Lisette, et al.

The use cases for the site are varied. The site is, visibly, in its present form, unsustainable - the number of absentees and abandons makes it hard to relate to anyone. This is a city of transients, changing 92% of the population every two months. Why?

Having a contest to welcome people, and invite old users that we may know or remember, to return does not have an insincere motive. I am giving these coins, I am giving these gifts, because some of the best writing on the web is on this site, and if we don't find a way to make it warm and friendly, then we won't have a nice place to play. They may as well close this down and charge for critiques instead. This is a coalition of the willing, and I'd like to make as many people feel like they have others here that are friendly and miss them when they are gone as possible.

Your argument in general puts fun and hard at opposite ends of a spectrum. For me, this is not the case. If this was a pure writing site, why have scratchpads at all? Why have gifts, and coins and pro memberships? Why allow profiles? This is a community, and though you may be all business (which I don't condemn), communities need community activities. Do you participate in the monthly writing contests? Do those have anything to do with your novel?

As to the reasons for taking breaks - I completely concur. Everyone is entitled to complete freedom, but it is nice to be missed isn't it? It is nice to get a message from someone who just tripped over your poem from 4 months ago and found something great to love about it.

I've invested my writing, and by extension some of my most creative self into several different sites before this. All of them have been either too financial, or too exclusionary. I got welcomed here - and that makes this place 100 times better than others. That is the beginning of the social glue that has kept me here.

I'm not parading the castle walls, I'm trying to find a way to invite others to the party and get them to hang out for more than 5 minutes. </end diatribe>

Sorry if this all sounded "hard" but all this is supposed to be helpful - when motive is called into question I get a bit skittish.

In service,

B

i'm going to speak up and say that i think Laurie's right : people are busy and do have legitimate reasons for taking time away from the site. plus, i think we need to be honest about what we're dealing with here - this isn't an online fun and games site where you can watch videos of people banging themselves up by falling out of trees or animated kittens fighting each other.

this is a website for people who want to write, and writing is hard. so it makes sense to me that not that many people are serious about this site because most people who aspire to be writers, once they really try writing a story or the second chapter of their novel, find out they're not serious about writing.

that being said, there are plenty of people out there who are legitimately serious about writing. not all of them though will make time to participate in a site like this, despite its perks, and not all of them will want  to participate even if they do have the time. i'm okay with that. those who are interested will seek this place out and gain what they will from it. i don't believe anyone should invest so much effort in planning how to keep people here as if we were the henchmen patrolling the grounds of some witch's castle lair.

i, for one, feel uncomfortable with the idea of a contest to see who can type the same message on the highest number of scratchpads. it smacks of insincerity to me. sure, i'll agree that there are procedures here and there on Scribophile that can be changed for higher effectiveness, but as for tactics for maintaining membership, i'm not all for them.

 I think the intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation issue is not an issue. In any situation where elements exist on a continuum, my experience is that the answer is both. As empassioned as we all can be about our writing, sometimes its nice to "pal around"' with people who know us via the intimacy of our writing. Other times, it is nice to have something like a target that exists outside our normal domain of interest to write against. Both internal creation, and external achievement are meaningful mechanisms for the perpetual creative expression that we all are. This site represents that to me. Anyone who participates in the challenge that is the Furious Flash Fiction Fridays circle can attest to the challenge that writing can be, and the social capital one can invest in a work that "is just for fun".

All of that said, we have a chance, I think, to start up some systems of support that can bring the social aspect to the site. I can say that the "investment" of welcoming people has been fun, almost like a game. I propose that - as our first challenge/game! Here's the plan:

For the month of August, and hopefully with a little help (so I don't miss anyone), I'll tally up the welcomes, and the "we miss you" messages left on scratch pads. I will award the top three, by volume, with 1k coins each, with second place recieving a "gift" of the pen set offered here on scribs. First and third place prizes are pending a meaningful thought process and will be announced in approximately 2 weeks.

I will try to post a weekly leaderboard so we can all see how we are doing. I'll exempt myself from any prizes. Also, mention to others along the way that they can join the welcome wagon any time they like, and participate in the contest.

General rules about welcomes: New users only - within the first 72 hours of their arrival. Duplicate tags (from the same person) don't count.

General rules about "we miss you" messages: You can't tag the same user more than once per week - so 10 different people can tag LAOS, but you only get credit once a week.

Let's get it on!! Good luck.

that's a good question, brian. i don't know how to keep people engaged. i asked laos (dom) what's up, and he's just busy, he says. seems a common answer.

we all want to develop our writing, to be good storytellers, but life keeps getting in the way. 

i think scribophile does a great job of focusing on writing and feedback, which is my personal priority. and i know other sites (writing.com, for one) feature all sorts of social activities (member-run contests, raffles, auctions, games) to keep people entertained. i wouldn't want this site to go that far, but i wonder if the welcome wagon could sponsor newbie contests? we could all chip in for the prizes (brian being the supreme decider and banker of virtual coins).

this may not help with retention, but if more folks had opportunity to "win" recognition, positive feedback, guaranteed reviews from the welcome wagon, and a shiny  virtual trophy, that initial personal investment may help with a deeper commitment down the road?

i dunno. it's the age-old dilemma of internal vs external motivation. what do you think?