mods/volunteers/tagging system

[synnerxx.livejournal.com]

so there have been several great suggestions about what to do with the backlog and tagging issues, so i thought i'd throw up a quick poll, so the mods that take over can see the preferred method to deal with that.

[Poll #1978546]

please vote!

now there are several people willing to become mods and help out with the tagging system for the prompts.

the current mod team is still cashay, enochia, evil_little_dog, simplyn2deep, theeverdream, and zelda_addict. mods, i'd like to hear from you and if you'd still be interested in being a mod, if you didn't comment on the previous post. thanks!

simplyn2deep is willing to take over my place as owner. ideally, i think two-three head mods would be awesome, so if one or two can't take care of modly duties for RL reasons or whatever, there's always someone else to depend on. then the modding team.

evil_little_dog is still willing to be a mod.

classics_lover has offered to be a co-mod.

angelus2hot has expressed interest in being a mod.
lanalucy has offered to set up a gdoc spreadsheet for the unfilled/filled prompts if that's the way the comm goes.
zippitgood offered to help maintain the gdoc spreadsheet.
gehayi seems willing to help with gdocs as well.
yuidirnt has offered to create a new delicious account for the prompts.
matrixrefugee has offered to help with a new delicious.
lynne_monstr has offered to help index prompts on whatever platform they end up on.
zelda_addict is willing to help index prompts.
raktajinos is willing to help index prompts.
scripps has offered to buy the comm a pinboard account for the prompts.

i would still being willing to help index prompts too. modding is just way too much for me, but indexing a section of prompts is much more manageable for me right now.

another user suggested moving from daily themes to weekly themes, so here's another poll about that.

[Poll #1978547]

i'm trying to get everything organized as much as possible before the next modding team takes over, so mods, if you haven't responded, i'd really like to know if you want to stay a mod or not. thanks!

Comments

[afullmargin.livejournal.com]

Still personally leaning toward GDocs, but it's a platform I'm familiar and comfortable with. I'm also willing to help index regardless of the platform it ends up on, but will have to learn anything else.

As far as daily/weekly - I like the daily format but I chose weekly because I think given the state of LJ it might be a little more realistic for everyone - I know that personally I've missed *many* themes I wanted to submit for but couldn't because by the time I could get to it the next day's was running.

[simplyn2deep.livejournal.com]

I still stand by my offer of being owner. I'm homebound for the foreseeable future and have the time.

For those who voted for weekly themes, how would this be set up? A different person every week to "guest host" or 1 person for the whole month who puts up a new theme once a week?

Also, something that I didn't think about yesterday, but that just came to me, is limiting how far in advance we give out hosting weeks. I think by doing this, it will limit the number of times we have to go to pinch hitters because the person I contacted never got back to me (and not all do despite me asking them to let me know they've received my reminder message).

[falkner]

Pinboard would be the perfect choice for archiving prompts and fills in my opinion, it has a simple layout and the tagging system is way easier to navigate through than that of delicious.

If that fails, my offer to create a new delicious account from scratch still stands.

[matrixrefugee.livejournal.com]

Seconded on Pinboard: "fic_promptly" over on Dreamwidth uses it and it's crazy-easy to use, I love it!

[falkner]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking about! Their archive is quick to browse and it makes finding both prompts and fills really easy (which is particularly great when you feel like writing something for a fandom and need some inspiration).

[daria234.livejournal.com]

I voted for G-doc just because I've never used pinboard. If Pinboard is easy and doesn't take forever to load (which Delicious always did for me), that's cool with me.

[lady_katana4544]

Thirding this. I routinely venture into fic_ promptly's pinboard when I'm looking for something to inspire writing. Very, very easy to find both their prompts and see what's been filled.

... I think I have three tabs open on my browser that have their pinboard page open right now.

[falkner]

Oh, and random suggestion: if we keep daily themes, how about dedicating a whole week every x weeks/months to just filling lonely prompts? There used to be something similar but the last time was in 2010.

[simplyn2deep.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of doing a whole week of filling lonely prompts. Right now, Sunday is the day that's supposed to be set aside for lonely prompts, if my memory is correct.

[falkner]

I guess, but it feels more like a 'if you filled anything recently link here' than encouragement to go find some lonely prompts to fill.

With proper "fill prompts!" posts there could be friendly competition to spur people to write more :D

[simplyn2deep.livejournal.com]

I think that could work.

