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Subject: {ASSM} {REVIEW} [deirdre fest]  "An Interview with Lazeez Jiddan"   
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Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 09:10:02 -0400
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An Interview with Lazeez Jiddan

By the Journal of Desire

* * * * *

Copyright 2006 by H. Jekyll. All right reserved. Only "Journal of 
Desire" and Lazeez Jiddan have permission to repost without asking
permission first. So ask. Is that asking too much?

To contact me: h_jekyll2000@yahoo.com.

* * * * *


Lazeez Jiddan is the founder of StoriesOnLine, one of the true
successes in Web-based sex-story posting. He began the site in 1999
(actually earlier - read the interview). In its first full year (2000)
it posted 542 stories. Last year it posted well over 2,700 stories (a
virtual tie with a.s.s.m.) and the counts for January-March 2006 show
that the site continues to grow.

SOL is part of the continuing development of the (almost) World Wide
Web as the location for finding stories, a movement away from Usenet.
Unlike much of the Web, however, SOL remains available free of charge
for most readers. It is hard to believe that it operates on something
of a shoestring, run by a single person.

In this interview we ask Lazeez about running a story site, the ups and
downs (mainly ups), we delve into his own story preferences, and we see
his vision of the future of sex fiction.



(1) How did you happen to get into hosting a story site? That is, what
is the background to it?

The reason to start a stories site came from my frustration one day.

The start is much earlier than you think. I got my first high speed
internet connection in late 1996 (I never had dial-up) and of course,
soon after, I found Usenet, including ASS. One day about a year later,
I was reading a story on ASS and the story was not complete and had a
website URL where I was supposed to find the rest of the story. I
clicked the link and I was taken to a click farm where I couldn't find
the story.

Out of frustration, that same night, I started investigating running my
own site so that I can screw with that asshole that put me through my
first frustrating internet experience. And another factor in my
frustration was that I could never find a site that enabled me to
easily find the stories that I was interested in.

Luckily, that experimental high speed internet connection that I got,
gave me a static IP, so I could easily run a site on my own computer.

And so it started. A couple of months later I understood what I needed
to do to have a server running and had studied the basics of HTML and
had the first pages up. I posted a few posts on ASS pointing people to
my IP address (if I remember correctly, the first such post was around
the end of February of 1998, which marks the real beginning of the
site). Being a graphic design professional at the time, I wanted the
stories to look good, so I formatted them and posted them on the site
in PDF files.

About a year and so later, the site had grown so much that I couldn't
handle everything manually anymore, so I started working on the first
database driven incarnation which went online in mid-1999.

It wasn't until August or September of 2000 that I stopped turning off
my computer at night and kept the site online 24 hours a day.

I never really planned to have something like SOL, but here we are
today, 8 years and hundreds of millions of downloads later.


(2) Do you see yourself as a competitor with the largest sites - ASSTR
and Literotica?

Each site has a different niche it fills. And each site follows a
different philosophy.

As I consider StoriesOnLine a hobby of mine, I don't look at any other
site as competitors. I try to do the best that I can while enjoying
myself.


(3) What are the main challenges of running the site? What are the
*worst* problems you have faced so far? Do you still run it completely
by yourself? (if so, how do you manage it?)

The main challenge of running the site is keeping up with the ever
increasing demand with a very tight budget. The site brings in just
enough to pay for bandwidth, which is fine by me.

The worst problem that I ever had was when eBay bought Paypal, (which,
up to October of 2003, I used to accept payments) and then they changed
the rules abruptly (forbidding adult oriented sites from using Paypal)
and closed the site's account keeping whatever funds were in it at the
time. I had to scramble to find another credit card processor and
implement a whole new system to manage that.

I still run the site completely by myself. Every big and small detail,
every post, every story file on the site and every configuration file
in the server farm, it's still a one man operation.

It's easy to manage, now. Over the years I've written hundreds of
thousands of lines of code for the site to run and for me to manage it.
I've managed to create sophisticated software to take care of almost
everything. During my working day (I have a small graphic design shop),
I keep my eye on the site and process things as they come in. As long
as I don't let things accumulate, it's easy.

All I need to figure out now is how to take a week-long vacation. I
haven't had one since before I started the site...


(4) What has been your best experience running SOL? The funniest?

The best experience is the whole experience. 

I love having the site. It's a mental challenge in multiple ways.
Programming, designing, coming up with new features and figuring out
how to implement them. Dealing with readers and authors, it's all good.

The funniest thing that ever happened was one of the saddest too. It
was a verbal altercation with an author over a single word on the site.
Too sad to go into details, but it gave me the best laughs at the same
time.


(5) Do you still read many stories, or have you grown tired of them? 

Many stories? No, not as many as I used to. I didn't grow tired of
them, but real life has this nasty habit of intruding. Running a
business, supporting a family and running the site don't leave much
time for reading of any kind. I still try to read as many of the works
posted on the site as possible.


