Share your thoughts on December's Lonely Prompt Month

[simplyn2deep.livejournal.com]

Like I mentioned in the previous entry, the poll for your thoughts on Lonely Prompts Month. There is no anonymous voting, but anonymous comments are allowed; it will take me some time to make them public.

[Poll #1994256][Poll #1994256]

Additional Poll Question: How did you go about finding the lonely prompts you requested/filled?
Leave your reply in the comments.

If you have any other comments you'd like to make about lonely prompts month, feel free to leave them in the comments to this entry.

Comments

[scribblemyname]

I loved the month until I hit Yuletide season, then all activity here pretty much ceased until that wrapped and I still am way behind on Yuletide reading. I like lonely prompts month, but I suggest moving it to a different month if we have any appreciable number of Yuletiders.

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

I participated much less than usual. I don't write for the really big fandoms and found it hard to find prompts to fill, without spending a long time combing the archives - which felt counter productive.

[bk_forever]

I love the idea of having a lonely prompts month, but with all the Christmas preparations I barely had time to participate. I wonder if January might work better, when people are unwinding after the festive nmadness. Just a thought

[eggplantlady.livejournal.com]

I did not participate, but thought it was a great idea. My lack of participation was mostly due to finishing things up for Yuletide and the holiday season, so I agree with some of the other commenters that a different month for lonely prompts might help boost participation.

[doreyg.livejournal.com]

I agree with a lot of people here that it was a lot of fun, but possibly at the wrong time. When it got to about the 20th I had no time to write, and wouldn't have really wanted to if I had. January would be a lot better for me, at least.

It was also a bit of a nightmare to find prompts, sometimes. Though I'm not so sure what could be done about that.

[scribblemyname]

Maybe make it so we can post more than 5 requests?

[doreyg.livejournal.com]

Possibly! I did find a fair few prompts off the trawling other people had done, I must admit...

[likewinning.livejournal.com]

Same! Tbh most of the prompts I found were just from following links left by other people...

[falkner]

Getting LJ to actually get their search working would help a lot already, haha...

[doreyg.livejournal.com]

OH GOD THE SEARCH. Sooooooo much agonised swearing over that XD

[classics-lover.livejournal.com]

It was great fun, and an excellent idea, but I wasn't always able to participate due to college work being due in December (and other personal stuff getting in the way).

I wonder if doing a Lonely Prompts week or Lonely Prompts Fill-A-Thon(s) like they do on skyrimkinkmeme might work better? Say the first (or last) week of a month just be for Lonely Prompts. Or specific dates each month (1st-3rd Jan or 2nd - 6th Feb, etc.)

Or, if monthly is too often, once a quarter? Say one week of Jan-Feb-March, then one week of April-May-June, etc. or go by the financial year and start in April :P

Or if any guest-hosts are willing to do Lonely Prompt Theme days, maybe get Lonely Prompts filled from a specific category (not necessarily a single day's theme, but, say if they could link to a theme on the spreadsheet or via Advanced Search find themes to promote on Lonely Prompts days/weeks/fill-a-thons. Or is that too much work? Possibly.

[simplyn2deep.livejournal.com]

Like I said in the guest host sign up page, the last week of March, June, September and December will be specifically for filling lonely prompts. I could possibly allow some guests hosts to include a lonely prompts day to their week of hosting, but with already having one weekly on Sunday, I don't want to overwhelm people.

Linking to specific categories would be too much work. Not all of the lonely prompts have been added to the spreadsheet (I need to touch bases with the people working on them), so I think we're still heavily relying on the Advanced search technique or people bookmarking the ones they like.

And...that's given me another question to add to the poll.

[classics-lover.livejournal.com]

I had honestly forgotten about the one-week runs (or maybe that's where my idea came from - subliminal plagiarism :P)

[denyce.livejournal.com]

I didn't participate and admittedly I'm a big hit/miss throughout any given year. However I really loved the idea and having another month or 2 throughout the year to do the same, would be nice (& better odds that I'd participate). It'd give me the push to comb through author's choice, my fav! Since my fandoms or pairings are rarely if ever given prompts these days ;)

[falkner]

I like the idea, but I think one month was too long. Maybe it could be done two weeks twice a year, or something along those lines. As someone pointed out, if you don't write for the big fandoms, you run out of prompts to fill pretty quickly, so probably after some days you just give up and wait for the month to end.

