Chat No comments No careers

[BatiGoal]

You hate careers - ignore this. You love 'em - read on.

What's with the plenty of views and no comments all of a sudden? I know we're in a challenging time of year - pun intended - but clearly, there's enough interest as even the least viewed career gets decent amount of views but the amount of comments is downright discouraging. And no, honestly not refering to my own careers as those have withstood the test of time and continue to live on regardless - unless my son pulls a second save-over-all-daddys-saves trick on me 

You dislike careers - then close your tab. You like 'em - comment! Really, fishing for comments isn't my thing but careers are being abandoned for this very reason and that's such a shame. And great careers too but I can totally understand the OPs when they decide to let it die a quiet death due to a poor following. Where's the time we had 25+ unique followers? Even 10 would make me happy these days. 10. But spending hours and hours writing updates for a group of 5 or less hmmm.. Me yes lol but for the majority out there I know and agree it ain't worth it.

Firstly, this is one of the reasons I stick to the 30min time limit for each of my updates but I know for a fact the general career poster spends double that on his or more. It's very time-consuming so the 30 seconds it takes you to write a comment is really not all that much to ask for. If you managed to read thru the entire update with interest, why not drop a few words. It's encouraging for career writers to know that there's readers out there which makes the hours spent on career updates worth it.

Secondly, comments bring (new) discussions. On how people approach a given situation, a fresh tactical approach, new interesting players or just a general chat about the nation, league and domestic cups themselves. It's fun getting involved in these chats the careers generate as they're oftentimes specific to those careers only but I've seen few to none of these as of late.

Lastly, seeing lots of activity in career threads brings out newcomers with their very own unique perspective on careers and challenges. More Vibers start posting, more careers are shared, followed by more comments more opinions and more discussions and so on. Can you see that circle now?

 

Careers need comments to live, folks. Please do your part. Thanks!

[AndersJ]

I could not agree more my friend and you know that, i really hope some of the old AND new guys wake up and listen to what you have to say. Supporting eachother is very importaint and it keeps our careers going on with a little more ease! Good shout, i have tried before, but it was silenced as somebody said i just needed the attention, so i hope this one helps mate!

keep up the great work ??

[Jens]

Yes.

[mcandrew003]

Couldn't have said it better BG. One comment takes a few seconds to write, but it means the world to the creator as it shows people approve, and they're opinions. Without comments, stories and careers would likely not even be a thing.

Nice work Bati. 

[Harish]

So.....

Assuming that the select few in this site who remember me(highly unlikely)don't kill me for this loooong absence... I would like to both apologize and agree to the issue raised in this thread....

Apologize because despite being a member for a year now....I haven't given enough support, if any to the site in the past few months....I could always say that I was caught up in my work....But so was @Ashez, @Taff and countless others who contribute a lot to this site....So I would like to apologize to everyone for ignoring this wonderful site......And vow that I will contribute my absolute best to this site....

I also agree to the issue because even when I was active....There weren't a lot of comments in the massively interesting careers posted in this site...And as @AndersJ said I really hope that the older guys in this site return to show their support to the newer guys in here.....

And of course....I would like to thank Batigoal for knocking some sense into me....I hope others will also listen to what he says....

Cheers. 

[Taff]

BG you have hit the nail on the head

And I'm as guilty as most sometimes, when I take my short breaks and come back to find 20+ new notifications it's easy to get lost on what I've kept up to date on, plus the sheer volume of threads this year is staggering so I once again apologise to anyone who's threads i haven't posted on I honestly try my best even if it something like "KIU good season" that take all of 5 second to type, and there are the core members who try to post on as many as they can so everyone gets a bit of love here

and anyone who is reading this with a career going that isn't getting much love I'll say this 

Stay the course, I remember my first thread on the site, and it took a while, and I almost packed it in, but eventually someone will comment, then more will follow, it's hard but do it for you and if people follow great, if not keep it going, i promise you will get something

[salohcin]

yes yes i do agree with you bati and im sry cos i rly dont have much time to read and comment in some career posts in detail nowawdays especially with my national exams coming up. But i do try my best to read the careers when i have time as a source of destress and break from my studies. Just wanna let all the career writers out there know that i am very supportive of all your career threads and maybe the bulk of us who may not be responding that often are simply too busy with work or too tired at times. I hope that everyone will continue with more interesting career threads and continue letting this side grow! Keep up the good work everyone!

[Putzy]

Very good point to bring up! I'm perhaps guilty of this - I'm constantly reading things to see what to feature and if there is anything worth highlighting in our email newsletters, but I never, ever comment on things outside of my main "knowledge" area.

