On activity

[sincere]

From three_weeks_for_dw:

Somebody on LJ posits that a good formula for encouraging discussion and activity is the following:

- 3 weekly posts that are short on content and primarily links
- 1 post every other week that is about you or your content
- 1 post every other week that is a question gathering opinions or seeking information
- 1 post per month that is a lengthier opinion or review

And some commentary on it.

I think it's really insightful: especially the encouragement of content that isn't long and wordy and well-thought-out. I think a lot of us have been encouraged to put our shorter thoughts in shorter-form formats, like Plurk and Twitter, and people feel pressured to manufacture essay-like, meaningful content for DW. But it doesn't have to be! And I'd love to see more community activity, and activity from my reading list.

So consider this an encouragement. ♥

Comments

[slayerofgod]

I've been thinking similar things regarding the emergence of things like Twitter and Plurk. I feel they're the real reason journal based fandom is down, since they basically eliminate the need for communities with their tag formats.

Of course, such things can easily be used for evil, as you pointed out a couple months ago. That's why I personally avoid them.

[sincere]

I agree completely -- I think that those 140-character formats have encouraged people to take their "meaningless" updates there, and made them think that journals are for "meaningful" updates, and then... they stop updating, because they feel they have to write 2000+ words or they're doing it wrong, and then no one is participating in fandom anymore, because reading things means an hour commitment to read 2000+ words and then if anything write a 500+ word thoughtful comment in response, etc.

I think that's a real shame, and I wish people would at the very least recognize that I miss hearing from them. It doesn't always have to be long, incredibly important updates. It can just be "lol, here's a funny thing I was thinking about".

[rainfall]

\o/! /encouraged

[sincere]

/INDEED

[prefacing]

Oh, this is actually really interesting. o:

I shall try and be more active, though really, my inactivity stems more from an incorrect belief that no one cares about the trivial things in my daily life rather than post length.

[sincere]

ALL THE CARING FOREVER

I'm glad you found it interesting, though.

[sakusha]

Oh, I will look through this later. It sounds like it could be a fun experiment to try!