A plea to keep this place going.
"This place needs more content. Let's begin."
—18thCandidate
From the E2 Editor Doc: We have a standing policy that all CEs continue to contribute content regularly. Your writing was a big part of what got you noticed here. Ideally, you should try to add at least one writeup to the database each month. It's easy to get caught up in the admin work and forget to write. Please continue to share your writing with us.
Yes, that is aimed at content editors specifically; the staff are obligated to take the lead with quality writing. But it applies to every user, in principle.
This has been coming for some time. Each month i would wonder if this is going to be the month in which I write this post, and today is the day. I recently scanned Everything's New Nodes, got the latest 100 and counted mine. 22 out of the last 100 were authored by me, and it's beginning to feel like I'm carrying too much of that (and I'm not a great writer, just a relatively prolific one, one of the top in eveything's Best Users for what that's worth.).
This is therefore a call for everyone to rack their brains, examine themselves and decide how much they (you!) are willing to contribute to that New Writeups list. From Noding Speedometer just now: wertperch has 925 nodes in total. To write the last 167 nodes, it took wertperch 365 days. This works out at 2.19 days per node. I am not blowing my own trumpet, I just don't want to feel that have to do this forever and would love to slow down. I need some help, so please help new Writeups speed up so i don't feel guilty and feel I have to fill it.
The problem is not the number of online users (it's rare to see more than three online these days), it's the number of active users. I really miss the days in which New Writeups was full of new things scrolling down, things I could read, offer feedback or correction on. One could log off for an hour and come back to a dozen new pieces. I'm a member of Content Editors and feel like a fraud because there's not enough new content to manage. Because of that, I chose to write, but I'm not sure how much longer i am willing to try and keep that up.
How much of a difference this will make, I'm not sure. But i can tell you this. Jay is working very hard to maintain and improve the site, there is a dedicated team of admins and editors. Site Trajectory 2 tells the tale of declining users, and perhaps we're looking at the end of the site, something i'd hate to see, having spent 24+ years here, with 922 writeups (165 in the past year!). I made many friends on this site (some of whom have left, many passing into memory through death, including my late wife, the lovely grundoon, whom i met here). This place means something to me, otherwise I wouldn't have come back. I'm really hoping that the site doesn't decline in a death spiral when we're so close to getting it back into Google Search's good graces. That time is rapidly approaching. AT what point do we, the admins and editors (and Jay!) decide to throw in the towel?
i'm not alone in thinking we're in the final stages of decay. At least one user is talking about backup up their writeups and walking away before it becomes too painful. Only you can save E2, by contributing. There is a Hallowe'en Quest announced for 2025, the latest in a long line of Octoberquests, but this might be the last as Jet-Poop is concerned about site stability as well as longevity. I worry that iron Noder may not run this year, i was hoping for my second iron Noder badge. I worry that, this time next year, it won't be worth running quests at all.
Am I begging? YES. I'm begging that we can keep this awesome place going, thriving, alive with fact and fiction, opinion and speculation and nuttiness. I can't, won't, do this by myself. At some point I feel, I'll be the last one noding, and that's not something anyone wants to see. You all came here because of the nuttiness and variety of this place, surely you've a couple of things you want to add before the death knell.
the dreaded 504 errors these past few weeks have made a lot of folk feel that being here is no longer worth it. I'm confident Jay has fixed (or will soon perma-fix) this issue, and i hope that we can make it worth his while.
I'm suddenly reminded of Jerusalem:
Bring me my bow of burning gold,
Bring me my arrows of desire,
Bring me my spear,
O clouds, unfold! Bring me my chariot of fire.
i shall not cease from mental fight,
nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
'Til we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.
Substitute what seems appropriate in the final couplet, I'm out of creativity for now.
Glowing Fish says re Editor Log: September 2025: Well, I certainly am doing my part. I don't understand why more people don't like to use the site. Everyone on the internet has an opinion! Why not share them here? Seems pretty simple to me.
–To which i simply applaud.
Peaceful Chicken says There damn better be a e2 funeral nodermeet if it comes to that :'( yes, the service will be held concurrently at every AWS data centre.
Glowing Fish says Also, your own story from E2, and the reason why you are probably so loyal, is really relevant to the site. I hope this isn't a difficult subject to talk about, but in the early days of the site, there was a sense of connection, and the idea that we could meet a stranger around the world, fall in love, and get married, just because we were creating text descriptions of our special interests...seemed real. That words would have such magical power that we could feel and develop a life-long connection! None of my relationships were obviously as deep (and as sad) as what happened to you, but part of the reward of the site was feeling that if I committed to the site, that it would lead to something real. That was the reward for E2, for me.
–My story is more closely conected to e2 than most people's, i agree. It's not diffcult to talk about, at all. thanks to E2 i had seven loving if tough years married to one of the finest people i ever met. i still bless her memory.
Stuart says I’ll endevour [sic] to hang out and contribute more here and less on more data intensive websites, to which i respond 'huzzah!'
Hazelnut says re Editor Log: September 2025: People don't like to use the site because the effortpost only policy, lack of brainrot content, and constant 504 errors and the fact that it's very much Web 1.0 based and this puts them off it or makes them all "hurr durr that's ooooold." I mean, I talk on here about being a crusty old millennial, but this place is really a GenX hangout. This isn't what people want to hear, but it's the truth. Why put effort into actual content on E2 when you can just circlejerk approved party lines on Reddit. And I respond that while I agree about the standards and the agèd interface, I would not feel as impassioned if we were talking about Reddit, which is frankly a toilet. Does E2 need to go Web 2? Maybe. I agree with you on teh 'effortpost' issue though. i miss the filling of nodegel gaps with pithy factuals, which take almost no effort on the part of the author. tem42 was at one tie the master of the form, i miss that..
C-Dawg says re Editor Log: September 2025: I feel guilty about my rate of contribution, even without being prodded about it…And I don't see why the look and feel of the site is bad; seems fine to me. But then I'm not one of cool kidz who's more into that than content.Oh, and site responsiveness? People complaining about that don't remember how it was 20 years ago!
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