I have always made an effort to reply to every single story that gets posted on the board, a habit I picked up from Yo and Lisa. I read them all, with the possible exception of a few extra long submissions (to which I still reply and let the author know it was something I wasn't up to tackling at the time. The longer the story, the more intense interest I need to have in it to try and read it on a computer screen. Past a certain point, I doubt there's anything that could make me do it. I really dislike reading computer screens for long stretches that much.)

Bit of a tangent there. In any event, I firmly believe that everyone deserves a reply for their efforts on the board, and am disheartened when they do not receive them. When replies dropped to a low a while back, I made a conscious choice to give more detailed replies to the stories from those who put the most into the board, so as to increase the amount of interaction they received for their effort. There is a quid pro quo slant to this, yes... I give a subject line response to those who do not reply to my own work, and I engage in more detailed discussion on their stories with the people who do. I'm content that this is fair, and does not discourage anyone's participation.

I'm always happy to encourage others to participate, and I certainly think that replies are critical to doing so. I myself would have no desire to post stories to an indifferent forum.