I couldn’t resist opening this up as I browsed your port, assuming it was one of your projects or experiments. I find it to be an impassioned essay on the multitude of free benefits which WdC provides to its members. As such, I heartily agree with all you have said. In the little over a year I’ve been here, I have not paid a single penny of “real” money for anything at all, yet I never felt restricted in any way by this. Your site is exactly what it should be: a place where we can post our work for free, receive free feedback, and store and edit such work until we have a portfolio we are proud of. Or if we choose we can simply sit back and enjoy reading the work of other people. None of this has a cost, and everything else is icing on the cake, and in large part the icing is free too!
To be more personal, the lesson I’ve learned is: WdC is as good as the effort one puts into it. When I first joined, all I wanted was a spot to post a story I’d written because it was the first fiction I wrote in ten years, and I needed “validation,” in the form of praise, criticism, whatever. I joined at the free level, assuming I would never have the desire for anything further, and two days later someone gave me an upgraded membership. I realized if I wanted to keep it, I'd have to "earn" it - so I've spent the last year making myself as useful as I possibly can and having a jolly good time!
You need to update this for the site's current status: free accounts get ten items in their ports, not just five, there's the RAOK Upgrade Brigade to help people maintain their upgraded memberships, the names of certain pages have changed (the Community link on our sidebars is where the important contest stuff is... Never heard of "item jumps" before
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) and even one review per day gets you a reward of Gift Points. Plus certain authors set Auto Review Rewards, and one can participate in reviewing groups or celebrate other people's accounts with Anniversary Reviews... And I can't forget the super generous festivities which surround September! Oh yeah, if one hangs out on Scroll long enough the games there are quite helpful, too.
And after participating in elevenish Official WdC Contests and multitudes of others, I can say I've never seen one which charges any amount to join... Oh wait, I forgot one needs a paid membership to join the Official contests. I received mine so quickly I never even noticed.
Wait, you also need to increase the font size from default... I highly recommend Size 4 Verdana; other members tease me about it, but it provides an open and engaging reading experience across devices.
Ok, I've taken up enough of your time. I will never complain about this place - it's free enough for me, and I'm the ultimate cheapskate
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