Writing Challenge Statistics

[Phyrebrat]

This thread makes me wish I understood numbers beyond 8.... Thanks to TJ for the written summary.



pH

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

All I know is, I have not done very well in the 300...

 

[nixie]

Karn are you looking for a slap...

 

[The Judge]

*sees Lenny's post* EEK!! (Closely followed by "Sheesh, the things I do for the Challenges...")

Is the "staying with us" in regards to the challenge, or as active Chrons members?

Just the Challenges, or rather, just the 300s, since I'm not there cross-referencing to the 75 worders.

I should probably query the usage of "newbie" - first time challenge entrant, or brand new member? First time entrant is my guess

That's right, new entrants to the 300 Challenges.

If it's the former, then the figures might be affected by new members who entered a challenge, but didn't stick around as active Chrons members, in which case the worry that getting people to repeatedly participate in challenges is hard is misplaced, as the problem is part of a larger "How to keep people active on Chrons" (ahem) challenge.

OK, I've now had a look at names and profiles. Of the 40 who didn't take part in the 2013-2014 Challenges:

1. the noted last activity ("LA") of 13 of them was before April 2013 ie they haven't returned to the Chrons** since the new Challenge year started. I've not bothered to check/note joining dates, but yes, some were then newish members and they have low post counts
   
2. another 2 had an LA of either April or May 2013, so were only around for the one Challenge that year
3. the LA of 8 was between June and December 2013
4. 8 were active between January and June 2014 (one of whom re-emerged after a longish absence to contribute a 75 worder recently which is good news!)
   
5. 9 are currently active, ie they've logged onto Nu-Chrons in the last week (at least one of whom has taken part in a 300 worder for this year, which is also good news!)

I'm not sure what that's telling us, though, save we need to keep more people active in Chrons as a whole, too.

** In old Chrons we could differentiate between last visit and last activity such as posting. As far as I can see, with these old profiles the date is literally when they last posted, so it might well be that some of these long-gone members continued to visit afterwards but didn't post, which would skew the figures further.

 

[Lenny]

*sees Lenny's post* EEK!! (Closely followed by "Sheesh, the things I do for the Challenges...")

Apologies! I was thinking out loud. I have to say, the time and effort you're putting into gathering stats is very impressive.

Your findings are about what I would have expected (I'm classing members who haven't logged in for nearly two months or more as inactive) - 31 disappearances to 9 active members.

I'm not sure what that's telling us, though, save we need to keep more people active in Chrons as a whole, too.

Going by Introductions threads, we're still getting a regular supply of new members, so I reckon we're safe, for the time being, from Chrons becoming a silent wasteland.

 

[The Judge]

Your findings are about what I would have expected (I'm classing members who haven't logged in for nearly two months or more as inactive) - 31 disappearances to 9 active members.

But that 31:9 statistic is only as at today. During the life of the 2012-3 Challenge season, which is when these members didn't enter any stories, on these figures the ratio was 15:25, which isn't nearly so encouraging.

Anyway, we all need to get prodding people to take part in the 300s!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Have we ever explored why more people don't take part? Is it time, or do we - dare I say it - seem a little formidable/cliquey? Do newcomers think there's not much point in bothering? I know I felt fairly intimidated in my first month....?

 

[ratsy]

I wonder if there is a spot on the homepage to maybe highlight what challenges are currently active? That might draw people into it. Like I said, it took me a long time to even realize there were challenges happening here

 

[The Judge]

Have we ever explored why more people don't take part? Is it time, or do we - dare I say it - seem a little formidable/cliquey? Do newcomers think there's not much point in bothering? I know I felt fairly intimidated in my first month....?

I'm not sure how we could find out, save to ask people who have only entered once or twice, which they might find a bit intrusive, and since quite a few aren't active at the moment, might not get us very far anyway. I imagine some recently/currently active members certainly are too busy or are now off doing other things (eg I, Brian and allmywires).

As for cliquey, I was hoping that if we had more discussions of the stories themselves in the Discussion threads there might be less banter and in-jokes which can be very daunting to outsiders. And I can well imagine that we lose some people if they feel their story has been undervalued with few or no votes, but I'm not sure we can do anything about that save to comment favourably on their pieces (if that's possible**) even if we don't shortlist or vote for them.


** On such occasions I have sometimes been reminded of Eliza Bennett trying "to unite civility and truth in a few short sentences"...

 

[Parson]

I'm one of those who is still active (4000+ posts). I stopped participating in the 300 word challenge because of time. I was spending 4 or 5 hours a month on writing and that was taking too much time I reckoned.

 

[The Judge]

I'm sorry to hear that, Parson, but I can well imagine how busy your life is. Can't you perhaps use your daily walk on occasion as a time to think about writing, ie honing the plot or thinking about the words, so all you have to do is scribble it down when you get in?

 

[Bowler1]

It took me a few months as a new member to realise there were open challenges. I think I was focused on the writing threads at the time, but quite soon longer serving members pointed me in the right direction. Some active encouragement by us longer serving and jaded members would help new members along. Are cattle prods considered light encouragement, or would I be getting carried away?

No 300 from me this month, work got in the way.

