The End of the Ravishment Academy

[JTCK]

Anyway thank you for your effort but as the boys from Monty Python would say;
It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker!", "It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace!"

Dreadfully sorry, old chap, If I'm being silly, but the temptation was simply irresistible. Therefore, without further ado — the rebuttal!

Ceased to be? Rests in Peace? Nonsense! It is merely resting, much like a CAT in the sun.
Expired? Preposterous — it is very much alive, practising the fine art of feathered stillness.
A stiff? Bereft of life? No way - It’s on eco-mode, conserving existence for the evening rush.

And now for something completely different.

[Vela Nanashi]

As for me staying in my current role, tech admin, that I may do if we keep the aim of the forum the same, where we do everything we can to motivate people to participate, to comment, to rate, to post stories and be interactive, if we give up on that I will likely drift away. Also I will say this again, just so people know, you can not rely on me, I do not have predictable function level, I regularly get disabled by a lot of pain and low energy, I can not be relied upon to fix issues in a timely manner or make new things on a schedule, I try to do things when I can, that is all, and I make no promises.



"No promises I ever give, don't rely on me and I won't deceive..."

[Claire]

If there happened to be a surge of interest between now and October would it be considered to keep open?

Sure, if the community suddenly proved me wrong then I would rethink my decision. There is one issue though. I told users about this in the one month announcement and that worked. That increased activity quite a bit and made me optimistic when we reached the 3 month evaluation date I had set for myself. And that three month announcement that was so optimistic got barely any comments and was then interpreted as "Ah, the forum is safe now, now we can get back to lurking". Immediately after, the collapse began. Rather than building on the momentum we had, people seemed to take this as "now we don't need to do anything anymore". So there is a danger here that we get back to this very same point every 2 or 3 months. The activity on the forum can not be based on me announcing its closure every few months and then people get into a panic, activity peaks and then everything is reduced to three or four people participating again.

I don't want to force people to participate. What would be the point of that? I want a community where people enjoy reading the stories we have here and then talk about what they read. If people don't have an interest in that, then this is fine. The only thing I'm telling people is this: You can not treat a forum of amateur authors writing erotic fiction like a porn streaming site. Why? Because the difference between pornhub and us is that there is no money in this, neither for the authors of the stories nor whoever runs the plattform. And that should not be that hard to understand. If you judged your average porn streaming site from a community building perspective, then they would have closed long ago. The model that these porn streaming sites operate on is making money either through advertisements or by teasing people with clips of larger content that you are then meant to subscribe to. But since that is not how a forum like ours works, the community treating it like that also doesn't work. And until this community finally understands and internalizes this, every forum like this will keep failing. But instead of coming to terms with that insight, people rationalize there own inactivity by framing the issue as if I had ever said that you are supposed to be here commenting non-stop.

I hope you take what I'm about to say not as a personal attack because that is really not my intention. Take it as something to think about. You posted earlier here that many stories don't speak to you and that you have a kink for home invasion stories of which there aren't many here. Let's say I believed that your own kink is so narrow that home invasion stories exclusively are doing it for you. And I don't believe that because from what I see, the two stories that you did comment on aren't even tagged home invasion. But even if home invasion is the only thing that interests you: There are currently 12 English stories tagged as home invasion that were not written by you. One of them is Shocker's Fugitives sitting prominently in the Popular Stories board, basically impossible to miss. I don't think you commented on any of them. I also asked people here what kind of contest they would have liked to see. I don't remember a post of you suggesting a home invasion contest and maybe even signaling that you would participate in it. The point is: You will never get plenty of home invasion stories if the home invasion authors don't get the motivation from their readers. When this forum was brand new, I remember you talking to me about authors you missed and you waited for them to find this place rather than to engage with the home invasion stories that were already there. And that is the problem.

So to come back to your original question: Yes, if activity suddenly and persistently increased I might change my mind. But don't be active to save the forum. As much as I can't carry it alone, you can't either. This is not a motivation that will last. Be active to support the home invasion authors that are here and let them know through your feedback that you want more of that stuff. Even from a purely selfish perspective of wanting more home invasion stories, this is the best thing you can do.

[Vela Nanashi]

Also should this place fail...

"Man, he took his time in the sun, had a dream to understand, a single grain of sand, he gave birth to poetry, but one day'll cease to be, greet the last light of the library..."

"We were here!"

[LtBroccoli]

As for me staying in my current role, tech admin, that I may do if we keep the aim of the forum the same, where we do everything we can to motivate people to participate, to comment, to rate, to post stories and be interactive, if we give up on that I will likely drift away. Also I will say this again, just so people know, you can not rely on me, I do not have predictable function level, I regularly get disabled by a lot of pain and low energy, I can not be relied upon to fix issues in a timely manner or make new things on a schedule, I try to do things when I can, that is all, and I make no promises.



"No promises I ever give, don't rely on me and I won't deceive..."

That's the plan. Try to keep growing the site, motivate participation, and build a community feel. I can help out with doing some of the tech stuff, but will need a walkthrough on a lot of it. Your health comes first.

[RSlice]

If there happened to be a surge of interest between now and October would it be considered to keep open?

