Key elements: make it easier to see, read, and use. Give it a 'hook'. As to how I acheived these things... I think it's a combination of the above, and good luck. It took two writes and several months to get this off the ground, and being linked on yahoo and various other sites were a big part of that. How I got on yahoo, I don't know. But the idea was novel, within a niche, and so was talked about, and the talking spread. I'd like to think the layout is not so hard on the eyes, the options are relatively simple to find, and it's easy to while away the time browsing, or voting, or whatever. That, and it was targeted: poemranker is for _poems_. There are other places for stories, other places for visual art, etc. Each of those niches, while 'artistic', have different modalities and different crowds. Attempting to cater to all of them at once is difficult, and you have to look at what you're competing with.
Actually, the best question to ask, is "why _is_ Blind Forums?". Why would someone post (for example) their stories there, as opposed to http://critters.org, http://imaginaries.org/, http://critiquecircle.com/, or (the list goes on). I'm not saying "don't try". I'm saying, "consider this".
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