Sometimes, posts and comments aren't everything, and perhaps they shouldn't always be expected, but they definitely have an encouraging effect on the writer, and to an extent other users - you're more likely to get involved in something active than something slow and "dying".

Is there anything specific that you guys feel that we could be doing better to try to highlight career updates and encourage comments on those? I'm possibly preaching to the converted here since everyone in this thread already comments lots - but is there anything which you feel would make you comment more?

Feel free to PM me with anything if you'd like a longer discussion about this, it is slightly out of place in this thread, but I feel it can generate some ideas for all of us. 

[Ashez]

Well said Bati, this is a drum I've been banging for a few years now. I'm fortunate as i feel my stuff generally receives well from the community but I often look at other careers and think "this deserves more attention". It's one reason why I've made an effort to comment late in the hope that a bump will bring fresh eyes on people's work, however this does mean I can easily fall behind or forget to comment at all. I do my best to follow as much as I can and everything I follow I do comment on though. I do also try and spark discussion based on updates but that usually ends up in a one on one with the OP holder and not a general point of discussion lol. 

In my personal updates I try to engage the reader and give them a reason to comment like asking questions and things like that, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. As you know I always put something along the lines of thanks for reading and please leave a comment which does seem to help lol. I remember forgetting to put it once and that update received no comments lol. 

Over the last year or two I've tried to condition myself to accept views over comments but it's hard going, like you said we spend 30-60mins an update with ease usually multiple times a week yet 90% of the readers CBA to comment and it does kill you inside haha. Getting 100-200 views an update and only 5-8 comments mostly from the consistent core of commenters is a kick in the balls tbh. The interest is clearly there from people to follow your work yet we're just lacking that effort and appreciation back atm. With the way things are I've intentially held off on indepth careers with loads of posting time like stories and what not as the reward for the extra effort just isn't there, that's one reason why my Rogue save was posted in the most basic of ways and why I lost interest in my Caretaker career which took ages to post. 

Getting into career writing is hard for this reason, especially for less established creators who've yet to prove they're worth investing in but people like Taff and Scratch have shown it's more than possible to become a key component of the Vibe careers scene, it's just a case of keeping at it and you'll get there. Vibe isn't comment for comment but us creators should stick together while the lurkers enjoying the work should encourage us with comments, they'd be just as gutted as us if we one day decided enough is enough and stopped. 

[Mr.Manager]

This is an excellent point and I think something that probably all of us could do better at (even though some of you are genuinely excellent). I haven't been on this site for too long so I don't know if it was ever better but I do know that it can be discouraging to receive few if any comments.

Although I know that it's possible to favourite posts, I wonder whether an improved "like" function would help, just so you can show you appreciate a post without having to reiterate what other people have already said? Just a thought anyway.

Also, how do you see how many views your thread has had?? I've never known this!

 

[Ashez]

Likes are generally seen like views to me tbh, I want that personal interaction haha. 

@Mr.Manager Click the little graph which is around the title on each thread

[Putzy]

4 minutes ago, Mr.Manager said:

Although I know that it's possible to favourite posts, I wonder whether an improved "like" function would help, just so you can show you appreciate a post without having to reiterate what other people have already said? Just a thought anyway.

Also, how do you see how many views your thread has had?? I've never known this!

We do have the "heart" in the corner of the posts saying you "like" this. Do you mean, that, or something else? 

For views, you can see it using the analytics icon next to the thread title (this will be going away soon for a simpler system), or on the topic list it says it next to the title.

[Ashez]

1 minute ago, Putzy said:

We do have the "heart" in the corner of the posts saying you "like" this. Do you mean, that, or something else? 

For views, you can see it using the analytics icon next to the thread title (this will be going away soon for a simpler system), or on the topic list it says it next to the title.

Those figures are usually pretty different from my experience. Which is the exact view count? 

[Putzy]

Just now, Ashez said:

Those figures are usually pretty different from my experience. Which is the exact view count? 

That's exactly what we're going to be simplifying - both are a little buggy in their own way, and generally confusing.

Right now, the exact count is somewhere between the two, probably closer to the index one. The one on the index will count every page view of a multi-page thread, the one in analytics/graphs sometimes misses counts depending on how you entered the thread (did you access through VNC, forum index, topic list, external link - you get the idea).

[Mr.Manager]

25 minutes ago, Putzy said:

We do have the "heart" in the corner of the posts saying you "like" this. Do you mean, that, or something else?

For views, you can see it using the analytics icon next to the thread title (this will be going away soon for a simpler system), or on the topic list it says it next to the title.

Yeah, I do know of the heart symbol. It does seem underused though, and I wonder whether if it was a thumbs up or something and maybe at the end of the post it would get used more.

