User blog comment:EtherBot/Let's Talk Deletion!!!/@comment-25947144-20170210112656

I kinda skimmed through the comments, so sorry if it seems like I'm repeating stuff. As someone who tags 5-6 (on average) stories for deletion, I'm kinda bugged by this post.

Something you never seemed to consider is who the people who's stories are deleted are. Bout half only post once and never return. 20% only return to get butthurt, with bad grammar in their whining. 20% either become spammers/vandals or simply post a bunch of bad stories in a row. Only bout 10% actually seek help to try to improve themselves, even then quite a few of them give up pretty soon. I would have no way of knowing, but I'd guess at least a good portion of them are underage, which isn't necessarily bad, but I'll bring this up later. So who exactly are we really 'loosing'? How many are we 'discouraging'? You realize most of these people didn't bother to search the rules and never will. Why should we be more lenient because they don't give a fuck?

I have exactly the opposite view on originality. We have stories about ghosts, vampires, werewolves, zombies, wendingos, aliens, foreign beings, abuse, depression, serial killers, cannibals, diseases, insects, phobias, rapists, even Goddamn Santa Claus! All of those written by hundreds of different authors with different styles. How can you say all of them blend in? I can even give you examples of different stories from the same author that feel different.

And do you really think that we should change the whole system because a few people get 'discouraged? That's a stupid point in so many ways. First of all, changes made to spare someone's feelings are NEVER good. Second of all, if you want to become a writer (or any type of artist for that matter) one of the first things you need is thick skin. As mentioned earlier, a good number of these people are probably underage, and I don't even mean teenagers by that. Being children, they are much more stubborn, much more butthurt and much more stupid compared to any other age group and have to wait years before thicker skin is even possible. Take a look at Reary or Lucid. They each had several stories deleted but stuck around and tried to improve themselves even though they didn't have much "encouragement".

The last paragraph really bothered me. If you hope to make a change, you'll never accomplish that by just complaining without offering a solution.