Would a new post go up every day for that week as a place for people to post the links to the lonely prompts they filled?

[falkner]

Yeah, maybe with a tally of how many fills were written the day before? Bragging rights are great motivators.

[simplyn2deep.livejournal.com]

There's a fine line that's straddled in bragging that's to be a motivation and bragging that makes someone feel bad. I wouldn't want anyone to feel bad and stop writing because they didn't fill a lot of lonely prompts and someone was able to fill 6 or 7 in one day or something.

But if it's a general "yesterday there were 5 fills, let's see if we can get 10 today!", I'm all for that. It doesn't single anyone out.

[falkner]

Uh, I meant it in a good way, you make it sound pretty malicious, haha. I was thinking something like
"[list of people who filled prompts with numbers]
user_x filled the most prompts yesterday, a round of applause for them!"
Maybe I worded my previous comment badly.

[simplyn2deep.livejournal.com]

I get that you didn't mean it that way, and it wasn't worded poorly or anything, that was what came to mind when I read it and wanted to nip in potential hurt feelings before it got to that point.

[iantojjackh.livejournal.com]

I remember there being a problem with updating the old delicious stuff so I vote for new delicous as it's what I'm used to.

I picked weekly prompts because its hard to do every day, but weekly might be too long for some, how about new prompts twice a week?

[bk_forever]

You read my mind! I was thinking twice weekly would be the happy medium, I often don't have time with the daily post to write something before the next dat's post appears.

[bk_forever]

I voted weekly, but I'm with iantojjackh in thinking twice a week would be even better, kind of the middle ground. Either way, where would filling lonely promps fit in? At the moment, that's Sundays but if the community goes to once a week would there still be the Sunday post as well?

I have trouble navigating delicious, but I have no experience with GDocs, so I don't know if I would find that easier. I'm a technical dunce.

[angelus2hot]

I voted to keep daily prompts. With a lot of comms dying on livejournal I would be worried if this one went to weekly the same thing could happen.

[tardisjournal.livejournal.com]

This was my thought too. The daily prompts give me a reason to check the comm every day. Go to once a week and if there's a few of weeks in row with a theme I'm not interested in, I'm likely to lose interest and stop checking. And if I am, maybe others are too! There's already too much competition from other, flashier sites. Going to once a week might discourage activity, not encourage it.

That being said, maybe going to 2 or 3 times a week might be a good comprise between keeping the momentum going and giving people more time with a theme.

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

I voted for "daily" themes because, though I'm more distracted by Idol right now and don't check over here very often, if the theme is something like "Song quotes" or "weddings," I'm usually done without reading the prompts. I'd hate for that to be a whole week!

As to the dwindling participation... well, LJ is quieter than it once was, that's true. Mainly, if you have fewer live readers and prompters, then you get fewer fandoms/ideas suggested, which inspires fewer people to write. I'm probably not explaining that well, but the more people and fandoms, the more prompts and writers you attract. It's self-perpetuating or self-limiting, depending on how the cycle goes. So, more pimping of the comm, maybe?

And on the flip side, this comm has definitely gotten me writing fandoms I never thought I would, so that is bonus all around!

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

I voted "daily," but I think that we need about a month's worth of filling lonely prompts. How about one week out of every month is dedicated to nothing but filling lonely prompts? That might cut down on the need for hosts and themes.

Oh, and we could cross-post to Tumblr and Twitter to direct people to the comm.

[canonisrelative.livejournal.com]

I second all of this! Once lonely prompts are easier to find and fill, especially!

[classics-lover.livejournal.com]

I don't know enough about GDocs, Delicious and Pinboard (nearly typed Pinterest :P) so didn't vote on that one. Whatever everyone else is happy with, I'm happy with.

As for offering modding duties, just tell me what I need to do and I'll do it (even if that's just making the tea. I don't drink it, but apparently I make it well :P)

[hematitebadger.livejournal.com]

I haven't really used GDocs before, but I'm willing to learn if you need another set of hands. It's just filling out the fields with prompt information and adding links, yes?

[yyzeff.livejournal.com]

I didn't answer the second poll because I think either daily or weekly is fine. I am so busy lately I often can't peruse in a daily fashion, but I always go back and troll through things. But if a theme was weekly that would be okay too! So.

Also, I put Pinboard but GDocs is okay too, IMO.

And I agree on a little more emphasis on lonely prompts. More days where people dig around in the archive/tags/etc. and repost them, that sort of deal.

