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The Fate of SWG Challenges
Mar. 2nd, 2014 01:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dawn_felagundIn September 2005, the SWG ran its very first writing challenge, "Strong Women." Challenges have, therefore, always been a part of our group and were part of the original vision when the SWG was founded. We intended to not only offer regular challenges but to keep them open forever, to encourage writers to delve deeper into topics, feel able to conduct more in-depth research, or to write longer works. We currently have more than seventy challenges and present a new challenge every three months.
However, our challenges are not a popular part of what we do. When we ran the numbers, we found that each challenge received an average of two responses, and quite a few challenges had no responses at all. The hard reality of running a group of this size is that we have only a limited amount of volunteer resources, and it serves all SWG members best if we direct that energy toward programs and activities that our members find useful. Given this, the SWG moderators have been discussing what to do with the challenges on our group. Should we continue running them? Should we change the format or how they are presented in order to make them more popular? Or should we recognize that we've reached an end of an era and cease developing new challenges but leave the old challenges available for anyone looking for a plotrabbit or two to get their muses going?
We are very interested in hearing from our members about where they'd like to see our challenges go in the future. Would you be interested in writing stories for challenges on the SWG? Or this not a group that you find conducive to that kind of activity? If you think we should keep the challenges, what do you think we can do to make them more widely used? Would it help to have a way for people to report completing a challenge and spotlight the stories they create in the newsletter? Would it be more motivating to sign up for challenges? Would people like to see customizable challenge elements offered to each writer who wants to participate? Would banners or other rewards be motivating? Something else entirely?
We are very open to any and all ideas. We are not making any decisions at this point but just want to get an idea of what our members are thinking. Please comment here or email us at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org to share your thoughts.
However, our challenges are not a popular part of what we do. When we ran the numbers, we found that each challenge received an average of two responses, and quite a few challenges had no responses at all. The hard reality of running a group of this size is that we have only a limited amount of volunteer resources, and it serves all SWG members best if we direct that energy toward programs and activities that our members find useful. Given this, the SWG moderators have been discussing what to do with the challenges on our group. Should we continue running them? Should we change the format or how they are presented in order to make them more popular? Or should we recognize that we've reached an end of an era and cease developing new challenges but leave the old challenges available for anyone looking for a plotrabbit or two to get their muses going?
We are very interested in hearing from our members about where they'd like to see our challenges go in the future. Would you be interested in writing stories for challenges on the SWG? Or this not a group that you find conducive to that kind of activity? If you think we should keep the challenges, what do you think we can do to make them more widely used? Would it help to have a way for people to report completing a challenge and spotlight the stories they create in the newsletter? Would it be more motivating to sign up for challenges? Would people like to see customizable challenge elements offered to each writer who wants to participate? Would banners or other rewards be motivating? Something else entirely?
We are very open to any and all ideas. We are not making any decisions at this point but just want to get an idea of what our members are thinking. Please comment here or email us at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org to share your thoughts.
