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The Alurhsa Word for Constructed: Creativity in both scripts and languages
 
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Improving participation, etc.

 
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eldin raigmore
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Joined: 03 May 2007
Posts: 1621
Location: SouthEast Michigan

PostPosted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 5:24 pm    Post subject: Improving participation, etc. Reply with quote

I asked gsteemso about his participation (that is, was he still participating), and he said "yes".

Here's his first reply in its entirety.

I asked if I could post his paragraph containing his suggestions on a public thread, and at first he said he thought it came out sounding snarky and he hadn't intended that. I told him I didn't think it sounded snarky at all, so he said to go ahead and post it.

Here it is:

gsteemso wrote:
Hi there! Sorry it took me so long to answer you; I've been working a lot of shifts lately.

I regret to admit that I have not often been on Vreleksá of late (or on the Omniglot forums, either, for that matter), except to quickly skim-read the topic headings every few months. This isn’t because I have lost interest — far from it — but because, until a couple of weeks ago, my mediocre mental state kept me from getting enough done to devote any time to creative efforts. Fortunately, a minor change in my meds has greatly improved my mental acuity, so I am now slowly (_very_ slowly) catching up on things, here and elsewhere.

I do not know what could be done to improve public participation on the forums. I know I’d be very saddened and annoyed if they went away, but viewed from a different angle, the stuff found here is only one of several interests I devote time to. It seems to me that this sort of stuff (conscriptery and conlangery, in my case) is inherently not very participatory; we generally tend to make things in private and then show them off here, maybe receiving a small amount of public feedback. Even if really DEEP collaboration were a widely held goal, a web forum is inherently ill-suited to such works.

I will say that it is far more interesting to read posts here if I don’t have to follow links all over the web to see what a post is talking about, and it’s even better when a Romanization or inline image is used to include examples directly in the post body. If there are inconvenient limitations to the forum’s ability to support things like inline images, that would be a good direction for potential improvements to head in. If the moderators have a programmer handy, automatic filtering to reduce gigantic images to a manageable size and reduce the colour depth when appropriate would help a lot; some people have no consideration at all for keeping file sizes under control, which tends to torque off a forum’s hosting server’s administrators. Quite apart from that, it also annoys readers when a picture spills off the side of the screen.

I don’t know how much support can be implemented for such posting aids without introducing annoyingly high system requirements for the end users, but I figure it’s worth asking about, at least.

What sort of feedback are you receiving from others?

Regards,
Gordon



gsteemso wrote:
Hello again Eldin,

While I have no objection in principle to you sharing my little observation with the other forumgoers, when you do, can you please try to find some way to present it that mitigates the very snide and unpleasant tone of that paragraph? I didn't realize when I wrote it just how obnoxious and sneering it sounded.

Thanks for all the effort you are putting into this,

Gordon

PS Like the signature quote!

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Hemicomputer



Joined: 04 Feb 2008
Posts: 610
Location: Calgary, Alberta

PostPosted: Sat Mar 26, 2011 11:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

He makes some good points. Personally, I have barely posted at all lately mainly because of other demands: schoolwork, other creative endeavours, and such. Also, my main conworlding focus is a collaborative one, and my collaborator is busy with schoolwork (she is in university while I am in high school, so our time off doesn't often coincide). Excuses aside, I admit that I've not been feeling creatively motivated lately. I think there are too reasons for that: first, I have too many different projects and ideas happening right now; and second, I am a bit tentative to add or change anything because I am afraid of being amateurish/unrealistic and don't fully understand what in all I need to have done.

The good news is that I am now on spring break, so my other demands are mostly on hold for now. I think I will try to spend break focusing on getting a better idea of the Drumu language and culture, and I will definitely be sharing my progress with this forum and possibly asking its members for help.

P.S. You have an avatar now! Is that you in the picture?
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eldin raigmore
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Joined: 03 May 2007
Posts: 1621
Location: SouthEast Michigan

PostPosted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 5:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's me. Somewhat younger than my current age, of course.
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achemel



Joined: 29 Mar 2009
Posts: 556
Location: up for debate

PostPosted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 5:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Like gsteemso and probably others who haven't posted yet, I've been really busy as well. I'm graduating in almost exactly a month and I have a lot on my plate right now, and I just take the time to see if anything new has been posted every few days or so when I want to procrastinate. Hopefully after May 1 I'll have more time and the mindset to get something done but honestly I haven't touched any of my languages since I posted the little blurb about Byllenese back in... good lord, that was October. Okay, maybe I've done a tiny bit since then, but definitely not since Christmas at the latest. Anyway, my point is that probably everyone who's a student right now is busy and will be for at least a month or two, but hopefully after then we'll get some more activity over the summer.

Also, as for the content of gsteemso's message, I agree that the majority of conlanging is, for most people, probably mostly for personal entertainment, and we share not so much for the sake of creating together as to acknowledge a common interest and get constructive criticism and approval for our work. Certainly in the Random Chat section there are topics open for general conversation but since topics there can be about anything they can avoid conlanging/scripting entirely. Not that that's a bad thing.

I also agree that it's nice to have images and such in a post instead of a link, but personally links don't bother me, and I often keep following them to look at other related things (especially if they're on Wikipedia, which is my King of Getting Sidetracked). But, I have only my support for some things and opposition to others to offer; I'm not tech-savvy so I couldn't give you ideas for improving how the site functions. I will, however, try to be more of a participant in the near future.
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polyglot



Joined: 11 Apr 2009
Posts: 22

PostPosted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 10:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've not been posting because as i mentioned in the "what do people here do?" thread I'm currently in educational limbo and have been working to find a school for me to go to. but we found one and I should be going to it next semester.

so now that thats out of the way i should be posting as soon as i have something to post.

also I'm going to be working at scout camp over the summer so you wont really hear anything of me during that time.
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