ADMIN: Poll! Winter Companions in 2013

[wojelah.livejournal.com]

Happy New Year, from your mods, trobadora and wojelah! We hope 2013 treats all of you well -- and that it brings us all many more Jack/Doctor stories to enjoy. :D

We've been doing some chatting and planning for this comm, given that activity has gotten quieter over time, and we've come to two conclusions:

1) The best way to start a new year is to give everyone a little extra amnesty for the old. That's right - the annual Amnesty Challenge is open through the end of January 2013!

2) In part, that's because we'd like to spend January getting your thoughts and feedback on what this comm should look like going forward. Summer/Winter Holidays is absolutely on our calendar - we look forward to it every year - but the monthly challenge participation is dying down. Given that, we thought maybe 2013 could be a good year to change things up! And so we give you the Winter Companions 2013 poll, full of possibilities

[Poll #1888210]

Please take a moment and let us know - we really appreciate hearing from you all!

Comments

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

I don't know that more time would help - I don't think the issue is that people are running out of time, at least, that's not my issue. Doing "events," rather than monthly challenges, might be better. With events, you make the decision to participate and then you follow through (or at least that's the idea). With the monthly challenges, there's no real commitment (which is what makes them great, on the one hand, but on the other, maybe makes people less likely to write anything in the end). I also feel like the prompts have been a bit too broad to really work for me lately; I do better with a slightly more specific prompt, that I then can interpret - if that makes sense.

[wojelah.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the feedback - we really appreciate it. Prompts are hard to come up with and I would love to get an example of what you mean by slightly more specific - I'm not sure I understand, but I am intrigued!

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

Well, it just seems to me like some of the prompts from the last year are very broad: Law, Crossover, Superheroes, Love, Celebration. I think the Aliens Made Them Do It, the Five Things, and maybe the Episodes challenge were more specific.

One thing we might think about doing is having people vote on which prompt they'd like next. Another comm I'm in does that - they run monthly promptfests, and there's a lot of community input into what kind of theme we'll have next. So maybe run a prompt-gathering post, where people can brainstorm, and then put the results up in a poll (if you can do a poll - people could also vote in the comments) and see what people want to do.

[wojelah.livejournal.com]

Thanks - that's really helpful. One of the hardest things is trying to find the line between "sparks something" and "too narrow to be of interest to a broad audience." And the promptfest poll/challenge is very intriguing! Thank you so much.

[scifiangel.livejournal.com]

I'm with sahiya in that the prompts are a bit too broad. Maybe have people supply prompts and challenges. That way they are involved. I also think you need to advertise more on other coms. Let people know you're out there.

And I know I've said this before, but it's very discouraging when not even the Mods bother to comment on the stories and art. Makes people think "why bother."

[wojelah.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I like the idea of supplying prompts and challenges a lot - and we've been careful about making sure we're in the broader newsletter, but we can certainly put the word out again. I know you're good at linking people, and we certainly appreciate that. I'll ask the same thing I asked lj user="sahiya"> - can you give an example, if you wouldn't mind, of a more specific prompt? We'd find that really helpful.

[scifiangel.livejournal.com]

Sorry it's taken me so long to reply. You could do a collection of prompts all on a theme. Ask members for prompts on that theme the month before. Say you want the prompt to be Crossover, the month before people can throw prompts in like, "Ten/Jack meet Kirk/Spock and have a one-up man's contest." Someone else might suggest "Buffy thinks Jack is a vampire because he won't die and sets out to stake him." ETC.

The real purpose is to get the readers and writers involved in the prompts. The more involved they are the more they will participate.

[eloriekam.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty new, so I'm more or less willing to go along with whatever.

The second option in the poll had occurred to me as well, but I haven't been here long enough to tell if time is the issue or something else.

[wojelah.livejournal.com]

Newbies are welcome - we'd love to see more of you - and we really appreciate your taking the time to weigh in.

[eloriekam.livejournal.com]

I actually joined the comm due to LJ being wonky about comments sometime during Summer Holidays, I think, LOL, so glad something good has come of that. :) Apparently I can't write anything except Ten/TenII and Ten/Jack, so I may be here for a while. (I knew I shouldn't have written that Cyberman slash crackfic. :P)

Sort of in line with what navaan said below about December being busy, November is NaNoWriMo, and some people might be busy with that.

[magic-7-words.livejournal.com]

We could extend the challenge time without reducing the number of challenges, by letting them overlap by a month each.

[wojelah.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting idea too - thank you for chiming in!

[navaan]

Sometimes I do wish the challenges would run for more than a month, but to be honest what really makes me write without fail are fest, exchanges or chalenges like BigBangs, probably because I really have to commit to getting something done. So the "Summer/Winter Holidays" challenge worked for me without fail.

I voted for "three events", but "extended challenges" would work for me, too.

[wojelah.livejournal.com]

I find the same is true for me - a hard deadline is (for me!!) a much more difficult thing to flub than a soft commitment. Thanks for leaving the additional detail - it's useful to know!

[navaan]

I've also thought about why I rarely manage to finish anything for the Amnesty challenge, although I usually have unfinished drafts for challenges I could easily finish. And it really is the timing. December is always very busy with fic exchanges and other commitments. So January works better for me.

I remeber there was an attempt to get people to rec Jack/Doctor fics on the comm, but not many people signed up to do a rec post. Maybe it could be done in another format? I've seen a few other communities occaionally aking the users for fic recs that fit a certain theme, trope (first kiss, epsiode related, your all time favorites) or make a "rec month" with different posts (like month of meta) to get the discussion going.

[wojelah.livejournal.com]

Oh, these are great thoughts. Thank you!

[yamx]

I, too, think going to events would be the best thing. And maybe make it four slightly different events throughout the year. Something like:

Keep Summer/Winter Holiday fest as-is.

Have a gift exchange towards the end of the year (but ideally not with a Dec 25th deadline, because that's when all the gifts exchange do it--Dec 1 would spread things out more.)

A promptfest in spring.

And then a set challenge, similar to the ones we have now, in autumn.

That way, it would always be slightly different, which would keep people interested and might also draw slightly different crowds.

[wojelah.livejournal.com]

We promise, Summer/Winter Hols isn't going anywhere! Thank you so much for leaving these ideas - it's giving us a lot to play with, and it's really helpful to have the perspective.

[navaan]

I really like this idea. It would all be different enough to keep me interested and it would give me dates that would make me write!

[beachy-geek.livejournal.com]

So many comms are dying off, and I love this comm and hate to see it fading! I will admit it's fallen off my radar a bit and I've taken to reading as the month is over (still haven;t read December's) because there are so few posts. I also agree with Sci that it's discouraging to put the effort into writing when there are so few comments, not even by the mods. So thank you, mods, for this post!

I like the idea of continuing a monthly challenge, personally--how about if the prompts had a broad heading ("law") with some sub-prompts given ("homicide", "traffic violation", "public indecency")? And then have a rolling overlap or a continuous amnesty so that those who can't post within the month can still finish and post the fic while it's fresh. Voting/supplying/polling for prompts is a great idea!

Also--what is the newsletter you referred to? Maybe we could highlight it in our own LJs and comms.

[wojelah.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts - these are really helpful. Comm pimping is ALWAYS welcome, as long as the comms you pimp in allow it - and clearly, on your own journal, you make the rules! :D The newsletter is who_daily, to answer your question.