River Twine Holt Forums

Hi, everyone!

As you'll have seen, we're going to run the 120 comments challenge again in 2016, for anyone who would like to try to do it.

But, we'd also like to run some shorter-term challenges during the year.

Partly, we'd like to do this because we think some folks would rather participate in something that isn't so long-term, and maybe doesn't require such a huge number of comments. Although, we would also look at it as a way to help people who are working on the larger challenge, too. But, you could particpate in the smaller challenges, without having to be signed up for the full-year challenge.

You saw one type of idea in action last fall, when we did the 3-week comment "race" (most number of comments left in a defined number of days).

But we wanted to open this topic up to other suggestions. What ideas do you have for comment challenges or contests? What do you think would be a good motivator? Suggest or discuss here!

Pair up people to comment on one another's works (art and fic)... the team that completes the most comments (or comments on ALL of each other's comments - that way it accounts for teams where the total number of works may not be as large) wins a prize trophy or something?

or have an artist and writer of the month, each month, where the goal is to make as many comments on that individual's works as possible... and for each month, you have comment prizes for the person who completes it or does the most or however it might work out...

I don't have any ideas how to encourage commenting - but my question would be, do we really need to? Sure, I'm aware that we're currently not getting as much comments as we used to (I've fallen off the commenting wagon myself ) but, all things considered and compared to ... well, almost every other place I know, activity is still pretty high here. I think the people who enjoy writing comments already have an additional motivation in the form of the comment challenge, and those who don't comment most likely won't be encited to by another contest/challenge, either.

And personally, I have to admit that I prefer getting comments where I have the feeling something in my story/picture made the commenter want to write a comment rather than I just was next on the list of things they need to comment on to reach a goal.

Sorry to be a bit of a stick in the mud ... But I just think there's so much going on in this group with contests and challenges and everything, so I don't see the need to add even more to that.

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~ Snowfall --- Mareike

Shaped by Flowerstar - my blog

One Comment a Day-er here! I'm internally motivated myself, so I don't "Need"/"Want" a challenge necessarily. Want to comment on (very eventually) all fiction and most new art as it comes up.

I'm with Mareike - I don't like feeling like I have to comment just to comment. It's also kind of hard when I look at the comments and it's like "I love the expressions - and look, I'm the 6th person to say so!" I take it as a personal challenge to find something new to say, but then it's back to kind of feeling like a chore sometimes.

I am always impressed by people like Ingrid who have such constant inner motivation to leave comments.

I am one of these people that need extra motivation, though. Hence, comment contests work pretty well for me. Even if the contest prize would only consist of one more spiffy trophy for my trophy collection at the member's page it would motivate me to paticipate.

I do understand Mareike's opinion, though. I can only speak for myself here, but when it comes to commenting on art I most often pick those pieces that speak to me at first glance. But sometimes I also try to go though the pics systematically to spread out the comments more equally and fair. When I do it this way I take extra time to look at the pics closely to discover the small, pleasing details I have not noticed when looking at them superficially. I enjoy seeing how our artists grow and improve over time. Sometimes the right words fail me when commenting, but I usually leave comments that express my real and true opinion.

I also handle it like Holly: I only read the other's comments AFTER I left my own. I believe, no artist or writer cares if people like one and the same thing in their piece or story. They are probably happy that they were able to make their point. That is true for me, at least. Joanne, you might also consider that all comments on one piece are not left at the same day or time. Meaning, the artist or writer in question does not get the same comment over and over again at the same day.

When it comes to stories, I have to admit I comment mostly on short stories. I ussually pefer short stories in RTH since I do not like reading on a PC. But to be perfectly honest, my preference is also caused by time pressure. I tend to do things at the last minute and contest are no exception...


Ideas for future short term commenting contests:
- I loved the Commenting Race. Not knowing how many comments the other participants left made it particularly exciting and effective.
- Caused by Holly's comment above: How about a one month comment contest (e.g. 80 comments) on older art and stories (e.g. everyting before 2011)? This would make sure people would make an effort to discover the past of our elves. True, this would benefit lot's of ex-members... but maybe getting swamped with comments motivates these people to come back to RTH, again.
- Since different people have different amounts of stories and/ort art posted on the website I do not think Lyn's idea of a contest á la "Commenting on all pieces of Member XYZ" would be doable. But the idea is intriguing. So, how about having something like an "Elf of the month" contest? Meaning, the contest's goal is to comment on as many stories and art connected to a specific elf. With this, no artist or writer is favoured and it would be a chance to get elves into the spotlight who have been kinda neglected by the audience so far.

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Peg(gy)
owner of Rainpace, Starskimmer and Deeproot (troll)

About comment notifications: as far as I know, only members (Player and Reader Members) receive them. If someone has been deactivated completely, they should not receive any comments.

(But, otherwise you should receive comment notifications at the main email address you have on the website. If you don't receive notifications, let us know! Yes, check your spam folder, they could be going in there. Or it could be some other problem.)

I think in past things like Treasure Hunts, when old art would receive comments, people who were surprised by it might have been Reader Members who used to be character owners and more active, but were sort of near to dropping out completely.

But yeah, someone who appears in the "Non-Member" lower portion of our drop-down menus for artists or writers won't receive any comments on their old work. It won't be a case of someone who was a member 8 years ago and left, suddenly receiving weird random comments from RTH.

I think the main value of those comments is the way it might make current member "rediscover" or newly discovery old work. (Which, obviously, you can do without leaving comments! But if the comment challenges make people use the "random piece" feature on the website main page, or makes them go through much older galleries, then it will have had that effect.)