Deeker's Message of the Week

October 27, 2002

As some of you have undoubtedly noticed, there seems to be a lull in the number of new stories and story updates received as of late. While I cannot conclusively determine why the dropoff in submissions, I can point out a couple of factors which may explain why there aren't as many new stories and updates posted in recent weeks:

• Three of my regular contributors have not been submitting much material for their stories lately. Two of them have been very busy, and the third one has dropped off the face of the earth, as it seems. He has not responded to my emails inquiring on how he has been doing. He is an elderly man and his health has been in check in the time I have known him, so it's hard to say if he's doing well or not.
• The material that I have been receiving has not met my criteria for what I post to this site. Some of the stories have contained scenes and/or characters, or have expressed ideas that are not fitting for the theme of this site, so I have had to address these issues with the authors. This is something that I really don't like to do, but at the same time I feel I must do it in order to keep the integrity of the site intact. Others have been sending me True Accounts as well as Contributed Stories that are far too short to be worthy of posting, a couple of paragraphs at the most. Lastly, some of the stories that people are sending me just are not well-written. I realize this is a touchy and difficult issue since I really don't feel that I have enough authority to judge what constitutes good writing and what doesn't. I am well educated and I understand the English language quite well, but I know that I am not an expert and I admit that my own stories probably contain a few errors of their own. Still, I feel that my own experience and knowledge of the language is sufficient to determine what passes and what doesn't. The stories that I reject on the basis of writing quality are very clear-cut examples of poor writing, containing numerous errors in punctuation, spelling, grammar, etc.
• Having analyzed the trends, it seems that following my annoucement of having a girlfriend and the possibility that the web site may be updates less frequently, this information seemed to make people feel less inclined to submit material to the site. With this theory in mind I feel that an update is in order. While I really don't intend to use the MOTW to report the personal happenings in my life, in some cases I feel that it is necessary, particularly if such events in my personal life affect the way this site is maintained and/or my ability to keep in touch with those who exchange email with me. Case in point: In the 09/08/02 MOTW I reported having a girlfriend. Along with this report I wrote about my concerns for how my involvement with her may affect my ability to maintain this web site, not to mention my personal concerns about revealing to her my diaper fetish. I wish I could say that things are still going between us, but they aren't. Without going into too many soap-opera-esque details, I am pleased to say that at least things ended peacefully without bitter words and I still talk to her every now and then. She just wasn't ready to commit to a long-term relationship and she could not see herself with me being her lifelong love. It hurt to be told this and it took me awhile to accept it. I never did tell her about my diaper fetish, but perhaps she had sensed this, or at least she sensed that there was something about me that she felt was not compatible with her day-to-day living. Maybe she knew more about this side of me than I realized. I don't know when I will date again, but I don't plan to squander away my 30s like I squandered away half of my 20s. The experience, though brief, did give me a good firsthand perspective on what I will be up against should I start dating again, when it comes to my diaper fetish and this web site.

• Diaper Calculator (33K ZIP file). This is a program that calculates the right size of diaper for a child based on age (2-16), gender (yes, boys and girls, I didn't write the program) and weight. View the readme file for more details (readme is included in the .zip file).
• Change Tommy's Diaper (241K zip file, extracts to 5.5 MB executable). A visitor of this site took the Tommy picture on the main page (the picture of the boy wearing a diaper and a top) and made a program where you can put on and take off his top, pants, and diaper. It's quite fun to play when you're bored. I don't know what the system requirements are other than that it runs on Windows (it ran just fine on my own Windows 2000 machine). It's a pretty simple program and it should run on any system made within the last five years. If you encounter any technical problems running the program please contact me and I will forward your comments to the creator of this program.

Both of these files are listed in the seldom-updated Miscellaneous section.

- Monday, October 21, 2002 at 03:13:41 (EDT)
none of your bussiness




Country: USA




Comments: HEY!!Listen up--I am sick and tired of visitign this site every day and there being nothing new. If you're gonna have this website make it your life or quit.

