It’s a bit more complicated than that…
Is this just for the forum or are you taking suggestions for the main site as well? I’m still relatively new here so I’m still figuring out how everything works and my suggestions are for the main site.
You’re welcome to suggest anything for the forum or main site! Just be aware the main site is a bit on the backburner right now, so it may take some time for them to be implemented, but I do have a list of requests for when I have time to work on it!
Just a suggestion for the writing site
so I rewrote my blurb recently and wanted to paste the rewritten one to my book on Wacky Writers. However, the character limit is too small to fit the whole thing (the upper limit is 1000 characters max and my blurb is a little over 1100 characters long). Can the character limit be upped to 2000 or 2500 characters, if it’s possible?
I know this is an old post, but I have a suggestion.
The Chatters is where a LOT of people go all the time. I wish that the All Things Writing threads were as popular as chatters. Sometimes I want to ask things and feel a little bit like I won’t get enough responses if I post it in All Things Writing even though it is about writing. So I often disguise it as a general fun question
And a lot of people do seem to ask writing questions in The Chatters. The Struggling Writers thread is a lot of that.
What are your thoughts on merging the two?
So, instead of having a All Things Writing section, just have a “all things writing” tag in The Chatters. There’s already a “writing” tag that can be selected in The Chatters anyway.
That sounds fine on the surface but I don’t know how I would feel about this in the long run. Chatters moves very fast and a lot of random stuff goes on in there. I’m not quite convinced that writing-related threads wouldn’t just get buried there. And personally, struggling to receive help when I specifically asked for it is more frustrating than someone not saying hi on my conversational thread.
Do you think that you would get enough responses if you didn’t disguise your writing question and put it in Chatters? Because I feel like it’s the nature of the questions that puts people off, not necessarily the category separation, so I’m not sure if merging them would solve the problem.
I was thinking about this, too, and also thought it might be a problem It does move very fast and slower threads easily get bumped down and forgotten.
I do think so. I just haven’t been because when my question is moved and not in Chatters, I get fewer responses. So, to avoid getting it moved, I might ask “favorite action scenes from movies and books?” instead of “Any tips on how to write action scenes?”
Idk if this is just a me thing or if anyone else does this.
I’m also bringing this up because it links to promoting Wacky to other writers. A few months ago, when I asked people in a writing group on Facebook about what they look for in a writing forum, many said one thing they look for in a writing forum is being able to ask writing questions. At the moment, it looks like All Things Writing is for that, but there’s not a lot of traffic there. It might discourage some people from asking questions there.
But if it’s okay to ask writing questions in Chatters, then I have no issues
Well, see, this doesn’t make sense to me I don’t understand why people would avoid replying to a thread just because it’s in a different category. All threads show up the same in the latest updated column. I’ve never looked at a new thread and clicked away from it because it was in All Things Writing and not in Chatters.
I think there are a couple of things that deter people from interacting:
- answering targeted writing questions requires more effort than just saying what you’ve been up
- staying on topic requires maintenance from the OP - very often, threads in Chatters are created by someone who then doesn’t drop in as much, but the thread keeps going because it’s devolved into random chatter
- and related to the previous point, many writing questions need solutions, which the OP has to moderate in the sense of this helps/this doesn’t, and once the favourable solution is found, the thread will be closed because you can’t drop in with random chats later
Not to mention all the r4r/editing/writing services shops that would just get doomed in Chatters.
So my suggestion would be to try out All Things Writing for a while, see how well that performs. Others might follow you into using the category. You guys influence each other more than you realise
I see lol, I think I know what the issue was…a me thing XD Maybe I do it differently, because I don’t look at the updated column (mainly because not everything is there and when I do look at it, it’s after I’ve finished with my responses, so I only see myself). I click on Chatters or All Things Writing to see if anything new was added
That’s true. It’s not a quick thing. I find IG to be the same.
I’m guilty of this I often take on more than I’m able.
This is something I am willing to keep on top of. I do this in FB groups. If I receive a solution, I might turn off comments or even delete the post.
I’ll try that, thanks I guess I didn’t realize that others might be using the forum differently than how I’ve been using it. Which, of course they are, duh XD But I never thought of that for some reason
I never thought about that either Do I influence others, too? Wait, a better question is: who are the top contributors in terms of creating new threads and commenting? Is there such stats?
I’m sure many folks do the same thing, perhaps some only ever bother with Chatters But I also know a lot of people stalk the latest updated grid (better visible on desktop) or just browse through all new threads. As a mod, I had a habit of just scrolling through all new ones in case they needed moving and sometimes I responded. Don’t get to do it as much anymore, though.
This is not necessarily a problem, we still have automated closure in All Things Writing, so inactive threads go away. I just mean in the sense that, once a solution is provided, that thread will no longer generate interaction, unlike Chatters topics. It’s one reason why the category goes a bit slow.
For sure you do But it’s to be expected, I would say, once a community forms, they kind of establish their own standards/defaults. So in these situations it’s best to lead by example. I’m sure others feel the same way about avoiding All Things Writing because it’s quiet. As for the users, you should be able to access the “Users” section where you see all users, their user cards, ranking, points, etc. It should be under the hamburger menu somewhere, I also have to click on “More” to find “Users”.
Thanks for these explanations and stuff. As a user, I tend to not see the other side or other users and kind of assume everyone is doing the same thing I’m doing when it might not be the case.
Idk if it could be called like…user blindness? You don’t know what’s going on until you ask a mod or you’re on the other side as a mod yourself.
Anyway, I’m cooking up a few questions (maybe one experimental one) to see how it goes in All Things Writing
We also have a “solutions” functionality for answering questions, I’ll make sure it’s turned on in ATW.
My pleasure! It’s always good to talk these things out, chances are one or both of us will learn something new
That would be so helpful
Hi!
It seems like I was the last one to post here Well, I had an idea and it’s not about something on the site.
So, I have this YouTube channel, and sometimes I have a video called Fox in Thoughts where I give my weekly or bi-weekly thoughts on something that was on my mind. I thought about using that to promote Wacky Writers’ topics.
I won’t say who, but I’ll introduce the topic like, “This week on Wacky Writers, there was a topic about villains and some people said this, some people said that, and I said this, and it got me thinking about…”
Or, “This week on Wacky Writers I decided to post about something I recently wrote in a thread of mine. I have a thread called Out of Context and what you do is say what last happened in the story but totally out of context for sometimes disturbing or funny results. Makes for fun conversations.”
I think people would be interested to hear about what is being talked about in Wacky and be more inclined to join.
I did consider recording the screen as I actually navigate and use Wacky, but I wasn’t sure if that would be allowed given that while this is a public forum, you do need to login to use it.
Anyone have any thoughts on this or suggestions? Basically, I want to talk more about Wacky on my channel.
Hey Tiger,
I apologize for not seeing this sooner–if you’re still interested in posting about us on your Youtube channel, I’d say go for it! Logging in to the forum is mostly a security measure to avoid anonymous trolls or spammers, so I’m happy for you to record your screen (maybe just not in your private messages though?). If you mention us, let us know and we’ll repost it!
Thanks!
CJ
Hi CJ!
No worries. I had so many video ideas stacked up to get to and things have finally settled. So it was good timing
I’ll likely just go through the forum topics, say what’s here, what’s going on, and give an overall introduction/how-to-use…and just gush about Wacky Then of course, I’ll link to Wacky Writers in my description.