 

[Parson]

I'm sorry to hear that, Parson, but I can well imagine how busy your life is. Can't you perhaps use your daily walk on occasion as a time to think about writing, ie honing the plot or thinking about the words, so all you have to do is scribble it down when you get in?

You've mistaken me for someone who is a deep and organized thinker. I can at best get an idea while walking that I might be able to work on. But any kind of concentrated thinking just is impossible for me when I can't write it down. (and you are right I spend an average 5 hours a week walking)

Lately (within the last month) I've joined Kindle Unlimited and now I listen to audio books on my walk. The only problem with that is that now I sometimes forget where I am on my 5 mile walk. --- Not a bad problem and I've listened to some crackerjack mysteries. Right now I'm listening to the A Better World book 2 in the Brilliance Saga by Marcus Sakey. It is near future S.F. and it makes it difficult for me to get my work done.

Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[The Judge]

And with the end of the Challenge year, it's time for the Writing Challenge Statistics. (You know you've been waiting for them...)

75 worder -- Year 5 -- April 2014 to March 2015

When I reported last year's figures I said they were something of a disappointment. Regrettably, the figures have dropped again. Last year, ie 2013-14, we had 129 members take part in the 12 months, itself down on the previous years (2010-11 = 148; 2011-12 = 151; 2012-13 = 154), but for 2014-15 we had a bare 114 members enter the Challenges. The difference is largely due to a lack of new entrants joining -- last year we had 55 newbies (new to the Challenges, not necessarily to the Chrons) which again was lower than before (2011-12 = 85; 2012-13 = 70), but this year it was only 40. The number of entries for the year was also down, at 568 -- the lowest ever (we started with 570 in our first year, and thereafter 2011-12 = 612; 2012-13 = 670; 2013-14 = 578).

The highest achieving month was 52 in February (the highest last year was 59); the lowest 42 in July. The best month for new members was August with 6 (10 last year).

One piece of good news, the number of votes was up, from 507 to 539, and we had two months when votes exceeded the number of entries, which is very unusual and most welcome -- June had 46 votes for 43 entries, and January had 52 votes for 48 entries, plus in another couple of months votes and entries were equal. So many thanks to those members who voted without entering. Two months were disappointing, though. December had 50 entries but only 41 votes, and March had 48 entries and 40 votes -- though neither was as bad as last year when there was one month that was 12 votes adrift.

Some 17 of us had 100% attendance records over the year, with another 5 people dropping only one month, and 4 missing only two Challenges. And more good news, last year half the total number of entrants came in for only one or two Challenges (54 entrants only entered once, 13 only twice), but the figures this year show improvement -- 33 members entered only one Challenge and 16 entered twice.

And the year as a whole belonged to Victoria with a great 30 votes from her win and two second places. Juliana came second with 27, just pipping Cat's Cradle who came third with 26. TDZ came 4th with 24 votes, alchemist was 5th (22 votes in only 9 Challenges), Bowler was 6th (20 votes), Phyrebrat and I tied for 7th with 19 votes (though he got his in only 7 Challenges!) and Teresa was 9th with 18 (in 8 Challenges), just ahead of Jo and jastius in joint 10th place with 17 votes.

I think I mentioned elsewhere that Ashleyne's 13 votes in August is a new record for a one-person-one-vote month, so Hex is now second with her 12 votes in one month last year, ahead of mosaix with his 11, and Cul is now fourth with his 10. (HareBrain and digs still share the honours for the highest ever, 14 votes, but that was in a three-vote month.)

And the 5 year cumulative stats will follow in a bit.

 

[Juliana]

Second!! Scary stuff...

Thank you for doing this TJ. It's always fun!

 

[ratsy]

Thanks for doing this TJ. Well done.

Now I will just search for a rock to hide under after seeing my results

 

[The Judge]

No need to hide yourself away, ratsy. When there are such great stories month in, month out, in the absence of lots of non-entering voters, it's inevitable that even very good stories can miss out on votes. Keep plugging away!

And to remind everyone, the stats aren't there to do anyone down -- to repeat what Moonbat said a long while ago:

I hope that people find these as interesting as I do, it is not my intention to upset anyone, and I hope that those of us that have not been as sucessful as Harebrain are not disheartened by any of these. I think it is a testament to the enjoyment that we all receive from partaking in these comps that they have been so sucessful.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Wow, that's a lot work to put together. Thank you for that.

I am honored to have accumulated that number of votes. (Hint: Enter every contest.) But the truly mind-boggling number is the amazing lop-sided victory that Ashleyne achieved in August; a feat which can only be compared to being the first person to break the four minute mile.

 

[Juliana]

But the truly mind-boggling number is the amazing lop-sided victory that Ashleyne achieved in August

Agreed!

And @ratsy, no hiding allowed, Mr. Short Story Virtuoso! (think I don't know about all those published stories piling up on your bookcase?)

 

[ratsy]

I do love entering these things and even getting the odd vote is amazing when there are 40+ entries and someone has to pick the BEST one of all of those..the odds are not good.

So to all of us who don't see a lot of votes..it's all good, and lets keep going with them! And to those who are lighting it up, congrats! See if you can top it next year