Home For Fiction – Blog

You might have noticed some minor changes on Home for Fiction lately. Or then again, you might have not, and the only person reading this is me. Ironically enough, this very element (meta- time!) is part of the reason there have been such changes.

Among these recent changes, the most conspicuous must be the disappearance of comments and the lack of a link to the support page that used to decorate the header.

Moreover, if you’ve found this post coming from the common app interface (just try to visit any of the Home for Fiction apps), you have realized that all Home for Fiction apps are nowadays limited to a fixed number of users per day. Each user is also limited to a few boots per hour.

I want to explain all this – though, somewhat egotistically, not to you; the intended audience is I alone, as it has always been. Writing this post is only meant as a vehicle for putting my own thoughts in order and understanding something new. But if it’s informative to you, great!

Changes on Home for Fiction: Comments

For a long time, comments on Home for Fiction were open for all posts. But together with popularity (several of the posts are at the top of relevant Google searches) comes stupidity.

Pretty soon, many attempts at leaving a spam message began to appear. And because I absolutely want full control – to the extent I coded the site and the blog from scratch – I neither trust nor want to use any spam filter code I’ve not made myself.

Inevitably, I had to limit commenting to only the most recent posts. That helped for a while, but soon my inbox began to be flooded once more with notifications for new messages. 99% of them were spam.

The Lack of Real Engagement

Now, let’s clarify something: Had there been legitimate messages at the same time, I would’ve certainly implemented a spam trap to hold those attempts at bay. Spam bots are generally very stupid. However, that wasn’t the case.

Unfortunately, the number of people who bothered to comment on Home for Fiction on a remotely semi-regular basis could be counted on the fingers of one hand. I’ve had many excellent conversations with them, and their input added significant value to the text.

Nonetheless, by comparison, the numbers were cruel. On a given day, I could get 50 “new message awaiting moderation” emails; that’s over 400 emails a week. Considering that, on average, there were 1-2 legitimate messages at best each week, and it’s easy to say “fuck it, I’m done”.

Especially when that also fit the more general ideological shift on the site.

Changes on Home for Fiction: Lack of Support

As I mentioned in the introduction, another change you might’ve (just sayin’…) noticed is that there are no longer references to supporting Home for Fiction, either in the header or anywhere else (e.g. within the apps).

The truth is, again, that numbers are cruelly imbalanced. There have been a few wonderful individuals who, essentially expecting nothing in return, have supported Home for Fiction both financially and in other ways. A couple of them on a regular basis.

Yet when I look at the use of Home for Fiction resources (e.g. apps), these few – on-the-fingers-of-one-hand few – shining exceptions try to balance against tens of thousands of users/visitors on a given month.

For a while, I even notified users of what would happen: I explicitly mentioned that domain and hosting costs were significant, and precisely because I won’t, ever, place ads or sell out to sponsored posts (and I’ve had plenty of those offers), the only way to support the existing, unrestricted-free-access model was to support Home for Fiction.

Nothing changed.

Lack of Caring? Lack of Respect? Laziness?

To be clear, it’s perfectly understandable for only a few users to be able to financially support something they don’t really need to. Let’s be reasonable, Home for Fiction doesn’t offer the solution to world hunger or anything of the sort.

However, what I struggle to understand is the complete lack (i.e. in terms of comparing total users vs supporters) of non-financial support.

At least whenever I discover something I genuinely like and appreciate (especially if it’s free/ad-free), the least I can do is to send a short message to the developer/artist/creator and let them know. I also always try to share what I’ve discovered – have you noticed how many times I’ve mentioned the excellent RiTa library on Home for Fiction?

Lack of caring? Lack of respect? Laziness? Maybe. People grab something free and run away, I suppose.

For Whom Is Home for Fiction Meant?

For me. That has always been the case, and always will continue to be.

Ironically, that’s the only way for you to receive anything remotely of value on Home for Fiction – unless you prefer an internet full of ads, AI-generated content, newsletter pop-ups, ad-blocker warnings, and multiple cookie consent banners.

I certainly don’t.

Most people seem willing to prostitute themselves for money, fame, or even a few likes on anti-social media. But there are also artists out there, who can’t be bought.