12-24-02 @ 11:22 am EST

No, reader(s), *I* will not be deleting Skew any time soon. But based on soon-to-come changes to the site, I'm willing to bet that somebody else will do the deleting for me.

In the coming few months, message forums around here are going to be purged of older messages. The more you have paid for an upgrade, that is, the higher an upgrade level you have, the longer you can keep older messages, but even Premiums will have to lose them someday. The time alotted has not been given yet, and probably won't be until the last minute.

Mind you, this has been said to apply to message forums only so far. But journals are set up in the same format as forums...and I'm willing to bet that they will be the next to go. Meaning that all our older entries will be purged as new ones are posted to our diaries.

Nice, isn't it?

I believe this will come about for a few reasons. One of course is server space, though I find it kind of odd that I remember the domain for Writing.com said there was unlimited space. I don't know exactly how the Web works though, so who knows. It'd be easier to just delete journals that have been inactive for a long period of time, but those in charge here have even said it's better to delete the items of active members than to delete the items of inactive members, as there are more items with active members. And so those of us who are actually active on the site, paying or nonpaying, those of us who make the site the community it is are the ones who are sacrificing.

Purging old journal entries would also be the way to defeat those who post their static works in this format. I have to confess, for a time I was tempted to post my four novels (nothing else) in journal format; glad I didn't now, with the way things are currently looking. Though who knows, the 1000-limit on Premiums will likely be going down in the near future too.

It defeats the entire purpose of an online journal to delete older entries, those that make up our HISTORY as diarists, but who am I to tell anyone what to do? Just somebody with the second-longest journal on the site...you got it...and again, even though I just paid $100 to keep what items I already have, when I had originally intended to pay that $100 to post MORE items, I will likely be one of the first to be penalized by the system. Again, it's interesting how those who pay the most for the site seem to be sacrificing more lately.

Really nice, as always, how I found this out only after paying the money and HOPING I could at least keep what I have, if not add everything I had once wanted to add. Now it looks like paying to keep what I have won't help me keep what I have, either. Swell, isn't it?

Please note that there is NO official word on journals yet. This is what applies to message forums. But I really don't see how they will continue to host growing journals in the future, when they are going to be purging forums. When one goes, it looks like the other will logically follow. I'm just taking an educated guess, based on events that have come to pass since April.

Skew's purpose will be defeated once (and if) it starts to be purged. Sometimes the only way I can tell this thing even has readers is by checking the stats on each entry page; when those pages are gone, I can no longer tell how many people read them, nor will anybody be able to read them, because they'll be gone. Whole hunks of personal history, destroyed. I'm glad in this case that I have backed up Skew in two locations--you can find the better one here: http://tehuti.diaryland.com/ --but even there, I can't tell if anyone is reading what entries. Even if I were to figure out how to put a counter on the site it wouldn't be accurate, as it would pick up MY reads as well. And from my personal experience, I know for a fact that readers would rather stay where they are than follow somebody to another site, no matter how much that user may beg.

So, reader(s), you may want to make your final peace with Skew while you can, and browse those older entries while they exist. I could always be wrong...and I really wish that I were...but so far I have no reason to believe I am.

I still have a dream left to describe, but I really don't want to do that right now. Maybe in a while? THAT was how I thought they were going to limit journals originally--allow only a certain number of entries a day, of a certain length--but now I've changed my mind. This makes more sense.