Sure, if the community suddenly proved me wrong then I would rethink my decision. There is one issue though. I told users about this in the one month announcement and that worked. That increased activity quite a bit and made me optimistic when we reached the 3 month evaluation date I had set for myself. And that three month announcement that was so optimistic got barely any comments and was then interpreted as "Ah, the forum is safe now, now we can get back to lurking". Immediately after, the collapse began. Rather than building on the momentum we had, people seemed to take this as "now we don't need to do anything anymore". So there is a danger here that we get back to this very same point every 2 or 3 months. The activity on the forum can not be based on me announcing its closure every few months and then people get into a panic, activity peaks and then everything is reduced to three or four people participating again.

I don't want to force people to participate. What would be the point of that? I want a community where people enjoy reading the stories we have here and then talk about what they read. If people don't have an interest in that, then this is fine. The only thing I'm telling people is this: You can not treat a forum of amateur authors writing erotic fiction like a porn streaming site. Why? Because the difference between pornhub and us is that there is no money in this, neither for the authors of the stories nor whoever runs the plattform. And that should not be that hard to understand. If you judged your average porn streaming site from a community building perspective, then they would have closed long ago. The model that these porn streaming sites operate on is making money either through advertisements or by teasing people with clips of larger content that you are then meant to subscribe to. But since that is not how a forum like ours works, the community treating it like that also doesn't work. And until this community finally understands and internalizes this, every forum like this will keep failing. But instead of coming to terms with that insight, people rationalize there own inactivity by framing the issue as if I had ever said that you are supposed to be here commenting non-stop.

I hope you take what I'm about to say not as a personal attack because that is really not my intention. Take it as something to think about. You posted earlier here that many stories don't speak to you and that you have a kink for home invasion stories of which there aren't many here. Let's say I believed that your own kink is so narrow that home invasion stories exclusively are doing it for you. And I don't believe that because from what I see, the two stories that you did comment on aren't even tagged home invasion. But even if home invasion is the only thing that interests you: There are currently 12 English stories tagged as home invasion that were not written by you. One of them is Shocker's Fugitives sitting prominently in the Popular Stories board, basically impossible to miss. I don't think you commented on any of them. I also asked people here what kind of contest they would have liked to see. I don't remember a post of you suggesting a home invasion contest and maybe even signaling that you would participate in it. The point is: You will never get plenty of home invasion stories if the home invasion authors don't get the motivation from their readers. When this forum was brand new, I remember you talking to me about authors you missed and you waited for them to find this place rather than to engage with the home invasion stories that were already there. And that is the problem.

So to come back to your original question: Yes, if activity suddenly and persistently increased I might change my mind. But don't be active to save the forum. As much as I can't carry it alone, you can't either. This is not a motivation that will last. Be active to support the home invasion authors that are here and let them know through your feedback that you want more of that stuff. Even from a purely selfish perspective of wanting more home invasion stories, this is the best thing you can do.

In my defense I didnt even know that the tags for home invasion was even a thing. I always check up on this forum and go over to the public stories section and see titles of stories that dont seem to have any sort of home invasion / blackmail / hostage situation theme to it and briefly check it out to make 100% sure it doesnt. If it doesnt than I wouldnt have any valid input to provide. If there was sub catagories maybe it'd make it easier to find stories to please ones fantasys and more interaction could occur but thats just me.

[Blue]

As for home invasion stories: I still have some of those stories on my hard drive, I just have to search for them. They're a bit older, though, and therefore not among my best stories. And they're written in German. If there's genuine interest, I'd be happy to find them and post them.

[JTCK]

I always check up on this forum and go over to the public stories section and see titles of stories that dont seem to have any sort of home invasion / blackmail / hostage situation theme to it and briefly check it out to make 100% sure it doesnt. If it doesnt than I wouldnt have any valid input to provide. If there was sub catagories maybe it'd make it easier to find stories to please ones fantasys and more interaction could occur but thats just me.

We’ve already had this discussion here or was it back at RU, but unfortunately I can’t find the relevant thread right now. The decision to do without sub-categories was intentional. The problem with them is that they often cause many stories to go unread—because someone doesn’t like the genre and therefore never even looks into that sub-category. But of course, many stories span multiple sub-categories.

From my own experience: Sci-fi just isn’t my thing. Same with fantasy. I wouldn’t have checked either of those sub-categories. Two great stories I would have completely missed out on—and which immediately come to my mind—are:
The Most Delectable Game by ShibbolethParty. Time Travel isn't my thing at all. But this story is great.
Or Marcus's Lucky Night by Vela Nanashi.
Fantasy is an absolutely no-go for me. Or so I thought. I read the story only because it was part of the FemDom-Contest. And I loved it.


So personally, I think skipping sub-categories and using tags instead works really well.

[Lucius]

P.S. I would be very grateful for a tip on how to directly link the mentioned stories here. I just can’t seem to manage it.

The linking is structured like this:
<url=https:##ravishmentacademy.com/viewtopic.php?t=549>The Most Delectable Game</url>
To make it work, square brackets should be used instead of angled and slashes instead of octothorps. It gets one

The Most Delectable Game

Selecting the Full Editor and Preview option when responding gives one a plethora of options, including URL insertion -- the 'chain' gif in the top level of pictograms.

[Blue]

I know this topic has been raised many times and repeatedly dismissed: why not a subboard for German readers?
There have been a lot of them on Ravishu recently, even though there were hardly any comments there either.
Here in the forum, there are now a few German stories, but they're rather difficult to find if you're not familiar with the search engine. And some German-speaking readers might be more likely to comment on a German story they find in a dedicated subsection than if they had to laboriously write a response to an English story using a translation program.