Group Closure *Retraction* · 5:23am Aug 31st, 2014
Well, I tried. If nothing else, I am a man of my word.
In my previous blog, I made clear that if activity in The Lost Element's group did not have a significant increase, I would be closing the group. Even though the group has only been open for perhaps a month and a half, I am disappointed to see such little activity.
Allow me to compare this group to another I am a member of. The Lost Element group over the last 45 days or so has accumulated 56 members and 11 forum threads, nearly all started by and containing activity by just me. THIS group has accumulated 47 members over the course of 8 months, but gained roughly 36 forum threads in activity during the first 45 days or so, all maintained and started by multiple members instead of just the administrator.
I was curious of where a group dedicated to my story and its series would go after seeing groups dedicated to other stories. I gave it a shot and I see now that The Lost Element's quality simply is not high enough to warrant enough attention to create a group for. And it’s not fair that activity will only increase when I post a blog warning of the group’s closure if the other members do not start chipping in. The last blog I posted did prompt a sudden boost in the group’s activity, but it quickly died out within a week or two. After waiting to see where this group would go and seeing that the members of the group have no interest in contributing to its growth, I can now safely say that The Lost Element group is a failure.
Since I cannot leave the group myself, I have locked all the current threads to prevent further activity in them and have blocked further membership. If the 55 other members of this group have no desire to keep the group going, then neither do I.
I have opened the group back up for one last try. To anyone who joins, please do your part to contribute to the group's activity.
I hope this means the story won't be cancelled
God, this thing took way too long. Anyway...
One thing you have to realize is that you are trying to compare a group for a relatively popular story, where people can ask questions and debate about it in the comments, verses what can be described as a highly debatable topic. People actively WANT to talk about those kinds of things to express/vent and debate with others with similar views. A lot of people just read stories because they enjoy them and never voice their opinions. AKA, not everyone is Skeeter the Lurker. Those that do will do most of their discussion/questioning in the comments of the chapter in which whatever it is they found interesting happened in, which will get more people to do so, etc. Why go to a group when it can just as easily be done with the story itself? Which also brings up the point that, without a story to discuss these things in, those people ONLY have that group for feedback compared to a group and a comments section for stories.
Also, number of forum threads in basically irrelevant. What really matters is how long the threads are. If a group has 100 threads all with 2-4 replies, not that much is getting done. Now, 33 threads with ~10 each is starting to get some debates/thoughts going.
Now, I got super bored and did some math/observations. This is based off of brief skimming, so take this with a grain of salt. That group of 47 people? It's more like maybe 25 people. Of the 190 threads, 21 people started any, 17 more than one and of those 17, 3 of them started over 1/3rd(71) of the threads. In the dozen or so threads I looked at, only the mentioned, plus maybe 2 more, posted at all. All I'm really trying to say is not everyone in a group actively participates and the ones that do, again, why go to a forum/group when the comments are right there?
tl;dr The comment section of your story IS your group, essentially. If you think it's the quality of your story that lead to the lack of group participation, your are mistaken.
I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THERE WAS A GROUP!!! Or maybe I did.... I can't remember anymore!!
2416152 I'm sorry, perhaps that group was a bad example. I should have used the group for Somewhere I Belong instead. This group, like mine, was dedicated to a single story. The story it was made for not being very good at all due to being a Gary Stu self insert HiE story, and not to toot my own horn but The Lost Element is significantly better. This makes me wonder. If The Lost Element was a worse story, would it draw more attention? It just puzzles me of how the bad stories usually draw more interest than the good.
2417117 The only thing I can imagine goes against what I said, that being it had so MANY comments, it had to spill over, so I don't really have an answer for you there. I am not a psychologist/sociologist, so, again, grain of salt.
As for the bad vs. good thing, people generally focus more on the negatives that the positives. Just compare how many comments look like "I liked it, but thing this, this and this could be improved." vs. "this is a good story because of this, this and this."
Another way to look at it is if 90% of people agree with something, then there isn't much to talk about ("I like it", "same", "me too"). Now, if it's more of a 60/40 split, there can be a lot more arguments back and forth on the same points ("Don't like it", "but what about this way?", "I thought that was good, but that part")..
2417194 Hmm... I suppose you do have a point. Perhaps the group was just unnecessary.
2417201 Nothing wrong with giving it a try. Just don't down yourself over it.
Great, now what??