunteers will appear is what you'd really need to test the waters on.
All that said, as I've said elsewhere, honestly I would be glad to see
more story sites. I don't see that as competition. There are many under-served niches, and any site that attempts to serve all will likely end up serving none. All I ask for is that there be some sort of succession / failure planning in place, for what happens to the site, its authors & readers, if the investment of time and resources into keeping it running dries up.
I don't think the community needs a better Literotica, or Plaza. I think it needs a place for hosting the dark and gritty kink stories the Plaza won't take; a place for scripts for producers to make better porn movies; a place for that really extreme clown sex roleplay stuff. Places that the maintainers can get behind, that volunteers will flock to, because now
their niche will be served. And if those niche sites die out due to lack of interest, because they can't find volunteers to take over the running of it when the original maker tires or disappears, then that should be from natural selection, rather than because they grew unsustainably big as a solo venture.
