Subject: I'd be game for bringing that challenge back.
Author:
Posted on: 2014-08-25 21:43:00 UTC
Also, I agree with whomever mentioned liking it if things would be a little more grounded now and then - everything being off the wall madness gets boring and eventually sorta undermines the lived-in feel some of the better spinoffs give HQ. But that could just be my naturally serious demeanour.
It's that time of year again (by which I mean it's that time of year because I came back and this ought've been earlier by a good year) and it's called survey time!
For those of you wondering what that means, the survey is something I tried to do yearly to give us a snapshot of the community as a whole that's slightly more comprehensive than the looksees that hS can get from peeking at the numbers and visits on the board.
This is of course by no means exhaustive (because I've only so much spare time and you've only so much spare time) but have at it!
Much thanks to Nesh for helping in adding questions in and to another friend (he knows who he is) for testing it out before I made it live.
You can find the survey here.
Also, generic response of frustration that the Cafeteria doesn't get recorded in Infrastructure. But eh.
All minor complainants and generic responses of frustration will be kept in mind for next year's. Even the cafeteria.
Oh, and the genre descriptions? Hilarious :D
And done (several days later, shhh). Love the added notes and explanations!
~DF
I did it, whoo! And now I'll dive back into Elisabeth das Musical. (No I haven't found Suefics in there yet, but I imagine a lot of Sues would want to hook up with der Tod. Why would they want to do that, I'll never know.)
Just got back from holiday (it was awesome, the week away from internet not so much). saw this and completed it.
It seems I have a knack for returning just in time for something good. Like, say, a survey. :)
Obviously the pie charts (helpfully linked by Miah below) show a lot of the data - and, frankly, it's not very useful data, though interesting. But the essay questions are less easy to read.
Enter me! I've taken the 'what can be improved' questions and turned them into handy tallies.
How do you think the PPC can improve as a community?
No suggestions --- 13
Community activities and interaction --- 7
Goodfic threads --- 3
React quicker to problems --- 3
Be more lenient --- 2
Improve writing skills --- 2
More people --- 1
Mods --- 1
New Board --- 1
More swearing --- 1
More obscure fandoms --- 1
It's quite gratifying to see that half of the responders either think the community is fine, or can't actually think of anything to say... good! The comment about community interaction is already being responded to, but bears emphasising. As for that strange dichotomy between people who think we're too hard on offenders, and people who think we're not harsh enough... and that strange response which says 'We didn't react quickly enough! And also we reacted too quickly!'... well, I'm just presenting the data.
How do you think the PPC as a universe can improve?
Interaction between spinoffs --- 10
No suggestions --- 6
More world-building --- 3
More stories --- 3
Take it less seriously/have more fun --- 3
More/more obscure fandoms --- 2
Less gadgets --- 1
More Sues-as-villains --- 1
Fanart --- 1
More prep time for new writers --- 1
Take it more seriously --- 1
Psst - guys - I think people want to see more intertextuality. And more stories. It's just a guess, though.
Obviously these summaries lose a lot of the details - but that's why the original results are still there!
hS
I always did have a penchant for knives... :P
* Accuracy not guaranteed
[Now I feel a bit guilty about how my mission has been gathering dust for years now.]
... I'm not actually sure about my average page count. I know there are a couple over 40 pages, but my earlier ones are all much less, so yeah.
I didn't include my Fill the Plothole stories this time. I think I might've in the past, so that might screw things up. I dunno. Sorry. ^_^;
I also make no promise that my answers for "Favorite X" will be at all consistent over time.
~Neshomeh
I had to guesstimate on some of the answers- is that okay?
Some of the questions were a bit of a tough choice but it was fun overall!
Signed, answered, and done. w00t.
... for some reason it makes me immensely pleased that two others also have Nikola Tesla from Sanctuary on their lists of lust objects.
Can I get a link to the charts and whatnot? I don't know how to get back to them since I closed the window.
-Phobos
becaus eI had the chance to check some stuff and wanted to change some answers without skewing results.
It looks like lots of people want to see more interactions/cameos/crossovers between spinoffs. In fact, I remember that you've suggested something similar in the past...?
-Dives into the Wiki-
Here we go.
PS: I wonder who's the brave soul that mentioned reading erotic stories.
So far, the only person I've done a collab mission with was Randa, and since we see each other every day at achool, it's not too difficult to get our thoughts in order and toss ideas back and forth. World-Jumper and I haven't been able to work on The Lost Land in a while since he's been so busy...
But basically, I'd like to do more missions with other people! It sounds like fun!
Maybe some points for including points for very old spinoffs (like 2005 or some other positively ancient number) as an encouragement toward that stuff getting more reads?
Also, I agree with whomever mentioned liking it if things would be a little more grounded now and then - everything being off the wall madness gets boring and eventually sorta undermines the lived-in feel some of the better spinoffs give HQ. But that could just be my naturally serious demeanour.
Not that last bit about the erotic stories, but the referencing each other more thing.
some of the choices don’t really fit. Like:
Do you write original stories? Actually I did, forty-five years ago. Currently it’s "No", but I may start to do it again.
Do you write fanfiction? I assume that my writing exercises for PoorCynics workshops don’t count as PPC fanfiction, so it’s "No" again.
When did you discover fandom? So far back in the twentieth century that I don’t remember the year, but I wasn’t really involved and forgot about it for decades. The given answer "2007" is when I rediscovered fandom and actually began to participate in something.
How many books do you read on average? The most honest answer would be: I rarely read books nowadays, because I’m too busy reading online, mostly PPC stuff. "One book a month" is a minimum I would like to achieve.
Do you read fanfiction? "Yes", but only when it is recommended to me by people I trust, or when it is necessary for beta reading duty.
How often do you read fanfiction? I don’t know. It depends (see answer to previous question). "Nearly never" doesn’t count PPC missions/interludes and beta reading.
When did you start reading fanfiction? I may have read fanfiction before I even knew what fanfiction is, long before 2000. The given answer "2008" is when I, after rediscovering fandom, began to think of reading fanfiction as "reading fanfiction".
Concerning the results, I cannot see the graphics for "What genres do you write" and "What genres do you read":
Error 400
Your client has issued a malformed or illegal request.
The parameter 'chs=345x960' specifies a chart with 331200 pixels, which exceeds the maximum size of 300000 pixels.
HG
(Sorry for the long delay, I'm ridiculously busy at times these days.)
Regarding the choices, those are all excellent ones to bring up, and were actually ones I had addressed with the 2012 version of the survey.
Unfortunately since between when I made that one and now, they changed the format entirely so I couldn't copy the survey wholesale and modify and make improvements that way (like I had done with previous years). Since it would take more time than I have available to remake it entirely, I decided against including those for the time being. Assuming I'm still alive in 2015 and Google doesn't update how the forms are made again, those will be making a return then.
And as for the graphs for both questions, the questions make those graphs blow up, so that they don't actually display. Probably due to too many options for what I'm guessing would've been a pie graph.
For the 'countries' bit, you don't have Australia listed. I find that slightly offensive, thank you. Australia is perfectly normal, apart from our poisonous animals. Ahem.
~Kitty
Seeing how the vast majority are regions rather than countries. ;)