I only share a story when I think I really have something to contribute, and, well, I like to think the stories I contribute are pretty damn good. Especially the two-liners. But they don't get stars, so I'm wondering. (Or is it just because the oldest stories get the most stars? I wonder if the last-edited stories being displayed at the top was implemented specifically to combat this, and how effective it's been.) Here they are:

I'm convinced that each person thinks their own stories are the best. However in my own case, there were a couple of stories I found that were better than the ones I made up myself.

I agree with what your post is implying, that shorter stories are better than longer ones.

(Last week everyone's favorite radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh remarked that "the fewer words you use to make your point, the more powerful your point is." I thought, Right On man...).

Your stories are great. Don't be attached to what other people are doing with them, or not doing with them. Know they help, and get help from others. Some of the stories are good but need tweaks to meet some people's needs. I suck at stories, and I cannot imagine anyone not doing a better job of making them up, and I am glad that people steal my ideas and make them better.

If your story is good, I am going to steal it, but then add the ancilliary info I always do, and make it public.

If you are tied to what people are doing with your stories, maybe you are going to get mad at me for stealing 'your' story, and yet we are all here to study, thanks to the site owners and those who came before us.

Example:

載せる,掲載,(Load)サイ,のせる
...
Parts:?, 車 (cf. 栽培, 裁く, 哲哉, 中:载)
...
Story:After *Thanksgiving* dinner, you have to #load# your relative into the *car*, because they are bloated from the food.

john555: I don't necessarily think that shorter stories are better. It's just that the two-liners happen to be the most elegant.

kapalama: I submit stories with only the intention of being a help to others. Public domain and all that. I like to see this website as a crowdsourced thing where the best story floats to the top, and newcomers are left with only top quality genius stories for each and every character that one person couldn't possibly come up with on their own. (Of course I'm well aware that the effectiveness of a given story is highly personal.)

By the way, I'm particularly proud of this one I wrote just now:

When I opened the page for 命 I was hoping to find a story about some absurd and amusing specific fate involving fitting and stamps that someone else had come up with, like "*overdramatic voice* It is your fate to not be able to fit the stamp on the gift you try to send to your girlfriend for her 20th birthday!" but, disappointingly, the top voted story was quite logical and general (lowest common denominator?), and there was no specific funny fate story among the rest. I don't know how elegant my sending-letters-through-the-vagina thing is, but I believe it's the first story there (using absurdity rather than logic to achieve memorability).