Advents 2016 - Improvements / Who's up for it?

I_Love_comps

I would be willing to help out but not on my own. At the moment I am without my laptop, I will have sorted something out by the advent though

sleepyjones

I think the main thing with the advents really depends on how often you want to update it, for me it was pretty much an all day thing, in the peak times there would be a new comp posted every 10 minutes or an update to a post, perhaps being moved from Web Only to Twitter only etc, so there is quite a lot of work involved.

When I did the thread I tried to keep it updated as there were updates posted 'cause I had a lot of spare time to just get on with it, so if a new advent was added within about 10 minutes it would be on the main advent post (It's also a bit less demanding 'cause if you let them build up for a few hours between updating the main post then you'll find yourself spend hours at a time updating as opposed to the odd 10 minutes here and there) so if you were gonna do it for say a couple of hours in the morning and a couple of hours at night then you'd probably find yourself spending your whole couple of hours in the morning updating, adding, editing, moving links that were posted the night before and you'd spend your couple of hours at night doing the same with the posts that were added during the day so it doesn't really leave any time to actually enter stuff yourself.

You kind of think, it'll be hectic in the week before December 1st when it all kicks off but once that's over it'll settle down ... but the reality of it is that it doesn't, every day in December there'll be new links getting added / updated etc, (You do get a quieter period from around the 5th - 15th, but it's still probably a couple of hours a day) ... and then once that actually does start to settle down a bit you need to start looking at Expiring the ones that have ended and potentially moving them all to a "game over" section. (this is what I did last year, you could potentially just put a strikethough on them to cut down on the workload, but I liked to keep it as tidy as possible).

So really, it depends how you want to run the thread and how much time you want to spend on it and whether or not you actually want to enter some of them yourself too, I'm not trying to put anyone off doing it just being realistic about it.

I do think the way forward would be to have separate Web Only and Social Media threads, that way the load can be split between 2 people, it's a couple of extra clicks for people entering / posting, but I think that's a small price to pay in the greater scheme of things, will make everything a lot more manageable for the people / person that to keep the advent thread updated.

xLuckyxAshxWinsx

OK after having a long think about it I don't think I would be in the best position to take on everything. If it was to be split into web entry and social media I would be happy to take on 1 of them xx

OneYorkshireLass

Trying very hard not to sound combative here, but I really think having more than one person controlling the advents thread won't work. It needs someone to have an overview of the whole thing. Judging by the PMs I got, some people seem to have trouble with one thread, never mind two!

Sleepjones - I'm not trying to discredit anything you're saying but your "ten minutes here and there" will just add up to the same few hours I put in each day. Doesn't matter how it's done, or how regularly it's done it all has the same result. Personally I'd prefer to do admin stuff that you mention all in one go, than sitting at the computer all day adding bits here and there. Everyone works differently, though, something we all acknowledge.

Genuinely, people, it's not that difficult compared to say, the Dailies or the Mag Dailies thread, which require far more clicks and far more organising, and it is only for about 60 days ...
If there are no takers then it should be left to each person how they want to organise themselves. I just add advent comps to a favourites folder and use that. If people moan about the lack of a thread then that's their own hard you-know-what :silenced:, they should've stepped up ...

sleepyjones

OneYorkshireLass wrote: »

Sleepjones - I'm not trying to discredit anything you're saying but your "ten minutes here and there" will just add up to the same few hours I put in each day. Doesn't matter how it's done, or how regularly it's done it all has the same result.

No problem 'YorkshireLass, was more of a "It's a bit soul destroying when you realise you have 2 or 3 hours of updates to make" as opposed to doing random wee updates throughout the day ... it is all the same thing, it's just more about your frame of mind, at least that's the way I looked at it.

At the time I was working in a not very busy shop so I had the time to just sit there all day and make updates, hence I volunteered to do it, my position then was a lot different to many of the previous, and probably future, masters of the advent thread so everyone will, indeed, have their own way of doing it, I'm just really talking about the way I did it and the way I would choose to do it ... there is no right or wrong here (unless you do something stupidly wrong)

xLuckyxAshxWinsx

I don't work but have a 2 year old and a 6 year old. My 2 year old is at preschool every morning hence I will have a couple of hours every morning. My partner doesn't get home til 8.30pm and by the time the kids are asleep I have from 9pm to do it.

I really would love to give something back, if anyone can convince me I can do it then I will re-volunteer lol

BlueBella

What will happen if no one offers? There are several Advents running throughout November that have started today!

OneYorkshireLass

People make their own lists... Add a folder to favourites/bookmarks... Keep a spreadsheet ...

cagsd

BlueBella wrote: »

What will happen if no one offers? There are several Advents running throughout November that have started today!

OneYorkshireLass wrote: »

If there are no takers then it should be left to each person how they want to organise themselves. I just add advent comps to a favourites folder and use that. If people moan about the lack of a thread then that's their own hard you-know-what :silenced:, they should've stepped up ...

I am guessing if no one offers*, then what OYL says above is what will happen. Personally I don't mind that at all - I normally tend to do similar and make my own folders of advent comps (morning, afternoon etc etc) and, after about the first couple of days once I've worked out which comps I'm interested in, I work through from those folders rather than from the thread. So if it does come to it that there is no advent thread, it wouldn't be the end of the world.

*for the record, I wouldn't dare volunteer for it - I frequently have periods of 5-7 days where I barely even get to sit down at the computer, far less dedicate time to running a thread. I would be a total let-down!

sleepyjones

I could make a page in a stand alone website that would allow users to add a post and stick it in a category, then it could just auto start / expire based on the end date ... wouldn't be too much work, but I don't know if there would be a way to ingegrate that page into the forum by way of an iFrame or something ... one for the admin's I guess, they obviously wouldn't want people leaving the site but I'm sure it could done pretty easily if we can work out a way to integrate it.

Could maybe have it export to "forum code", so that whoever is running the advent can just copy and paste the code and overwrite ... lemme look into it