(6) Who are some of your favorite authors? 

Ah, time to put my political mask on. I've learned over the years that
authors are a sensitive bunch. If I say I prefer someone, then others
will feel hurt. So lets just say 'no comment'.

What are some of your favorite stories?

One favorite story. 'Doing it all over' by Al Steiner, and only because
it mirrored so much of my own life. I'm the same age as the
protagonist, I've been a medic and I think too much like the
protagonist. I keep reading it and wishing that somehow it would happen
to me so that I can save those that I've seen die around me. I guess it
gives me hope that maybe one day I would have my own happy ending.


(7) What do you look for in a good story?

I'm a sucker for happy endings, but I also look for a good challenge in
the story. I don't look for much sex. If the story can combine a
serious challenge that the characters must overcome with some of my
personal kinks while managing to have a satisfactory outcome, then I'm
happy.


(8) Do you write stories? 

Yes. Not as much as I used to (for the same reason that I don't read as
many stories anymore). But don't ask about my pen names.


(9) Okay -- I won't ask about your pen names, but could you tell the
readers what sorts of stories you usually write?

Romantic MF, Scifi and some incest.


(10) Last year you created the wiki. Why did you do that and what do
you think of it now?

I wanted to create something that would encourage collaborative
creativity. I wanted to see authors, editors and readers come together
to build something different, hopefully something outstanding. As an
author I've always received comments and suggestions from readers and
constructive criticisms from potential editors. I was hoping that a
wiki would allow the three to actually put their strengths into
creating something good.

Now I think it's big fat failure.

It seems most people with the talent to create don't want to contribute
without getting full credit for whatever they contribute. A wiki seems
to lend itself easily to fact-based subject, like an encyclopedia where
the facts are known and the articles are easy to write, verify and fix.

For stories, I don't think it works at all.


(11) Do you think that the wiki model could be modified to be more
successful--after all, some universes were extremely successful (Naked
in school, etc) and perhaps there would be a new "form" in-between?

An open universe is nothing like a wiki. The biggest difference between
a real wiki and open universe is that in a wiki, anybody can edit
anything, even delete stuff.

That doesn't seem to work for creative writing. Nobody wants to
contribute something that they won't take proper credit for and nobody
wants to contribute something that somebody else may modify so much
that it won't be recognizable afterwards.

Any form of website or mechanism that restricts who can edit what, is
not a wiki.

Something else may work. Maybe some other formula could be prefect, but
a wiki isn't it.

I would be very happy if I could find such a formula. I always do my
best to promote creativity.


(12) What are your thoughts on the current rating system at SOL? Do you
think that it reflects accurately the personal likings? It seems
certain codes almost always get high ratings (FF, teen, wife-cheat,
etc.). Have you noticed this to be correct?

The high ratings are not tied to specific codes. Specific codes affect
download count way more than they affect scores. I've written a lot
about the scoring system. It's best if you would read my entry on the
subject on my blog:

<http://lazeezj.blogspot.com/2004/10/scoring-system.html>


(13) Are you concerned about governmental crackdowns on Internet
erotica? I'm referring especially to the American government's
continuing attempt to smother Internet porn, including the recent case
against the story site: Red Rose Stories.

I'm always concerned about such issues. Whenever a group of people
manages to influence what a larger group of people are supposed to be
thinking, it can't be good.

It is sad to see that in 'the land of the free' one is not free to
think what they want anymore. In the country that supposedly built on
personal freedom, one is not free to imagine what they want.

What is going on in the US now is nothing short of an attempt at mind
control. The group that holds the power in the US now is trying to
control what the US population can think.

I understand the need to 'protect the children', but in written words
what children are getting hurt? Are we living in one of those alternate
reality world created in the stories where if someone thinks something,
it happens?

Being outside the US, I'm am powerless to influence what happens there,
even in most minute of ways. It's up to the US citizens to try to
influence the government that they think they've elected to give them
what they want or at least to stop taking away what people want.


(14) What do you foresee as the future of SOL?

As long as authors post their stories on the site and readers come to
read them, and I'm able to keep it going, the site will keep going. I
will improve the site where I can and as best of my ability. And
hopefully, the site will evolve to serve the needs of authors and
readers equally as best as possible.


(15) What about sex fiction on the internet in general?

Sex fiction is a cerebral expression of our most basic instinct. It
will always be popular and will always be in demand. The day that
humans stop seeking sex, in any of its forms is the day that human
extinction begins.

So as long as humans exist, sex and sex fiction will exist. Groups and
governments may try to suppress it, but they will never ever be able to
erase it. It may change in form and ease of access, but it will always
be there. So hopefully, the current conservative trend of those in
power will fail to drive online sex fiction underground.


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-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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