Okay, I gotta admit: It’s getting harder to gear myself up to post every Tuesday. Feels like we don’t have many readers left, and of course even fewer commenters (the occasional very enthusiastic F. Fawcett comments notwithstanding).
Are you original readers still out there? Have any new people who’ve stumbled upon us continued to read regularly? Or is TGW sputtering toward single-digit readership?
I’ve asked the question before, and the site has always survived and even thrived, but: Whither TGW? Are you guys all still into this, as we approach our sixth (!) year?
Posted on Tuesday, December 14, 2010 under TGW Itself | RSS
HEY! resorting to TGW google image search! Cool about the wine?! no?
yeah to whatsit or not to whatsit . . . the question goes on . . .
We write about our existential crisis on TGW and then we live it out here as well. Do we matter? Does anyone care?
You can’t — you won’t — you don’t — stop.
Hm. Well, the initial crush has worn off, to be sure, but I am still in love. With you all.
I stumbled complicatedly upon TGW two years ago and continue to read it; I find its presence comforting and hope you continue to write it.
(three?)
I’m newish* and I don’t comment much but I do read. Surely I represent some sizeable demographic!
*appropriate response: funny, you don’t look newish.
I’m still here every day (does that make me a loser?), but I totally get the fatigue. It is a little disheartening to post a photo every Monday only to hear a bunch of cricket chirps.
That said, I feel as though the silence has been an honest response, so I don’t harbor any anger or ill-will toward you all. Honestly, I feel as though the marketplace has spoken — sorry Dave to go uber-capitalist on you. So if someone wants to do something different with Mondays, that’s totally fine by me.
LP, you have a different situation; you actually write something up, which takes up more of your precious time and brains. Though I really do look forward to your random posts on Tuesday, I would certainly understand if you wanted to move along. If I were you, I might be ready to take a final bow.
I still read every day, although I don’t have tons of time to comment these days. I’m amazed the site has lasted this long in its present form. A few weeks ago I was avoiding work by going back through some of the archives, and I loved the posts and especially the comment threads. It does seem like our comments are sparse these days, and I’m not sure how to fix that.
As to the question of what to do about things: We can keep going. We can call it a day or take a break. We can try something I’ve suggested before, which is releasing everyone from their scheduled commitments and just allow free posting of stuff when the spirit moves — which would have advantages and disadvantages.
From the perspective of someone who writes, at most, once a month. I’m fine with the current set-up. Yes, comments seem to have waned over the last couple of months, but it seems to me that they eventually wax again (and then wane once more). Perhaps the current paucity of commenting can be attributed to holiday and end-of-the-semester busyness, but who knows?
I know this sounds a bit cheesy, but if there were some other way to show appreciation other than leaving a comment (er, a “like” button?), perhaps the author of a post could gather a modicum of good cheer from that. I don’t know how (or have the admin privileges) to add that, and it’s just a suggestion.
I’m with Scotty when it comes to Parrish’s longstanding participation. If you need to, take a break, LP! If I were trying to come up with something every week I’d feel a bit like a neglected spouse when there are barely any comments. Maybe we can leave Tuesdays open for a while for someone to jump in if he or she feels like it.
As to Mondays, Scotty, if you want to take a break, I can fill in for a while and see how it goes. My beginner’s luck from yesterday has me feeling a little flush. Talk to me in March, though, and I’ll likely be singing a different tune.
Love to you all!
Dave’s “spirit moves” schedule could work if we focused on TGW facebook page as the place from which to alert people about postings, comments etc. and then we could certainly “like” things.
(However, I know I write because I have a fortnightly deadline.)
We already have things set up so a new post is automatically posted to Twitter. I think it would be fairly easy to have the software ping Facebook as well.
You know, we had a minor backlash a while back against people posting comments such as, “Love this post!” In retrospect, I think it was a mistake to discourage those. I’d MUCH rather get a few extra comments saying nothing but “I like this!” than the cricket-chirping Scotty refers to.
So, we can do the “like” button-Facebook thing, sure. But let’s also open back up to the random appreciative comment. Sometimes it seems people think they can only put up posts or comments if they’re writing something especially clever or insightful. But it’s much better if people feel free to post whatever, whenever.
I don’t plan to stop writing here, if only because I’d really like the site to survive, and losing a day seems like it would be the beginning of the end. That said, would people really post stuff randomly on Tuesdays if they were open-thread? That would be cool, but I’m skeptical it would work.
