An update.

I'm going to start off by apologising for not keeping up with stuff, I have got a whole number of excuses but I'm probably not the only person to be busy. Sorry. I do intend to catch up with what's been going on and start properly interacting again but I've intended it for several months so I probably lose points on acting on my intentions. There's a half-finished Aella story waiting to be finished but I've no idea when I'll get round to it. Sorry again.

I am still (more or less) alive despite my brother's best attempts. Dad is also alive, I know this because he is moaning about replies and refusing to post more until he gets eight. Pretty much fits the tone for today (how do you lose a scanner?). Alex is definitely alive and won't shut up unless asleep.

I hope you're all OK and alive too.

Looking forward to that story.





That can't be good if your brother tried to kill you.

Also tell your dad to stop complaining, because if he wants to see a sad number of replies to look at my posts for the past, oh, 6 months or so.





I'm still alive, in spite of preparation for moving attempting to kill me.

So, there are 5 people who have responded to his most resent story. Most of those people have replied back and He has responded to a number of those responses which makes 14 replies to his story. But, If you took out his own responses there are 8 replies to his story so this fill his "I need 8 replies" quota.

As for me & my stuff I normally go for 5 replies & that's good for me because that generally how many people read my stuff. But I've been taking a month or longer to get stuff out so I don't use the number of replies to gage when I should get things out. I get them out when I get them out.

Rhiannon is referring to my long-held theory that there need to be at least nine active posters to systain the Parodyverse board. Less than that and it's not as much fun, no matter how great and active those few are.

I find it ironic and a bit sad that at a time when the quality of writing on the board has rarely been better there's so few around to enjoy it.

I've also come to believe that there's a problem rushing ahead and leaving absent posters behind. Once they've missed an issue or two it's much easier for them to drop out or feel they're not "in" any more. It's why I try to include recaps and footnotes. So I do often pace or reserve things I've written to match the speed and events of the board.

Practically it means that rather than doing daily postings, which I can often manage, they become once-every-half-week postings. I try to compromise between not disappointing the few active readers and not defranchising the ones who have to step out of the board for a few days - and not wrecking the story with poor sectional posting.

I'm looking forward to more with Aella in Willingham when you get back to it!

I think it can get by with half that. At least considering the number of replies I normally get (otherwise I'm in real trouble).





That's true - unfortunately, the problem is sites like Twitter and Facebook (and before that, to a lesser extent, Blogs). They say in Hollywood that everyone wants to be a star, and now they can be. People can post their thoughts, and their writings, and be in complete control of both the audience and the content. Message boards like this one require depending on an existing audience, and giving someone else control of the content.





This is part of the reason I wanted to change the way message boards work, and have threads "owned" by the poster and not the board - kind of how Facebook does things, except better aggregated and less separated. Anyone who's gone for months can look up The Hooded Hood's post and read everything they missed without using search or leafing through the board.





I feel like the opposite is happening - people will check the board only if they feel like they're missing something.

The reason people check Facebook 5, 10, 20 times a day is because they can post something and get immediate feedback. Or they check their friends there because someone is going to post something at least once a day.

Here, people will start out checking a few times a week. Then when nothing is posted, once a week. A weekend or two with nothing will cause a few to decide to check in every couple weeks, then maybe once a month. Eventually though, varying between a week or four of silence they'll decided the board's dead and never come back.

The ones we really can't do anything about are those who believe it's time they moved on to a new phase of life, or moved away from old technology (message boards) or follow their friends elsewhere, because they're going to leave no matter what. The object at this point is to prevent people from misinterpreting slowing down posting for the board being done.