User blog comment:EtherBot/Let's Talk Deletion!!!/@comment-25052433-20170210215009

When I was in the Army, a good friend of mine who was known for being quite the hardass, and he was, used to tell me, "It ain't easy being highspeed." Highspeed is a military slang that means a talented, fast learner. It can of course be used as an insult as well, but in this case, he was using it in its correct form.

Being highspeed means producing the best results, working harder than the par and demanding 100% from those around you. This mentallity usually makes people unpopular with their peers and subordinates, but when you want it done right, this is the person you want.

Where am I going with all this? Bottom line, this site is highspeed. We are not the best place for a first timer to "try it out." If you are a first timer and you simply want to test the waters, we have the writer's workshop for that. The problem is that many first timers choose not to use the workshop, but rather just roll the dice and throw their content on the main page, knowing full well what our standards and expectations are on this site.

It's not easy being highspeed, that is true. Because it makes us have to demand better content and delete that which does not meet our criteria. It's not fun deleting a story, especially when we can tell they tried their best. We offer help, we offer advice and we offer ways to avoid being deleted, such as the workshop, but still many folks choose to ignore that in favor of the instant gratification of seeing their story published on the site.

If you want to be the best, which to me, has always been the mission statement of this site, then you have to demand the best. And honestly, I have never felt that our standards were that difficult to achieve. Simple things like spellcheck go a long way. However, patience is the most important key that any aspiring writer here should learn. If you want your story to stick, and you haven't yet mastered the art of meeting our criteria on the first shot, then you have to use the tools that we give you. Post your work in the workshop, get the feedback and make the corrections. If the story simply cannot be salvaged, we will let you know. Sometimes you just have to move on to something different.

Read the blacklisted categories and make sure you aren't breaking those. Reach out! That's the best advice here, reach out to an admin or a senior user. Ask for the advice, we're happy to provide it.

A former admin once said that Creepypasta Wiki is probably not the best place to post your first story. I didn't agree completely with that, because depending on skill level, this can be a great place to start out. However, if you are inexperienced with writing and feel that your story might not quite make the mark, then don't roll the dice, because chances are, if you think your story might get deleted, it probably will.

We are not going to lower our standards to spare feelings. That defeats the entire purpose of this site. We've seen what happens when the standards drop. We've seen the My Little Pony grim dark stories, we've seen the countless Pokemon haunted games, the "you're next" stories that pile up on top of each other to the point where nothing here is scary anymore because anything goes.

I've said this a million times and I'll say it once more, if you follow the steps, learn the rules and use the tools that we provide, no stories will be deleted. Maybe that means the current story in the workshop will never make it to the main site, but it won't be deleted either. When we deleted content here, we're not deleting someone's creativity, motivation or intellectual outlet. We are deleting their impatience, their decision to skip the steps and ignore the tools. We're deleting their impulsiveness. It really is as simple as that.