Deeker's Diaper Page

History

Revised April 21, 2001

The second logo used for Deeker's Diaper Page (file date 8/11/1996). The first logo used has been lost.

Deeker's Diaper Page officially debuted on May 4, 1996. This was back when the Internet was just starting to become a household name and web sites devoted to diaper fetishism were not nearly so common as they are now. The Usenet newsgroup alt.sex.fetish.diapers was the main source for stories, information and other discussions on diapers. The group has since degenerated to a virual wasteland of spam messages. If you have never been there, you're not missing a thing, trust me. When ASFD was a worthwhile resource for diaper stories I posted my own stories there. I also made many of my first contacts with other diaper lovers there, many of them responding to my stories. One of the problems with ASFD (aside from being ruined by spammers) was that my stories were not available in their entirety, given their length.

To address this problem, I created a web site using the 5 megabytes of space available to me on my ISP at the time, so that people could read all of my stories. The site was very simple in its stucture and the HMTL code was quite rudimentary, using the smattering of HTML that I had recently learned at the time. It was mostly basic black text on a white background with just a handful of small graphics. Everything on the site could be accessed within a single click of the mouse as everything that I had was listed on the site's front page. I had only written three stories at the time: Diaper Desires , The Blue Package , and Brian the Bedwetter , the latter two of which were concurrently works in progress. All of the HTML code was written manually. While I could implement enhancements on this page with advancements in web design such as JavaScript, frames and the like, I still write my own HTML code and I keep things simple. No doubt, the presentation of a web page's design is important, but I place the greatest emphasis on the content itself. Put another way, how good the meal tastes is more important than what the plate on which it is served looks like.

The original purpose I had in mind for my page was quite modest, just to have a means with which to store and distribute my stories to the masses. The idea of posting other people's stories never entered into my mind, but someone asked me to post his story, Tim and Todd, on my site along with my stories, thus making his the first Contributed story that I posted. Several others followed and had their stories added to my site. This section has grown to become quite a repository for diaper stories.

Little did I anticipate the success that was soon to come my way. The emails I was getting from people helped to encourage me and motivate me to continue writing my own stories. More stories from other authors continued to come in. Before long, the five megabytes that at one time seemed plentiful enough for my site was quickly becoming inadequate. The use of additional server space was going to cost me more than I could afford (I was a lowly retail clerk at the time making just enough to get by). A temporary workaround solution to this limitation was to post all the stories as .zip files. This, of course, proved to be awkward and difficult for unseasoned computer users who had no idea what to do with the files, and admittedly, it must have been a pain to have to unzip each file before reading it. Deeker's Diaper Page had outgrown its britches, or rather, its diapers, so to speak.

I had to look to other options. While I had my doubts (which were later determined to be justified), I opted to go with Geocities in November of 1998 (back in its pre-Yahoo days) in spite of my concerns regarding Geocities' overly rigid Terms of Service (TOS) on web page content. For just a few dollars per month I had 25 megabytes at my disposal. This was less than what my ISP would have charged me for more space. By this time I had a guestbook, and the stories could once again be viewed directly from the site. Things went well for awhile, even with Yahoo's acquisition of Geocities and being forced to display the Geocities watermark on my page, having to display banner ads and pop-up ads and the like.

By then my site was again about to outgrow its capacity, fast approaching the 25-megabyte limit. I was considering ordering more space for my site at that time. I was also offered the option to move my site to another server. While I didn't take this person up on his offer right away, his timing couldn't have been better. On August 29, 1999, a Sunday morning, I signed online as usual, only to discover to my horror that my web site was no longer there! It had completely vanished. Several emails from regular readers of my site further indicated that it wasn't just a problem getting to my site from my end. I received no emails indicating that perhaps I had, in the eyes of Geoshitties, violated their TOS (to which I would have told them to blow me anyway). Before getting nasty, however, I wrote a politely-worded email to the staff to ask them what happened to my web site, thinking that maybe someone with a pulse will actually read it and-- let's not push our luck here-- get a real response. As I had halfway expected, all I got back was a canned auto-reply which included such wonderfully thoughtful suggestions such as checking to see if I had mistyped the URL and other common sense bullshit such as this.

I decided, hell with it, it's not worth fighting against the heavy-handed TOS imposed on me by the corporate conglomerate that had become of Geocities as a part of Yahoo's then latest effort to buy up the entire Internet. Besides, I already had another option available to me.

I went back to the guy who offered to let me put my page on his server, and within a day I had Deeker's Diaper Page up and running once again. I sent out 127 individual emails (I detest getting emails from a mass distribution list and it would have been hypocritical for me to have done the same) to the people who had written to me within the previous six months to let them know where my page was. I also contacted several webmasters to inform them of the change. There were a few bugs which needed to be worked out, a few broken links that had to either be fixed or removed, but soon everything was back to the way it was before.

The site has since grown considerably since it went online in its current location at the end of August 1999. In addition to several new stories submitted by many fine and creative authors, the site has also expanded to include several extensive surveys, sighting reports, plus ways to make submitting stories easier. I am always thinking of new ways to make this site more fun for me and for the people who visit it.

While I have worked hard to build this site to what it is today and have put forth a lot of effort to maintain it (and continue to do so by spending time on the weekends to update it), and while I am proud of what I have accomplished, both in terms of this website and the following of many loyal fans and in the many friends I mave made through it, it would be remiss for me to take the credit alone and to not acknowledge those of you who helped to make it possible. Thanks to everyone who has shown their support through email messages, stories and other contributions. You are the ones who truly deserve the recognition for helping to make this site what it is today. It wouldn't have happened without you.

So what does the future hold for Deeker's Diaper Page? Only time will tell. I will continue to write stories and I expect contributing authors to keep sending me their fine submissions. New ideas may come along, and as they do they will be implemented on this site. I hope for the day when I can run this entire site off of my own server, at which time I will have complete control over every aspect of its operation. Even if this never comes to be, I will make sure this site always has its presence among the AB/DL community and will continue to serve the needs and wants of the people who visit it.