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

I loved the idea of it but in practice my time in December is ridiculously tight and most days I didn't even manage to read the post let alone respond.

[scribblemyname]

How did you go about finding the lonely prompts you requested/filled?

Missed this earlier. I randomly browsed archive posts, advanced searched the community for a particular fandom, pairing, or prompt I remembered, and read through the prompts on posts where I'd read a good fill.

I did occasionally search just for author's choice or any because those prompts are generally a lifesaver on slow days.

[simplyn2deep.livejournal.com]

Just added the searching for prompts question. It came to me when I was replying to another comment.

[daria234.livejournal.com]

hope you don't mind a silly question - how do you search a specific community?

[scribblemyname]

Honestly, I can't make the advanced search config right. I scroll to one of the posts with the link for Advanced Search of this community's comments, click on it, and enter my search term. If I go past the first page, changing the term will lose the narrow focus, so I use the browser back button to get back to the first search page and change terms to search again.

[daria234.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

LOL now I don't feel so stupid for not being able to figure it out - that's complicated lol.

[scribblemyname]

Yeah. I just use someone else's work. :D Maybe we should add the link from the posts to the comm's sidebar with the official links?

[simplyn2deep.livejournal.com]

The advanced search option is included in each daily post. However, I can add it as a link to the sidebar.

[falkner]

It's not your fault, it's LJ's inside search that's absolutely shit. They've been changing it a little at time for like a year now and still haven't managed to get it working properly. I'm starting to think they never will.

[dreamsofspike.livejournal.com]

I really loved the idea but found the process of locating lonely prompts REALLY daunting. I'd suggest coming up with an easier system before next time. ;)

[simplyn2deep.livejournal.com]

As of right now, there's the Advanced Search option and a spreadsheet being created, but it doesn't have all of the prompts. There are literally thousands of lonely prompts and the people working on adding them are doing the best they can.

[dreamsofspike.livejournal.com]

Oh, I completely realize that! I'm not trying to be in any way critical or negative, just sharing my experience with the lonely prompt month. I totally understand what an overwhelming task it is to take care of all those prompts! Of course, by next time it will have been nearly a year, so should be fine. :) Thanks for all you do. :)

[imera.livejournal.com]

Sadly I could not participate this year, but I hope it returns so I can do it this year :D

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

I thought that the Lonely Prompts month was a wonderful idea, but Yuletide took all my focus for the month of December. I couldn't even add any Lonely Prompts to the list.

Also, like thesmallhobbit, I don't write for many big fandoms--Harry Potter being the one exception I can think of--so it's difficult for me to find prompts that I personally can fill, even after checking the spreadsheet.

[tuxedo-elf.livejournal.com]

I joined during this month, so it's my only experience, but I think it was maybe a little long? I would have liked the opportunity to post some new requests, especially seasonal ones!

That said, I've missed browsing prompts the last couple of days!

[scribblemyname]

I did really miss being able to throw in seasonal prompts. And I had a few pop through my head that I couldn't post and didn't get them written down in time to wait for the next free for all.

[scribblemyname]

We do have a lot of rare fandoms here, new fandoms, and some 5-20 minute fandoms. Would it be okay to like have a fandom promotion post once a month or so? Just a thought.

[blythechild.livejournal.com]

I didn't participate because I didn't have hours to spend combing through the archive for prompts, especially at Christmas time. I'm all for filling lonely prompts, but at this point the community has so many that the search process is daunting.

[likewinning.livejournal.com]

I did participate, but definitely drifted off as the month wore on - I think two weeks would have been better, maybe even with a break one day a week? And as others have mentioned, looking for prompts is really a task in itself. :/

BUT overall I think it went really well!

[scribblemyname]

Oooh! Free for all!

[likewinning.livejournal.com]

Yeah! I think one day a week for that would be a nice little break. :D

[quitehopeless.livejournal.com]

I found prompts one of two ways: Either I just went back through each theme page and looked at entries or I did a search through the advanced search option.

