A Sad State of Affairs: The Downfall of Wattpad

How Deleting the Community Forums Killed Wattpad's Engagement

Most of my formative years as a young writer were spent on Wattpad. It was the first place I'd ever seen where I could publish a story- a book- for free. I was elated, I'd been writing since I was seven, and now I had a way to share my stories with the world, to get feedback, and help myself grow.

I'm not going to lie, My stories were not great. My characters were emotional, one dimensional and had no goals. My editing was, well, nonexistent. I didn't even bother doing anything other than writing a first draft and posting. Something I'd never even dream about doing today.

I dived into the Wattpad community. There were forums for everything- romance, fanfic's, werewolves. I started offering free covers in one of the forums, which was the start of my love for Graphic Design, which I'm currently pursuing a degree in.

The forums offered advice, editors, curators, beta readers and Critiques. For some writers, including me, this increased our knowledge and execution of craft twofold. Once my very popular 'Bad Boy' series featuring my characters Jess Sanchez and Brett Michaels finished, I tried many other books, ideas I felt were much more unique, and could garner a lot more attention than my last series. Unfortunately, back then Wattpad readers were more interested in regular high school romance dramas, rather than what I wanted to branch out and write about.

This lead me to slowly taper off. Eventually, I found myself going years in between logins.

It was August 2020 that they completely closed down the forums. But they made commenting unavailable starting in July. Their website states that the reason for this dramatic change in how Wattpad's community works was:

"...We cannot ignore that many members of our community don’t always feel safe or welcomed in the Forums. We've spent a lot of time talking and listening to our community to better understand your experiences in the Forums. From what many of you have told us, the Forums are not working for you, and more importantly, not creating the type of space we want for you. We acknowledge that our team has not provided the moderation needed to properly support the Forums."

I honestly have to give Wattpad props, they knew the forums had overgrown what their moderator team could handle, and they took steps to ensure that it's users were given a safe environment. I can't dock them points, when some other websites would of just easily let it grow out of control until they had some sort of repercussion, like a lawsuit on their hands.

But, without this forum and the change in how you're able to find books, this completely obliterated the interactivity writers had on the platform. It wasn't just writers looking for advice or book covers; it was readers interacting with their favorite artists, people lifting one another up, a place to promote work and progress. It was the heart of the Wattpad community.

The Wattpad Community has tried to re-introduce the forums the only way they can-- with books. But unfortunately, many writers all had the same ideas and there's no one true forums book available. Despite the efforts, it was not well received because of how difficult it is to search for key terms in Wattpad now

I of course, wasn't there when the change happened. Between working fulltime and doing school fulltime, having a boyfriend and expecting a baby niece in the following month, Wattpad was far from my mind. What brought me back was Vocal, believe it or not. I had over 25 poems, short stories, and book ideas jotted down in my Wattpad drafts. I logged in to access them a few months ago (August). When I logged in it was like I'd entered an alternate reality. Everything was different.

I'll admit, the layout was more modern, larger text, and I loved seeing the many monetary offers to writers. But when I went to look for who'd created an old cover for my books, I found out the forums had been un-ceremoniously executed.

This brought a mixed feeling of anger, confusion and frustration. How could they delete one of the only ways we communicated with each other? Now there was only story comments and DM's.

DM's were difficult, because most people who have over 100 followers get flooded with spam in their DM's and either turn off notifications, or block those who they don't follow mutually.

Now, all those clicks generating to their site are being allocated in other places, like Facebook groups or off--site forums. The sense of community is broken, disjointed. I've had to join several online communities to replace the resources and community I had with Wattpad. It's alright, but its difficult to find willing readers. The ones on Facebook are a bit picky, which is completely their right to be. If you're offering your time as a free service you should be picky. But this does however, make it more difficult for younger writers to find help.

At the end of the day, I wish I could say I still love Wattpad, but what with them being unwilling to cooperate when author's stories are stolen (despite their copywrite claim) and now waving goodbye to forums, I can't say I do.

I've pulled all of my stories from Wattpad and even changed my published books to private, leaving only a chapter 1 review. So with a heavy, nostalgic heart, I wave goodbye to Wattpad, and turn to other avenues.

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Thank you for reading!

What do you think about the route Wattpad is headed in? Do you agree with my thoughts, or completely disagree?