Random postings: all the cool kids are doing it! (But the Biscuits already meet that need, I think.)
Since the site has been having an existential crisis almost as long as it’s been around, I actually take this conversation as a sign of life, not its opposite. And while blogging in general is experiencing a lull–with all the authors, where’s the audience?–I still think this group endeavor has legs.
Posting once a month is plenty for me, and it actually allows a chance to have experiences/ideas worth sharing. Could more people commit to a monthly (or fortnightly) gig? We are all busy people, but there are so many voices I really miss & would love to hear from time to time.
And LP, bless you. You’re a goddess.
14: Love this comment!
The blog that I used to write for employed the loosey-goosey “write whenever you feel like it” policy, which worked for a long time, but eventually people started dropping off. People here seem genuinely more enthusiastic than my old blogwriters though. Maybe it would improve if we kept our schedule intact, but allowed people to write when they wanted to as well? So the once-a-monthers still only had to write once a month, but could also write when the spirit moved them? I know that I’ve wanted to write about things in the past but haven’t been able to because my post-date was still 2 or 3 weeks away.
Well, I still read every day, but have been too busy to make bad mix tapes to pass along or to comment on anything.
I thoroughly enjoy the 10 or so minutes I spend with the Whatsit every day, and hope you all continue, but I understand about fatigue and wouldn’t blame any of your for bowing out.
I’ll see if I can get a mix together and send it off for posting, and try to find time to comment on things I find of particular interest, or to which I have something to contribute.
Thanks, Whatsiters!
some goofy interface with FB would help. I’d link it and “like” it and whatever, just to promote lisa and . . . her books and whatever . . . law school, teaching english in ca, . . . philadelphia, madison, canada and whatnot, . . . jersey, whatever . . .
yeah us!
Hey! The Onion AV Club has an essay about our name.
I would probably post more often as the spirit moves! Scheduling is bad for my writing, as my dissertation shows.
There’s a schedule? I am so bad at pattern recognition.
I still read. I don’t know, I found some of the coolest music, arts, books, and all sorts of random awesome stuff here that I really enjoyed. Sincerely hope TGW is not gonna whither.
Quietly stalking for 2 years. First comment. Please continue writing.
I hereby declare TGW alive and kicking for 2011. Tis the season of secular miracles.
FWIW, when I was trying to start a group blog, I went with “when the spirit moves” and nobody posted a damned thing. Later people would tell me a schedule would have helped. This might be specific to the inception of blogs, though.
Don’t die Tinkerbell.
Clap your hands.
Remember what Hunter Thompson said, “When the going gets tough, the tough get weird.”
I think it’s a great idea for people to post as the spirit moves, in addition to our regularly scheduled posts. If someone wants to write, but their slot isn’t for a few days or weeks, by all means, please chime in!
Maybe just let the “official” post of the day stay up for a bit first, so they get their props. But yeah, the more the better, I’d think.
A goofy FB interface that works nicely is networkedblogs. One person creates a TGW entry in networkedblogs, then people can follow it and have posts show up on their profile. Sort of a glorified RSS reader, the FB integration is nice.
reddog — I think he said, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
Okay, so I’m working on some kind of thing to post to Facebook when there’s a new post here. If you’re on Twitter, though, you should follow us at @greatwhatsit in the meantime. Also, there are all those little social networking buttons under each post, so you can easily share a post that catches your fancy on Facebook.
Dave, this is so sexy because I don’t understand a word of what you’re saying. It reminds me of when you speak Russian.
Hey TGW-my long lost cyberfriends
To anser L.P.’s question, I check in about once a week nowadays. As a ex-daily TGW reader (and one or two time poster) I hope it doesn’t go away. I also have another idea for an fun post/game. On Facebook, I started a couple months ago posting lines from songs (albeit sometimes the obscure lines from a song), and call it name that tune and/or artist. Here are a few examples:
Name that tune #1- “It don’t snow here, it stays pretty green…”
Name that tune #2- “Charge in like a puzzle, hitman wearin’ muzzles, hesitate you die…”
And Name that tune #3- “there you go with your fancy lies, leavin’ me feeling like a dumbstruck fool
And btw Dave, I suspect the decline was directly affected by the removal of the old green TGW logo in January 2009, here’s to reinstituting it in 2011;)