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milesmum View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote milesmum Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Forum Participation
    Posted: 12 Feb 2017 at 10:31pm
This is just an observation, but I've been participating here since 2008, and I have never seen forum participation dry up so fast. Ironically, I think it's the sheer number of people participating that has overwhelmed people. I know it did that to me.

Maybe, since they have obviously decided not to cap their growth, NYCM might create separate forums for each heat? Not that I think what one reads and comments on should be restricted, but it might help keep the forum alive.

I feel like (much like my country) the forum as I knew it is dying.

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Suave View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Suave Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Feb 2017 at 12:16am
HI!  I think you will find the reason the forum is so slow is because of the master list, everyone is simply able to find what they want easily.

http://forums.nycmidnight.com/master-list-ssc-2017-challenge-one_topic14060.html
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lisafox10800 View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote lisafox10800 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Feb 2017 at 10:02am
Originally posted by milesmum milesmum wrote:

This is just an observation, but I've been participating here since 2008, and I have never seen forum participation dry up so fast. Ironically, I think it's the sheer number of people participating that has overwhelmed people. I know it did that to me.

Maybe, since they have obviously decided not to cap their growth, NYCM might create separate forums for each heat? Not that I think what one reads and comments on should be restricted, but it might help keep the forum alive.

I feel like (much like my country) the forum as I knew it is dying.


My first NYC Midnight comp was FFC this past summer.    It was a little bit overwhelming then with 2,100-ish contestants; I couldn't believe it when I saw 3,000+ people in the Short Story Contest.

I really love this forum and am sorry I didn't get to experience it in its heyday.  I'm not sure I, personally, agree that it's "drying up" per se (given my fairly limited time here, anyway), but here's what I've noticed this time around:
  • A lot of the same people are reviewing/commenting across a large cross-section of stories.  
  • There are a lot of new folks (new, like I was in the summer!  Welcome!).  Some have jumped right in and are super-active.  Others have posted stories and asked for feedback, but based on their forum status/"points" it's obvious that they have not reviewed others' work.  And there's been a push for giving attention to stories that have low readership - which is fantastic and absolutely necessary - but I've noticed in some (but not all) cases there's been no reciprocation.
  • We have 100 heats.  And to your point, it's extremely overwhelming.  I do think it's hard for people to know where to start.  There are stories, and familiar writers on here, I simply haven't gotten to yet because there is just SO much.  (Thanks again to Suave for trying to make sense of the madness with the master list).
I think the heart of it is - as I've mentioned in other posts - the forum is a give and take.  It's designed to be a community of writers.  In many cases I think it still is, or at least, it can be.  

So for anyone who has posted and hasn't jumped in to help your forum-mates yet, I highly encourage you to do so.  Smile  Critiques help us ALL to be better writers.  

And as an aside, I do agree with you regarding the growth - I think 3,000+ contestants is way, way too many.

lisafoxiswriting.com
My short story collection, Core Truths, is now available wherever books are sold.
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Suave View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Suave Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Feb 2017 at 12:01pm
I can tell you this, I am only posting one new story a day now, maybe two I guess.  Tongue
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Bookworm33 View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Bookworm33 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Feb 2017 at 1:34pm
Originally posted by lisafox10800 lisafox10800 wrote:

We have 100 heats.  And to your point, it's extremely overwhelming.  I do think it's hard for people to know where to start.
I second this! I lurked around the FFC boards last year, but only got brave enough to post my entries this time around. So far I've only managed to return feedback for those who have read my story. I think a huge difference is with the word limit this time. It takes a while (for me, anyway--I'm not a quick reader) to go through nearly 2,500 words instead of only 1,000, and then write a critique. I've honestly been struggling to find the time to do it.

I'd like to start reading everyone else's stories, but with so many, I don't know where to begin, or how to keep them all straight. Do I go heat by heat? Genre by genre? I almost feel like I'm being unfair if I cherry-pick a few to focus on and ignore everyone else's...

I'm also a little disappointed that with such large heats and so many entrants compared to the FFC, there are currently only two other stories posted in my heat. I was expecting way more people to participate this time.



Edited by Bookworm33 - 13 Feb 2017 at 1:37pm
SSC R1: Hard Lessons
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maiaco View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote maiaco Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Feb 2017 at 6:25pm
Interesting - but in fact I've just looked at the total number of posts in the Short Story Challenge Review forum and find there have been 4026 posts so far.  In last year's Review Forum there were only a total of 4986 by the end of the event (up to and including the Final).

So - the forum is no less busy.  Maybe we're just seeing fewer reviews per story, but more stories are being reviewed? 
No baby acorns were harmed in the writing of this story

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Archon1995 View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Archon1995 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Feb 2017 at 7:08pm
Once you get past the the first couple of pages in the dedicated forum half or more of the posts on each page have single-digit replies. I'd guess the replies are being spread out more, which makes it seem like less activity when it's really just less concentrated. Typically there's a relative handful of stories that have dozens of replies. That's true this year as well, but there are more low-reply-count stories so the big numbers aren't clustered up at the beginning quite so much.
[insert pithy quote here]
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote justmel Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Feb 2017 at 11:14am
I agree that it seems like commenting has dropped off faster than usual this year, regardless of the hard numbers.  In my case, it was because I had used up my data allowance and was going to have to pay dearly for continuing to get online--I had to wait for a new month to begin.  I've done three stories this morning and will try to do a couple a day, but I know now that I can't do this at the rate I was doing it at first.  Ah, for unlimited data . . . !
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote nixie Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Feb 2017 at 9:27pm
based on those numbers - what's the possibility that activity is actually *up* - but the increase in number of entries spreads it out across more individual posts, so it *looks thinner?

4026 posts from round one this year
4986 posts for the entire event last year

So - to be 'the same,' we'd need to have only 960 posts for the entire rest of the event.  

Seems like there may be *more activity - it just *looks different because of the number of folks present...?
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milesmum View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote milesmum Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Feb 2017 at 1:19am
Nixie, you will never cease to amaze me!
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