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

[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!".