Community Proposal

[kalloway]

Hey, onedeadplotbunny, I have something I'd like to ask you. More than once, I've thought about and also had discussions about brainstorming and how difficult it can be when personal friends aren't necessarily into what we're working on and aren't necessarily the best sounding boards for ideas, etc.


I'm proposing community brainstorming posts where anyone could drop in and ask for a little help getting ideas together/getting past stuck spots/trying to figure out what to do with that one last bingo square/etc.


There would be no requirements for participation/using any of the ideas brainstormed/etc.


This post is open to any questions/thoughts/commentary.

Poll #16130 Brainstorming Posts

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 17

Would you be interested in [time period]-ly community brainstorming posts?

Yes
15 (88.2%)

No
1 (5.9%)

Maybe/I'm leaving a more-detailed coment.
1 (5.9%)

If yes, how often would you like to see these posts?

Weekly
6 (40.0%)

Twice-a-Month
4 (26.7%)

Monthly
2 (13.3%)

Other/I am leaving a more-detailed comment
3 (20.0%)

Comments

[roseargent]

My vote for "other" in the second question is more of an "any of the above."

Though it might be nice to have general brainstorming posts every week, as most people have voted for, and then less frequent posts for like... people needing a full-on canon-knowledgeable alpha reader.

[kalloway]

I'm pretty 'any of the above' myself, as long as I can make a schedule of it or possibly recruit help from the community in running them. If we go with weekly, I'd likely do them Saturday or Sunday and keep the check-ins Tuesday-Wednesday.

[taichara]

I'm being a horrible special snowflake in my poll responses, but only because I can see the idea being a useful thing for folks even if I wouldn't really be throwing my own roadblocks out there (mainly because of how my brain works *shakes fist at brain*).

Ditto that I figure the people likely to be more proactive probably have a better thought on frequency than I do X3

[silverr]

I said "twice a month" but I know for myself the need for idea-bouncing isn't at all regular: I usually tackle bingo cards either in the downtime between fics ( which I have not had this year) or when a particular WIP is overheating my circuits and I need a break (which again, is an irregular happenstance).

I would also say, however, that imo brainstorming sessions are a lot more productive "live" - e.g., either voice or IM chat (using Ventrilo, Skype, gchat, googledocs, or ... I dunno, livestream? for example).

[kalloway]

The only reason I am thinking twice-a-month or weekly is to keep ideas bouncing for those who need them. If it's monthly, I'm afraid people coming to it later in the month may not get people checking back at it, even if I mention it in the check-ins...

Maybe in the future we could add a live component if we get a big enough group interested who could 'meet' at a certain time.

[pianet]

This would be a dream come true! *_* I chose weekly, but perhaps twice a month would suffice?

I still post infodumps about the plots I'm working at the time on my unsuspecting friends, and they say they are okay with it, but I wonder if it isn't a hassle to read all that from time to time. XD

As Silverr says, live works so fine— I miss having back and forth brainstorming sessions with my beta. But I think it helps either way to be able to gauge others' reactions to things you have thought about, especially if you're not sure if that's the right thing to do for the fic or the characters. I know I doubt myself a lot, at least.

[kalloway]

I think we'll try twice a month and then weekly if they seem to be getting good traffic? The only thing I'm questioning with a live scenario is that we're not a huge group and timing might be difficult. Perhaps we can organize something for when the community restarts in February and we have the inrush of new folks?

(Basically, I want to make sure it's a workable, good idea before I put too much planning into new features~)

[pianet]

No problem! Live might work better when it's one on one, too. I'll be looking forward to the first installment. ^^