I originally wrote some very scathing remarks directed towards this individual when writing this piece, but I have since recanted such remarks and I chose not to include them here for the sake of civility. I realized that these remarks were only written as a reaction to how my personal feelings were affected by his post, so I will just stick to the points where I have issues with this particular person.

First, He he says he visits this site every day and there's nothing. Of course there's not going to be new material every day! For the past several years this site has not been updated daily, but weekly! If you visit the site each day and expect new material, you're going to be sorely disappointed. Actually, come to think of it, there is a place on this website where people can check for new material each day, and the person who posted the offending guestbook entry should already be familiar with it, because, well, he's actually used it. That's right, the Guestbook! As I described above, all the approved entries (funny how his entry didn't seem to make it after all) are posted each night at about midnight eastern time.

If the person who wrote the offending Guestbook entry is reading this, and he took the time to read what I wrote above, yes, I realize there has been nothing new (stories) added to the site lately. Perhaps I should enlighten him to the fact that I mostly rely on others to submit material for the site, I can only speculate from within the scope of my conjectural analysis the reasons why the number of submissions has been fewer. I cannot conclusively substantiate my findings. In short, fuck if I know why there has been fewer stories! I try to make a reasonable effort to encourage and inspire writers to submit their own stories to the site, but I can only do so much. So if there has been a decrease in activity and he's all bummed about it, then-- hey-- join the club! It's not like I'm not concerned about it!

Oh, and I just love the part where he says, "If you're gonna have this website make it your life or quit." For the record, I do put several hours of my time into the web site. I don't keep track of how many actual hours I devote to the site on an average weekly basis, but I'd say at least 15-20 hours, depending on how many stories I have to review and the lengths of said stories, in addition to the volume of survey responses received. Please be aware that this site is a one-man band (okay, I have gotten some help on more technical matters beyond the scope of my own skills). Each week, this is what I have to do to keep the site going the way it is:

• Read and edit (make corrections, sometimes a mind-numbingly tedious task) each story received and review them for content.
• Add new stories and updates to the story lists, ferret out the Discontinued Stories and relocate them to their own list, update the zip files for each section. This takes about 2 to 4 hours.
• Process the Diaper Sighting Reports, about an hour's worth of work depending on the number of sightings received.
• Process the Surveys, of which there are currently four different surveys. This alone takes a few hours, though this task has been made much easier thanks to the programming efforts of a very generous individual who devoted his time to helping me automate much of the tedious work previously required. There are still some manual steps involved. I'd give the surveys about 4-8 hours on average, including maintaining the archives after every 100th survey response in each of the four sections.
• Diaper Ratings. These take about 1-2 hours to process.
• Update the Drawings section. I did a lot of advance work for this and now it only takes about 5 minutes to do this section.
• Collect and present the data reporting the number of hits for the Top Ten stories. This takes about a half hour.
• Writing the MOTW takes about 20-30 minutes, depending on what I feel like sharing with my readers that week, if anything. This MOTW obviously has taken much longer to write.
• At the beginning of each month I reorganize the Guestbook entries and put the previous month's entries in their own monthly file. Each month also means starting a new Diaper Sightings file. These two tasks take about a half hour total.

Some features of the web site have been discontinued because of the time it takes to do everything else. For example, I no longer post the data for all of the stories. There used to be neat and pretty and colorful bar graphs and everything, but priorities dictated that this task be subordinated to the Top Ten lists that I now do. I would also like to post summary data for the surveys, but-- surprise-- I haven't had the time to work on this project that has been put off for well over a year, since the inception of the surveys. I've also been wanting to include content codes with the stories (like the ones DPF uses for their stories to let people know what kind of material to expect in the stories they order). As much as I would like to finish this task someday, I don't expect it to happen any time soon, that is, without outside volunteer help.

Beyond maintaining the web site, I spend time writing emails to the people who contact me, usually a couple of dozen or so per week. Let's not forget that I have my own stories to write, plus all of the drawings that I have been working on.

