Hope Deferred Makes The Heart Sick

[kerravonsen]

Poll #771 Feedback

Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 7

There were only two entrants this time. Should we vote on the entries, or is it pointless?

No, two entrants is too few
0 (0.0%)

No, give me more time to enter!
1 (14.3%)

Yes, put up the poll already!
4 (57.1%)

Ticky box
3 (42.9%)

What would encourage you to participate? Finish this sentence: "I would participate if..."

it wasn't summer in the Northern Hemisphere
0 (0.0%)

the challenges were easier
0 (0.0%)

the challenges were harder
0 (0.0%)

the challenges were more frequent
1 (14.3%)

the challenges were less frequent
1 (14.3%)

someone nagged me
3 (42.9%)

there wasn't so much nagging, so I wouldn't feel guilty
0 (0.0%)

the challenges were on LJ instead of Dreamwidth
0 (0.0%)

I were running them instead of kerravonsen
0 (0.0%)

there was no voting (no winners or losers)
0 (0.0%)

there was more incentive for winning (such as winning banners)
0 (0.0%)

there were no deadlines (and thus no pressure)
0 (0.0%)

there were shorter deadlines (and thus more pressure to get started)
0 (0.0%)

nothing you can do will encourage me to participate
0 (0.0%)

I refuse to answer on the grounds that it will incriminate me
1 (14.3%)

other (explain in comments)
0 (0.0%)

I just want to tick a ticky box.
4 (57.1%)

If the participation rate continues this low, I'm not sure I want to keep running this community. What should I do?

Don't be so impatient; it will take time.
5 (71.4%)

Pack up on Dreamwidth and go back to LJ
0 (0.0%)

Take six months off
2 (28.6%)

Give up and pack it in.
0 (0.0%)

I volunteer to run it for you!
0 (0.0%)

I volunteer to co-run it with you!
1 (14.3%)

I have another brilliant idea which I will explain in comments.
0 (0.0%)

Ticky box!
4 (57.1%)

Comments

[wychwood]

I'd be sorry to see the community go, but I can see why you feel frustrated by it. I like seeing the challenges and so on, but I'm not very good about actually making and submitting entries... which is not at all helpful. I think I mostly want to wave my hand and say I *do* like the comm, even if I'm not actively contributing. But you should do what seems best to you.

[kerravonsen]

I've had people say they like the idea of the comm before, and while that is encouraging to a degree, and I appreciate it (thank you!), it isn't quite enough to overcome my blues. I moved the comm over to Dreamwidth from LJ in the hope that a fresh start would breathe more life into it, get it closer to a self-sustaining critical mass, and I've been inviting people like mad, I've been trying to do everything I can think of to make this comm work, and... it hasn't.

It's just... I have stressy things going on in RL, so I'm trying to cut down on the stress in other areas, because I have fewer reserves to deal with it than I might have had otherwise.

[wychwood]

I think all of those sound like perfectly good reasons not to keep going! This sort of thing is supposed to be fun, and if it's not, then why bother? I just didn't want to let this go by in silence without saying that I do enjoy following the comm, even when I don't contribute as I would like :)

Critical mass is such a tricky thing.

[ilthit]

I clean forgot about this, what with not reading flist for a while! :( Sorry - we're having the low-interest issue over at transficathon on LJ too, and it is a bit depressing, but we're going ahead with what we got and doing things a little differently next time.

More frequent deadlines might help; I noticed in school that any project I was given ample time to do was hurried out in the last two days, whereas if I had only a week I'd do it immediately.

I don't think moving to LJ would help. I actually have two identical challenges running on LJ and DW - on genretwisting comms on each service - and only the DW one took off! I could attribute it to word of mouth, but it could also just be that things are easier to find on DW which still has less competition.

[kerravonsen]

More frequent deadlines might help; I noticed in school that any project I was given ample time to do was hurried out in the last two days, whereas if I had only a week I'd do it immediately.
You have a point.
I made it two weeks because I found that one-week challenges were too difficult for me to complete, since I work full-time and can only really do icon-making on the weekends, whereas a lot of these challenge communities seem oriented towards students who have tons of spare time.

Do you think it would work if I posted the challenges on a Friday, and had the deadline on the Sunday nine days later? That would give people most of two weekends to work on their icons, but still be closer to "a week" than "two weeks".

[ilthit]

Hee, tons of procrastination time, more like; nothing breeds icons like procrastination! :D

That sounds good, actually! I don't know if it'll work on masse but it sounds like it would work on me.

[yvi]

I volunteer to co-run it with you!

=> Depends on what that entails. I already moderate two communities, run a fic challenge and co-run dailyprompts, so i am stretched a bit thin...

In the end, you need to do whatever you think is best. If that means a hiatus until DW is bigger (which I think would be a good option), than so be it.

[kerravonsen]

I really appreciate the offer. THANK YOU!
As for what that would entail, I think that would depend on what you think you would find easiest to do; anything to share the load would be good, simply because it would reduce my stress because I wouldn't be alone in this - but only if were sure you could do it. If you offered and then failed, that would be worse.

