Community Building Challenges

Something that has kind of pushed me away from Mibba more recently is how much the feeling of being a creative writing community has felt like it's been fading from the site. I've noticed how different sites have these different challenges (especially Live Journal) that seem to promote cooperation between members and a sense of accomplishment as far as writing goes.

Though writing contests are incredibly popular on Mibba, there are many problems associated with them as far as commitment goes. Contestants drop out without informing the host, hosts fail to judge their contests and/or hand out prizes, and there are often absurd and extreme specifications that entries must meet in order to be considered. I'd love to use some of the inspiration and fun that comes along with contests and gear that towards more site-wide challenges.

Idea 1: For instance, we could do something similar to Bandom Big Bang on lj here on Mibba (minus the fanfiction requirement or being confined to specific fandoms), in which users strive to meet a specific word count in a given amount of time. Some users may want to participate in the writing aspect of it, while other users could sign up to beta, make layouts/banners/fanmixes/other forms of fanart, or just act as a cheerleader for the other participants. Some incentives that may convince people to participate would be something along the lines of site-wide promotion of the participants' work, possibly have everyone comment on everyone else's work, which means that everyone would kind of be reading each other's work which could help spark that collaborative feel.

Idea 2: Another idea I had was that we really should have a site-wide, official Secret Santa. Secret Santa in the contests forum seems to get a decent amount of interest, but it can be difficult to find someone reliable to organize it and equally difficult to get in touch with people and have everyone get their gifts done. If we made it official every year, maybe people would be more motivated to participate and follow through.

Idea 3: Maybe another thing we could do would be to have a different topic, genre, or theme as a challenge every month for people to write about in order to branch out of their comfort zone. I get that the magazine holds a contest every month with a given subject, but I would love it if it was less of a contest with all of the competition between users, the need for prizes, and the specific prompts and more of just a writing challenge for users to particpate in. For example, say for October, since it's Halloween, maybe the challenge for the month would be to write a horror story? That's not so specific that people may not be inspired (as not everyone is inspired by a set of photos or a list of word prompts), but it's still enough to sort of get everyone in the mood. Maybe there could be a thread in the forums set up for each month's challenge where users could discuss how their pieces are coming along, get questions answered, that sort of thing?

Overall, I think I would love it more if we had more community-building type of exercises and challenges on the site because with some of the new features, it seems like the site is becoming more and more segmented. One of the things I've always preferred about this site was that users were exposed to all different types of writing, as opposed to other sites that confine people to a specific fandom or something along those lines, and I feel like the site is beginning to lose that feeling of diversity.

I think more collaboration between members and site-wide challenges could help bring the members of the site together as a whole more, so I thought I'd make this thread in order to see if there was any interest in starting anything like this and to get any similar ideas that other people have

I love this idea, especially the first and last ones. I think it would really help rebuild that tight-knit community feel Mibba has been lacking as of late.

Could you explain what a "Secret Santa" is, though? I'm assuming it's an lj thing but I've never used lj.

@ chai latte

Secret Santa's something that's held in the contest forums here every year, and people sign up and fill out a form about what they'd be willing to write for another person and a form concerning what they'd want written for them as a gift, and usually a host organizes it and sends each person a prompt from someone else to write for them. I do it every year and I get really excited about it, but like with all the contests, sometimes people fail to get their gifts for the other person written, and I think last year, the person that was organizing it went MIA, so someone else had to restart it last minute.

It's really fun, but it would be a lot more...secure, I guess, if it was an official, site-wide thing instead of something run by one person.

Here's the thread from last year.

@ i saw sparks
Oh, that does sound like a lot of fun. I'd definitely be down.

And I agree that all these things would work best if they were site-wide things rather than confined to the contest section. Like, maybe if the Magazine could host/moderate/advertise them, and a site-wide announcement could be sent out (like when you see site updates and stuff in My Mibba), and/or they could appear on the homepage or something.

Awesome ideas. I really hope they get implemented.

On the other hand, I don't want the idea of a user started thing to be deemed not good enough and only officials ones being good enough. Christmas wishes usually works pretty well and I hope that user sanctioned things similar can be continued.

Overall, I like the idea though. It would be nice to do challenges instead of contests.

dru is screaming.:

On the other hand, I don't want the idea of a user started thing to be deemed not good enough and only officials ones being good enough. Christmas wishes usually works pretty well and I hope that user sanctioned things similar can be continued.

Overall, I like the idea though. It would be nice to do challenges instead of contests.

I think it would be nice if it was cooperative. If users have the ideas, and Audrey and I or other staff work to get the manpower to make it happen, because when something goes site wide (like we announce it as a My Mibba update) we get a LOT of participation. The first time we recruited staff, I got hundreds of messages from interested people overnight. It's hard for just one person to handle all that work.

@ dru is screaming.

I'm just saying, after the situation with Secret Santa last year, it's not ideal to be left hanging last minute with something that's become sort of tradition like that, and it's certainly not fun to put so much work into someone else's gift only to not receive one yourself.