There are probably several other little tasks that I didn't think to include in the list, but my aim is to make it abundantly clear to this person that within reason, I more or less do make my web site my life! I am very dedicated to what I do on this site and I am very proud of what I have accomplished. If anyone is thinking that I look at all of this work as a chore, it isn't. It's a labor of love and I wouldn't do it if I didn't get something out of it in return.

I have made lots of friends from my web site, which I consider to be the greatest of the things that I get out of my web site. In fact, the reason I was gone last week was to visit one of these friends (my third time visiting with him). He's a very special friend who is good enough to be a brother to me and worthy of my vacation time from work and flying halfway across the United States to see him for a few days. While I realize most people probably don't care where I went or who I visited, the point I am making here is that I deserve vacation time just as much as the next guy. Sometimes I spend time with my family and have to leave early on Sunday mornings for these functions. If I know about these activities in advance I will make a note of how these activities will affect web site updates in my MOTW.

Not all of my Internet activity even pertains to this site or to diapers. I am a frequent visitor and regular contributor to the message board at The Straight Dope, for example. I like to get my weekly dose of laughter from The Onion. Since I like to keep my MP3 collection from getting stale (even several hundred or a couple thousand MP3s can get old after awhile) I like to keep my music collection fresh by downloading from my WinMX software. (yes, I still buy the CD if I really like the band). There are lots of other sites outside of diapers that I visit that I have not listed here.

The point I am making is that I can't tend to my web site all the time as I have nobody else available to do this. To familiarize someone with how to maintain my site would be an enormous undertaking involving many, many hours. Sometimes it's just easier to hang up the ol' GONE FISHING sign.

Even when I am home I still have other obligations to meet. I have a full-time (40 hours a week) job that pays fairly well, and I'd be damned to lose the job. It's a great job for various reasons, and whether I have a great job or a shitty job I still have bills to pay (one of which is my web site). So, if you want me to make my web site my "life", it's important that I satisfy the expectations of my employer first.

Lastly, I very much value the time that I spend with my family. I also like to have some leisure time to visit with my local friends and participate in activities with them (going to movies, bowling, going out to eat, etc.). As mentioned above, if I have a girlfriend, it's especially important to me that I spend time with her, and if I start dating again it may mean making some changes to how I run the web site. Once again, if I expect such changes to occur, I will announce them in the MOTW.

In closing, I should remind the person who posted the message above that he is getting what he sees on this site for free! There aren't even any memberships required for this site, free or otherwise. There are no annoying banner ads, pop-ups or other obtrusive distractions interrupting the enjoyment of the material posted here. Besides making visits to this site more pleasant, the absence of banner ads and pop-ups means that there is no revenue being generated for this site from such ads. There isn't even a link to Paypal or anything which requests making donations to pay for the site. The entire site is funded by what comes out of my pocket (when I am wearing pants, that is, as diapers don't have pockets ). Not to brag, but I personally feel quite proud to be able to offer the contents of this site to so many people without expecting anything in return (submitting stories is about the only sort of "donation" I solicit). With all of this said, he still has the choice whether or not to visit this site, and if he doesn't like the fact that it isn't updated absolutely every week or that each update doesn't always include lots of stories, well, then he can always just leave.

Someone on the Bravenet Diaper stories board reported that as of 10/20/02 my site has attained one million hits! Figures that I would be out of town when this happens . Doing the math, this works out to about 873 hits a day, or 37 hits an hour, or about one visitor every minute and 39 seconds! This shows that the site has become more well-known since its inception at its current location on September 1, 1999. Before this, the site was hosted on Geocities and before that on the free web space provided by my then-ISP (a whole five megabytes back then!). Having picked up 305,000 hits during this time (June 4, 1996 to August 31, 1999) this amounted to about 251 hits a day, or one hit every 5 minutes 44 seconds. This change represents an increase of 347% between the two time intervals, which is likely due to the advent of the Internet itself.

In case you're wondering, I cheated on making the screenshot shown above by copying over the rest of the zeroes. I just wanted everyone to see what it looked like when it actually happened.

Since there were no new stories posted on the last update (10/13) I won't post any story stats. As there are stories to post this week, I will report on the results of these stories next Sunday (11/3).