The tasks that this comm needs doing:
1) Getting ideas for challenges
2) Posting challenges
3) Posting challenge reminders
4) Posting the voting poll
5) Counting the votes and posting the results
6) Inviting people to join the community
7) Promoting the community

I've written a perl script that helps with #2, #4 and #5. It's insufficiently documented, but I could send you a copy anyway.
I still have quite a number of ideas for challenges, so I'm not really worried on that score. Yet.
I can see two main ways we could split up the work; one would be to alternate on everything, have one month on and one month off. Another would be to split the tasks.
What do you think?

[yvi]

Sorry for getting back to you late, I was (and still am) sick.

I am bad with coming up for ideas, but if you have a few more, that sounds great. I can definitely do challenge reminders and posting the voting polls (yay perl script!), if you just tell me the rough timeframe in which you want reminders done. I don't know many people who make icons or communities where they hang out, so I am a bit stumped on 6 and 7. But theoretically, tasks 2-5 are things I can do. Maybe we can do a shared month and if that works, I can do one month alone and you can take that off?

[kerravonsen]

I'm sorry to hear that you're sick. I hope you get better soon.

yay perl script!
(grin) Seeing as you mod a Python community, I was hoping that you would not be daunted by a perl script. As I said, it isn't properly documented; I'd like to fix up the help before I send you a copy, is that okay? And I'll probably need an email address to send it to.

if you just tell me the rough timeframe in which you want reminders done
I'm considering, as suggested in response to ilthit above, that it might be better to make challenges be nine days long rather than two weeks. The new scheme would be:
1) Post the challenge on the first Friday of the month
2) Post a reminder on the Wednesday
3) Close entries on the following Sunday
4) Post the voting poll on the Monday after that (for me that might be a Tuesday, because my Mondays are busy).

The reasoning behind this idea is that (a) two weeks is too long, people procrastinate and end up not doing it, (b) making it nine days and posting the challenge on a Friday gives people two weekends to work on it, since some people (such as me) work full-time and can't do icon-making during the week as easily as on a weekend, (c) one reminder should hopefully be enough.
I should probably do a poll about it.
I still think one challenge a month is enough; people do have a life and probably don't want to be making icons ALL the time. 8-)

But if I'm going to do that, I'll have to revise the perl script a bit. (The script doesn't do the actual posting, but it creates the most of the text for the various posts)

As for #6, my cunning method was to use the "interests" tags, find people who are interested in "icons" (and other similar interests, such as "photoshop"), and look at their profiles to see if (a) they are actively posting, (b) they mention that they make icons or have tagged posts which display icons that they have made. Then I use the community invitation facility to invite them. I did a big blitz of that just after I posted the current challenge, and a fair few people did join.

[yvi]

I am still sick, so only a short reply: my mail address is beckyvi@gmail.com

I like the 9 days challenges concept. When will the next start? If I am not o holiday then (it depends heavily on the weather, so planning ahead is a bit hard right now), I can do the reminder, closing the entries and posting the poll, maybe?

[kerravonsen]

I've sent you the script.

The community seems divided on the 9 days challenges idea; the poll I posted has equal votes for both, so I'm not sure whether to change it to 9 days or not. In some ways it's easier to leave it at two weeks, since then I don't have to make sure that the challenge is posted on a Friday; it gives more flexibility as to when the challenge can be posted, so that if forgetting happens, it isn't a disaster.

The next challenge will be next month, August. If we do the 9-days thing, it should be posted on the 7th, and due on the 16th/17th. It we keep to two weeks, it can be posted any time from the 1st onwards, but I think we should probably have two reminders rather than one; either do them half way through and then just a few days beforehand, or maybe it might be more effective if reminders are posted just before each weekend of the challenge, saying something like "don't forget to work on the challenge this weekend" and then "only one weekend left!".

[htbthomas]

Aw. It's sad you aren't getting more entries! I, for one, am really enjoying making the icons. It's helping me learn some new techniques! But I understand your frustration. If you move it back to LJ, I'll follow. If you decide to take a break, I'll be sad, but I'll be back when you are.

Basically, know that I want to participate whatever happens.

[kerravonsen]

Thanks.

[senmut]

I think the suggestions of taking a break might be a good one, let the comm build by soliciting it on dw community promo, maybe post once a week pointers until there are enough folks to run a real challenge.

I was glad for the invite, but I'm VERY nervous about tackling the challenges because I know so little about making the glitzy icons I see around.

[kerravonsen]

I was glad for the invite, but I'm VERY nervous about tackling the challenges because I know so little about making the glitzy icons I see around.
Part of the point of this comm is to give people the opportunity to learn more about icon-making by giving them challenges to do things they haven't done before. If you feel intimidated, then please don't!

What I would really, really like is if you could suggest challenges that you would like to do that you think would help you learn how to make "glitzy icons". Even if you think they are "dumb"; because they really aren't. I would be very happy to alternate easy challenges with hard ones; it's not like the experienced icon makers wouldn't enjoy making easy icons too.

[st_aurafina]

I'm feeling awfully guilty about not getting it together to make something for this challenge, because I love the idea of this comm, and I really want to support it. I've already picked up something from the second challenge, and as soon as I get time, I'm going to be trying out the GIMP for animated icons.

Time is a bit of an issue for me right now, or I'd be offering to help out if I could. I just wanted to at least offer verbal support and encouragement.

[kerravonsen]

8-) Thanks!

One thing I don't want to do is make people feel guilty, because if they feel guilty, then they will have negative associations with icon_style (even if just subconsciously), and that will make them not want to participate.