I have to say, the process was tedious, and livejournal's search function is rather sucky, since it seems to pull the same comment multiple times and yet won't find others for the same search and is limited to a hundred pages when the results are large.

I mainly stuck to filling MCU/DCU because they were easier to find as prompts.

I think I agree with moving it to another month. I was just thinking February might be nice since it's a bit of a shorter month, though I don't know how much Valentine's Day means to people as a holiday. (Me, I hate it, so I don't mind skipping it, but I know people like to do seasonal/holiday things so maybe it's better to have a month without a holiday?)

Also... Just a thought, but what if we still had a one day a week free-for-all post? Then we would still be able to do some prompting instead of trying to hold that in for a whole month. I can't even remember some of the ones I was going to try and give out this month once lonely prompts was over.

I do love lonely prompts, though. That is almost all I fill.

[tardisjournal.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of a month, or at least an extended block of time, dedicated to Lonely Prompts. I did not participate because I've spend most of my writing time this month working on hc_bingo and didn't dare start anything new!

Too, like others have said, I was busy with holiday stuff much of the month. So I add my voice to those suggesting that we move it to a different month.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Throwing in my request for it to be January rather than December - I don't do Yuletide, but I do a lot of fic exchanges in various other comms during the month of December, and I really loved filling lonely prompts but I couldn't do all of it that I wanted!

[tigriswolf]

Until I read the comments here, I thought December was a good month for lonely prompts, but now I'm not sure.

Also, I did miss posting new prompts. I think maybe a month is too long unless there is one day a week, either themed or free for all, for new prompts.

The way I find lonely prompts, though, is by tracking ones I want filled and then going through the posts they were on. Or if I'm bored, I just go through posts and then either track or fill. *shrugs* However, most of the lonely prompts I posted were ones I'd left myself, so that might be considered cheating? *oops*

[scribblemyname]

Huh! I felt weird when I left ones that weren't mine!

I think it's okay to mention your own lonelies, but that's just me.

[pr3tz3ls.livejournal.com]

I agree that the month-long lonely prompt run was a little too much. As someone very new to the community though, it was a great way to be introduced to how things work and it also gave me reason to dig through the past year of prompts. I mainly did so by going to the archive, selecting a month, and looking at the daily themes. Much easier than trying to use the tags I'm afraid. ;n.n

I think perhaps the next time there is a lonely prompt month saturdays should remain free-for-alls.

[effingeden.livejournal.com]

I searched prompts with a mix of using the old Delicious archive and searching for "any," "any any" and "author's choice" on the LJ comment search.

I wouldn't mind seeing this happen again, but hopefully there'll be an improved way of finding prompts next year!

[creepy_shetan]

Ugh, LJ ate my comment. =_=+

Basically, I had fun with it, but I was ready to start leaving new prompts again by the last week. I don't fill prompts as often as I wish I could throughout the year -- the holiday season had nothing to do with it.

I think it was good to do a full month this time (b/c holy crap a ton of prompts are no longer lonely :D), but in the future I'd be more interested in a more spread out schedule, like maybe a lonely prompt week or fortnight every quarter of the year.

Oh, and I found prompts both by checking the daily requests and by using LJ advanced search. I have a text file of saved prompts, too, but I'm not good at keeping it current.

[lasairfhiona.livejournal.com]

I loved the idea except between real life and another fic challenge I was doing all month. It was kind of impossible to Sig around fir prompts to fill. The spread sheet needs to be moren completed wirh more than one year, tedious work I know, or the old delicious archive needs to be linked which it wasn't.

Im one of these people who do t write mainly in active fandom or active pairings so its hard for me to find prompts unless i tell a friwnd to leave me prompts for a current theme I like

[leni-ba.livejournal.com]

I was fine until the two-week mark. Then I started missing new prompts. Still, got some things written and now I have doubled my To Be Written list.

I just did the same I do every Sunday. Picked a random date and looked through the requests until I found something that a) I wanted to write, or b) I wanted to read (which isn't always the same... lol).

Thanks for setting it up, btw! Especially for posting so early every day! That made it SO much easier to get me motivated. :D