Would it be possible to have this kind of activity on Tumblr?

[printfogey.livejournal.com]

Much as I love this comm and have many many fond memories of it - not to mention that most of my shorter fiction for One Piece were first posted here and inspired by the prompts here - it really does seem like activity is dying down for good now. I know I don't have half the ideas I used to have, myself, and also less energy - but like I think many of us, there's also a downward spiral when you don't get much feedback, you get less enthusiastic about writing or drawing, you're also less likely to give feedback to others, who also feel less encouraged, etc etc. There's really not much on LJ anymore for One Piece when it comes to fandom comms, and on Dreamwidth the fandom as far as I know never truly took off around any comm (apart from in the shape of talented RPers, which is admittedly great).

I could well be wrong, but to me it seems like it's more or less all Tumblr these days. We've tried to advertise this comm here, but it doesn't seem to have led to a true renewal, alas. But even if I don't have that many creative One Piece ideas myself anymore, I still really like this kind of challenge community and especially the one here, which is unlimited when it comes to pairing types or the choice of no pairing. I know judging is often tough, and winning is nice and all; but the best thing about it being a contest is for me simply that the choice of prompt gets handed over, much like in chaos threads: it's not just the same person who comes up with different prompts, nor is it randomly chosen.

Maybe on Tumblr, it would work if everyone posted their contributions to their own blogs using the same tag (could be "onepiece-300" or "op-300", for instance); the current judge would then just have to track the tags to find the contributions. But the announcement about the winner and the new prompt should probably be posted to a main blog just dedicated to this activity - maybe via submissions. The rules could also be found there.

But that's the problem, right? Even if the actual contributions are posted elsewhere and only found via tags, for this to work I feel that a main blog would have to be curated much more often and more extensively than a fandom comm, just because the Tumblr format is so different. And honestly it's not something I would feel prepared to take on myself, which of course means I can hardly expect anyone else to want to!

Besides, even if we did try there is of course no guarantee that one could really get the ball rolling on Tumblr, either.

So I have a feeling this will not be a very useful post after all... but I still wanted to raise the issue.

Comments

[jadekitty777.livejournal.com]

If it moves to tumblr then the format will have to change I think. But I'm not sure it'll work at all because one person will be entirely in charge of the blog and if they decide they don't care anymore, then the entire system will just fall apart, unlike with LJ which allows us to still post, etc even if the original admin is not around.

I'm gonna be honest it's hard to get motivated just in general every new prompt too. Once I got wound up in my new position I all but forgot about this place... sadly. So I definitely am not one to really look to for answers or ideas on how to organize something like this. xD;;

[shindahotaru.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry for being so absent lately. I've planned to contribute a drawing to the prompt but then I broke my leg and now I have a shitload of deadlines for school to focus on. :(

I agree that for tumblr the format needs to change. But I've always loved this community for its format and the fact that livejournal is made for long, text heavy posts and it's not all about flashy posts to get anyone's attention (that's my impression of tumblr). Sad but true, this community is dying and I feel same way about saving it somehow. Although we might be losing some of its qualities...

I'd offer to help with the main blog. This could definitely work, maybe we could have two admins rather than just one? So that in case one's busy elsewhere or needs a break or whatever, there'd still be someone to take care of the blog.

Though, what about networks like reddit? There's already One Piece subreddit with a lot of regular users and maybe we could have a thread there with contributers posting links to their submissions? That way we don't need to have a real admin, maybe just moderators. (I'm not really a reddit person, so I could be wrong here tho)
We wouldn't have a fancy looking main site like here... but maybe we could have the winners posted on a tumblr blog? Just another idea...

[printfogey.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to hear about your leg! Of course you need to focus on school first.

It's great that you're offering to help with a possible main blog on Tumblr! I think I could be the second person, if we're two... school tends to eat up a lot of my spare time now, but I do think that sounds doable. (Of course, if traffic is slow on Tumblr too it would be easy to maintain... but that's not what we're hoping for, naturally! :D)

Maybe this kind of activity could work on reddit too. I'm not a redditor myself, so I'm not too sure of how it would work either. I know there are some One Piece forums where many members are hostile towards fanfic, but hopefully that's not the case for the OP subreddit.

I've also raised the question on Plurk and have had some response wondering if we shouldn't try Dreamwidth first, but then raise the word limit to 1000. A Dreamwidth comm would be much more managable than Tumblr, I think - it could work pretty much exactly like this one; people can even post as Guests or (I think, unless that's changed) via their LJ ID, if they don't want to get Dreamwidth accounts. I'm afraid we might not get much visibility there either, but maybe raising the word limit could help - one could give it a few months, at least. One could also have two different categories for fic - 300 words or less, or between 301 and 1000 words. And still one category for art.

How would you feel about trying that kind of thing?

Or maybe it's better to go right away to Tumblr... ack, i really don't know!

[stelra-etnae.livejournal.com]

I have a suggestion for a possible format we could use should we try for the shift to Tumblr.

Inside of having rounds with one prompt that we all write for, we could have a system where each new writer uses the previous prompt and gives a new prompt for the next person, and onwards. So we would start with one prompt, writer A would write for the prompt and provide a new one, writer B would write for writer A's prompt, writer C for writer B's, and so on so forth. All entries will be tagged with the same prompt to collect them in one place.

That removes the need for judging and having to wait for multiple entries. This will also make it less crucial to have a main blog, though having one would still be useful to keep track of links and the current prompt in one place, if anyone is up to taking the project up. And we'll be keeping the concept of freshness and prompts given by different people. We'll have to give up the competition and winning side of things, but the writing is the real highlight of this, isn't it?

