Another experiment along these lines: blog-a-thon!
Attendees posted three times in one day (!!), once every three hours — starting at 10am, and posting once before each of 1pm, 4pm, and 7pm.
Attendees who published on-schedule were provided dinner for free; everyone else had to buy their own. This was the replacement for kicking people out if they didn’t post.
The output was pretty good, but it was fairly stressful and lasted quite a long duration. I think the blog-a-thon ended up being mostly useful for pushing mostly-finished-drafts into actually-published-posts, rather than getting people started on drafts in the first place — which is I think is great, tbc.
Some changes I’d make to future blog-a-thons:
Fewer quantity of posts per day. Probably two?
...but maybe spread out over two days instead of one! Especially if it’s on a long-weekend, and we can get a bunch of mattresses or cots or something, then make a sleepover out of it.
More financially sustainable for me — I don’t think I could buy everyone lunch & dinner every time. Some ideas: have fewer people come (~5 people instead of ~25); don’t buy lunches, just dinners; if this runs regularly, quietly ask 1-2 regulars to help split the cost; etc.
Some explicit structure for people to give feedback on each others’ posts.
Overall quite happy with how the blog-a-thon went! :)
Yeah, and I would guess that this fixing-up of drafts happened a lot early in Inkhaven, but was less sustainable except for folks who have a month worth of viable drafts sitting around. I definitely don’t have that many drafts, but maybe other people do.
I probably could’ve talked about this dynamic in more detail, but I’m glad that you actually went and ran the experiment.
To balance the cost, you could do some events that are net positive for the house, such as people losing money if they don’t post, rather than buying them something if they do.
Another experiment along these lines: blog-a-thon!
Attendees posted three times in one day (!!), once every three hours — starting at 10am, and posting once before each of 1pm, 4pm, and 7pm.
Attendees who published on-schedule were provided dinner for free; everyone else had to buy their own. This was the replacement for kicking people out if they didn’t post.
The output was pretty good, but it was fairly stressful and lasted quite a long duration. I think the blog-a-thon ended up being mostly useful for pushing mostly-finished-drafts into actually-published-posts, rather than getting people started on drafts in the first place — which is I think is great, tbc.
Some changes I’d make to future blog-a-thons:
Fewer quantity of posts per day. Probably two?
...but maybe spread out over two days instead of one! Especially if it’s on a long-weekend, and we can get a bunch of mattresses or cots or something, then make a sleepover out of it.
More financially sustainable for me — I don’t think I could buy everyone lunch & dinner every time. Some ideas: have fewer people come (~5 people instead of ~25); don’t buy lunches, just dinners; if this runs regularly, quietly ask 1-2 regulars to help split the cost; etc.
Some explicit structure for people to give feedback on each others’ posts.
Overall quite happy with how the blog-a-thon went! :)
Yeah, and I would guess that this fixing-up of drafts happened a lot early in Inkhaven, but was less sustainable except for folks who have a month worth of viable drafts sitting around. I definitely don’t have that many drafts, but maybe other people do.
I probably could’ve talked about this dynamic in more detail, but I’m glad that you actually went and ran the experiment.
To balance the cost, you could do some events that are net positive for the house, such as people losing money if they don’t post, rather than buying them something if they do.