I'm not saying that user-created things are all shit, I'm just saying that there should be more official seasonal things like that, not only because users can be flakey, but so that more users would be aware of those sort of things.

I do that Halloween Trick or Drabble every year for people to fill small Halloween requests for each other, but it doesn't get a ton of attention because unless you happen to stumble upon it in the forums, you don't know it's there. I can't sticky it, and I can't put it on the homepage or updates or anything, so it only gets lost in General.

@ Kurtni
That's what I was thinking. That way users could still be included in the process, but there wouldn't be the possibility of it being abandoned, poorly moderated, etc. It would also definitely receive more attention as an announcement rather than a thread in the contest section.

I like it, just:

1.) Would there be prizes? I think it would be cool if everyone who entered any of these got points, or a trophy on their profile or something. If everyone got one, everyone would win, so it's completely fair :)

2.) For your idea on number one: possibly have everyone comment on everyone else's work, which means that everyone would kind of be reading each other's work which could help spark that collaborative feel.

I don't exactly think that would work. I feel like it'd turn into a Comment Swap deal where users bullcrap comments just to get through it, you know?

And for number three I'm totally cool with it, so long as MM gets to keep their prompts as well.

@ ladyschrei
I think it would be neat if we made participant badges for non-contest things. They could appear on profiles kind of like point medals and show who is participating in what, and help promote whatever the current activity is.

@ Kurtni
I agree.

Now, they would stay there on the profiles even after the non-contest things are over, right? :)

@ ladyschrei
I don't know... it might get really cluttered if someone participates in something regularly.

@ Kurtni
Maybe instead of a medal for every activity, it could be like, once you participate in x number, you get a medal? Kind of like the point-medal system.

@ ladyschrei

I said nothing about the magazine not having their prompts. None of these things really have anything to do with the magazine. The magazine does contests, what I have in mind are not contests, just goals and challenges to reach for. Mibba has enough contests

I really don't think that people should need prizes to do a challenge; the prize is accomplishing something. I mean, it would be cool to get a badge or something, but none of the other sites I've looked into reward the participants with anything, so I don't see why Mibbians basically have to be bribed to enhance the community vibe.

As for the comments, I think it would be useful to get people used to giving feedback, whether that be a simple comment or a full-on review, whatever the user is comfortable with. We're not all analytic readers, and I think it's unrealistic to expect people to be, but I don't think giving comments automatically equals comment swap or that people are automatically going to try to take advantage of the system. It's an incentive for people to participate, knowing that they will receive feedback from other participants, and you kind of have to take a chance on the quality of that feedback.

I mean, if it works for lj and FF.net, I don't see why it can't work for Mibba, since Mibba does sort of promote itself as a "creative writing community."

@ chai latte

When I made this thread, I was aiming for the suggestions to be site-wide, meaning that the site promotes it so that it's not just a thread in the contests forum. I mean, I could make a thread in the contest forum right now

I do think that members should be involved in the process, that the ideas and topics shouldn't be limited to just staff or just magazine staff. I mean, if we do try to do something like BBB, I'd kind of like to be involved in it, considering it was my idea to bring it to Mibba

@ i saw sparks
I don't really think medals are necessary either; I was just kind of adding on to what other people were suggesting in case they really feel medals are essential. I know I personally would participate in all these activities just for the fun of it.

But yeah, I basically agree with everything you said.

@ chai latte

I must've clicked reply to the wrong post, 'cause I was replying to your post about having announcements on the homepage, site-wide promotion, that sort of thing I don't care here or there about medals/badges, but I do feel like if we really need a "prize" for it, that would be the way to go. I wouldn't like it because I don't like the medals on my profile now, but that's only because I think it looks cluttered

@ Kurtni
What if there was a Badge tab on the generic profile? Just a thought :3

@ i saw sparks
Oh I know you weren't! Lol I was just saying XD

I don't consider it bribing if participants get a prize for being included.

I just feel like if those entered were forced to give a review, some might just get lazy with it after a while, and start giving... bad comments, basically, like what happens on the Comment Swap. I'm not saying everyone, I'm saying some.

I don't think a badge is even a prize... you don't gain anything from it. It's just a way to identify who is participating in what. It's not really much of a community if the other participants are strangers.

@ ladyschrei

I kinda of feel like people should participate for the sake of saying they got something done, not to get points or something on their profile, but that's just me

But I feel like with the comment thing, that's just a risk you have to take in order to try to get members to collaborate with one another and become a community. If people don't want to put as much into it, then they're really not going to get as much out of it when it boils down to it. If they go around giving half-assed feedback, the people that receive that are probably going to end up giving them the same sort of thing

I don't think people should need a badge on their profile in order to want to be a part of something. It's cool if people get something once they've completed the challenge or whatever, but can people not identify who's a part of the challenge and who's not from discussion?

I mean, we don't get badges on here for the people that do NaNoMo, but it's still kind of obvious to spot who's involved from their sigs or who posts in those related threads.