This system hinges on one condition though... Does Tumblr show tagged entries based on chronological order? Because if it isn't, it'll be hard to keep track of which is the latest prompt.

Just something I thought might work. :)

[printfogey.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure, but I think Tumblr tags entries based on chronological order.
It occurs to me that it probably would be good to have one non-Tumblr site - maybe this one, maybe a new one on Dreamwidth - serving as an archive with links to contributions posted, because Tumblr is not very good at that.

I'm not quite sure if I understand your suggestion - if there is only one prompt per fic or art, why would all entries be tagged with the same prompt?

Would this be a "first come, first served" thing or would the first prompter know in advance that the prompt was made for A, and would A know their prompt would be for B, etc?

What happens if both B and C have a good idea for A:s prompt and each of them go off and write or draw something, but B happens to post their entry first?

(The fun thing about chaos threads is that you can have many people responding to the same prompt, and each will leave a new prompt, which may or may not be picked up by one or several other people, etc etc... But then it's all collected on the same journal. On Tumblr the chaos format would be quite unwieldy!

...Then again, maybe it wouldn't matter so much, if there is no pressure to judge. The point is simply to create and have fun, after all!

I'll c&p something I just posted in my comment to shindahotaru above:

I've also raised the question on Plurk and have had some response wondering if we shouldn't try Dreamwidth first, but then raise the word limit to 1000. A Dreamwidth comm would be much more managable than Tumblr, I think - it could work pretty much exactly like this one; people can even post as Guests or (I think, unless that's changed) via their LJ ID, if they don't want to get Dreamwidth accounts. I'm afraid we might not get much visibility there either, but maybe raising the word limit could help - one could give it a few months, at least. One could also have two different categories for fic - 300 words or less, or between 301 and 1000 words. And still one category for art.

How would you feel about trying that kind of thing?

[stelra-etnae.livejournal.com]

Oops, the wording got a little confusing, didn't it? In the case of the tags, I actually meant the community name rather than prompt. So the tag would be something like you suggested, eg. onepiece-300 so that when people search the tag they'll be able to find all the entries together.

For the prompt, I was really thinking first-come-first-serve basis to make things simpler. I did consider the issue of multiple people wanting to write for the same prompt. Perhaps we could use a system of the first person who posts has the right to choose a new prompt? As for the works of the rest, I thought of two possible systems.

1) The actual prompt line would be tagged onepiece-300. Under this tag, there will be one response per prompt and a new prompt given. This is make it easier to see which is the latest prompt.
Everyone who posts later would post with a slightly different, like maybe onepiece-300+ to show that it's a response to a previous already answered prompt. That way allows for multiple works to be written for each prompt if there is interest, and also opens up space for anyone who wants to write older prompts as well. Writers posting under this tag won't give new prompts.
Ideally, there should be a main blog (which can be on tumblr or dreamwidth or anywhere convenient) to keep track of the entries and also advertise both tags.

2) Everyone posts to the same tag onepiece-300, but all later entries should repeat the prompt given by the first poster rather than giving their own.
Example
Writer 1 writes for prompt A and gives prompt B
Writer 2 also writes for prompt A and indicates that Writer 1 has given a new prompt, which is prompt B
Writer 3 also writes for prompt A and indicates that the latest prompt is prompt B
...
Anyone who chooses to write for an even older prompt should also state the current prompt in their A/N.
This way anyone who comes in later won't have to search for writer 1's post to find the new prompt, as everyone who posts after writer 1 will also indicate what the new prompt is until that prompt is filled and the cycle repeats.

As for your other suggestion, I agree that Dreamwidth is a good potential site as well. There's definitely the advantage of being able to have a format similar to what we have now, and the convenience of being able to post without an account there. The only drawback is whether we can build up a base there, but I'm definitely open to trying it out for a few months first. We could even try running on both Tumblr and Dreamwidth at the same time? We could use Tumblr to attract attention and then divert the traffic to Dreamwidth.

[printfogey.livejournal.com]

Thank you for explaining! I think I get it better now. Your second suggestion sounds a bit more complicated - I think it's good to keep it as simple as possible for potential new contributors. Although even with the first suggestion one would have to remember to use different tags... hm.

I like the idea of trying both Tumblr and Dreamwidth at the same time, at least for a few months. We could start by posting the first prompt on both sites, and then do it traditionally for Dreamwidth (everyone uses the same prompt until one is declared a winner by the promptmaker) and on Tumblr follow one of your suggestions, perhaps.

What do you think about adding one category for fics between 300 and 1000 words?

But in that case perhaps the comm name and Tumblr tag should be onepiece-1000 instead... Or onepiece-challenge, if that's not already in use.

[stelra-etnae.livejournal.com]

That's do it, then! We won't know until we try! :D
I don't mind organizing the Tumblr side of things for now, and can help out with Dreamwidth too if needed.

About the 300-1000 words category, we could try to implement that later after we get more of a following. I think it may get too confusing to kick off both at the same time especially since we still aren't sure which platform will work better. So I suggest just sticking to onepiece-300 for now, since that's what we're familiar with.

[ishimura.livejournal.com]

I can't say much what hasn't been already discussed here, just my personal opinions. I think Dreamwidth would be neat because it has the same format, and I wouldn't mind posting to tumblr either. Both platforms have their pros and cons.

[synvamp.livejournal.com]

I have been absent for a million years & I am a technophobe with no experience with tumblr / reddit etc but I just wanted to say... thanks.

This comm has been such a lovely part of the fandom & I've really enjoyed it. I really appreciate all the time and love that has gone into it.

It's been great <3