[katsuno-hitomi.livejournal.com]

GDocs seem like the obvious choice for archiving purposes, though I'm willing to give a helping hand to whatever method we end up using. Been meaning to get more involved here, anyway.

Speaking of which, how are we going to tackle that daunting task? Like, how many will do it and how will it be divided up?

[lanalucy]

I've offered to get it started. I'm kind of a perfectionist, and my dad just died, so I need something challenging to distract me and let me get my head back on straight. It's something I'd been meaning to do for my own use, anyway, so it's not all that much extra for me to just do all the prompts, rather than just the fandoms I want.

[raktajinos.livejournal.com]

I'm good with whatever tagging system we move to. I'm also able to help wherever is needed. Actually, a lot of what I do in RL is volunteer coordinating, so if you want/need someone to wrangle all the tagging volunteers, I'd love to help out there (in addition to organizing tags too)

[scribblemyname]

I voted daily because half the themes don't always work for me or it's all fandoms I don't know, so like others, I don't want to go a whole week with nothing that I feel like writing. On the other hand, I love going through the archives for more prompts and maybe we could do two or three days a week for lonely prompts, which could help, especially as old prompts still come out of the woodwork and onto our radar. Personally, I'd just prefer daily with a monthly lonely prompt week, but I'm flexible as long as prompts keep coming.

[scribblemyname]

Also, are we indexing fills? I'd be happy to help with that if it's on GDocs. Pinboard works only spottily on my computers and Delicious is a bear, but if we go with GDocs, I'd be happy to help index fills, as it seems we're covered on the prompts front.

I'd also be happy to crosspost fills to an AO3 collection as bookmarks. People could add their fics on AO3 to the collection's frontend if they're on AO3. Not sure who'd want that, but I know I'd love it.

[samueljames]

It's be great to have indexed fills in gdocs, especially if you come to a fandom late.

I, and some others for sure, crosspost to AO3 all the time but I'm not sure everyone would want that so I don't know how you'd keep track of who minded or didn't.

[scribblemyname]

Bookmarking is just bookmarking. I wouldn't have to track, just bookmark.

As for actually adding a work to a collection, I CAN'T do that, but if the collection is available, then people could add their works if they wanted to on a voluntary basis.

[samueljames]

Sorry, I thought you meant posting stuff to AO3.

Do you mean a collection on AO3 that people who crosspost could add their stuff into? I tag mine with community comment fic but having a collection would be great so people could see the variety of fandoms and perhaps pop over here to try it out.

[scribblemyname]

Exaaactly. Bookmarks would track fills. Works would be voluntary adding, just like you're tagging now, you could add. Tags on bookmarks would match the tagging system we implement for prompts. There would be a different subcollection for each year.

[samueljames]

Sounds good to me.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

I'm more than willing to co-mod. I've done it before, and most of the comms I'm the only mod for are sporadic and don't take a lot of time except maybe once a year.

Whatever everyone wants regarding the lonely prompts is fine, as long as it's user friendly and we're able to get to particular fandoms for the prompts. Obviously, I'd like it to be user friendly all around, for people inputting and people searching for prompts. This being a fun thing, the easier it is to input/locate is key, as far as I'm concerned.

I personally prefer daily themes for the same reasons as the others mentioned, the theme doing nothing for me, and I know the next day, things could be better. However, I do like the possibility of one week (or maybe a long weekend) out of the month devoted to lonely prompts.

[zippitgood.livejournal.com]

Pinboard probably is the easier option for bookmarking though my offer still stands to help with a Gdocs spreadsheet. Because sometimes it's just simpler to do a Ctrl+F and search for the fandom you're looking for.

[with-rainfall.livejournal.com]

GDocs or Pinboard is fine with me, and I voted daily even though I hardly write for this comm anymore. Also, a lonely prompts competition would definitely spur me on to more fills.

[lynne-monstr.livejournal.com]

I'm late to the party but I voted for daily prompts because I always look forward to seeing the new theme each day. I would definitely be interested in a lonely prompt fill-a-thon, or whatever we would be calling it.

I didn't vote on the indexing because I don't know enough about the different platforms to weigh in. Whatever we end up on, my offer to help stands.

[samueljames]

So it's looking like GDocs is the winner. I'm taking out my money I'd left in the bank to cover pinboard. The offer still stands down the road if I have the money.

[scribblemyname]

So are we waiting for a go ahead on all this or getting to work?