I totally agree that comments are so much better, but I just wondered if that could be improved too.

Thanks for the pointer on the analytics icon - very interesting!

[Ashez]

11 minutes ago, Mr.Manager said:

Yeah, I do know of the heart symbol. It does seem underused though, and I wonder whether if it was a thumbs up or something and maybe at the end of the post it would get used more.

I totally agree that comments are so much better, but I just wondered if that could be improved too.

Thanks for the pointer on the analytics icon - very interesting!

The like icon used to be "rep" or "+1" and was mainly reserved for good work. It was changed to hearts in an attempt to make it more general and it has seen a lot more use tbh. It's just usually as a response to a funny/good comment or help compared to people using it to say they "liked" something. I personally mainly use it as a thanks, an appreciation of post/content or as a congrats to people completing a challenge. I personally like the fact they're less popular almost, it makes getting one mean something, to me at least. I do get the point you're going for however, I'm just not sure that will work as that was what the hearts were implemented for. 

[Scratch]

I've been getting worse and worse over the last couple of months and haven't even really visited the site over the last 2 weeks. Just too busy and there's not much I can do about it. ? I guess we will all have patches like that. But I totally believe in leaving comments on others careers and do it whenever I can. I figure if I leave comments on others' careers, they will leave comments on mine and if I don't, then they won't...

Anyway, I'll keep doing what I can through this busy period!

@Putzy One thing I was wondering about is whether there is any way to highlight that a career has received an update? There is often a long update post, followed by lots of little comment posts back and forth and I sometimes would like to be able to flag to people that I've actually provided a long update. I have a feeling that people would be more likely to click through and read the update and leave a comment if they know it's an update rather than day 6 of comments. I get like that sometimes - if I have the time I'll check out who's saying what in the comments and maybe chip in, but not if I'm busy. If I know there is an update then I'll definitely go read it.

[Dec]

This issue isn't just for careers and isn't an emerging trend but one over the last few years. I agree with the premise though.

[BatiGoal]

You all got a  from me for the positive responses.

Not finger-pointing to anyone here of course, I feel we can all do a little better to support each other even in our busy schedules if we have the time to read careers surely an extra few seconds for a comment won't hurt.

But as pointed out by others, like AndersJ and Ashez more than once, they have posted similar reminders in the past. I have mentioned this as well in career threads reminding OPs that perhaps one way to get more comments is to comment on others' careers as well -give and take kinda thing- but haven't started a thread on this topic until today. But seeing several careers drop dead or close to it got me a little worried. Especially those that deserve so much better for their indepth detail alone.

Great to see the acknowledgement and positive responses tho, it shows we care. 

[Scratch]

14 minutes ago, BatiGoal said:

even in our busy schedules if we have the time to read careers surely an extra few seconds for a comment won't hurt

Oh yeah, to be clear about my comment, I'm having trouble with the reading part. If I get time to read a thread, I'll normally leave a comment even if occasionally it's on the light side. Totally agree we should all be doing that!

[Putzy]

1 hour ago, Dec said:

This issue isn't just for careers and isn't an emerging trend but one over the last few years. I agree with the premise though.

I've said this to you before privately - I don't believe that other types of content do require constant interaction between writers and readers, and thus shouldn't be judged based on the number of posts/comments/replies. Careers are built on the interaction aspect, otherwise you may as well just write a book in the first place.

If you write an article with 5k views in a week, but no replies, then you're obviously doing something right - people will complain otherwise - the "loud minority" if you like. If you submit a download, tactic or poll then the same thing stands - there are other ways to monitor the interactions that doesn't require a post saying "thanks" or similar.

I do agree though that as you say, it's more an emerging thing over the last 3-4 years where commenting on something is no longer the normal thing to do. There needs to be a push to get around that attitude to make it the main interaction step again between members. What that step is, I don't know just yet.

[BatiGoal]

4 hours ago, Ashez said:

With the way things are I've intentially held off on indepth careers with loads of posting time like stories and what not as the reward for the extra effort just isn't there, that's one reason why my Rogue save was posted in the most basic of ways and why I lost interest in my Caretaker career which took ages to post. 

I believe a fair amount of posters resonate with that. I do.

How often have I deleted half my update to sorta "accommodate" the reader. What exactly does the reader of 2017 want? What bits should I include and which ones omit. Too much tactics blabber.. too much on supporting actors.. too much on side events.. not enough on the main stars.. At some point we have no answers and just start something new or give up altogether.

That's why I keep reiterating to make sure posters have some sort of connection with a specific challenge/career. It needs to have that flavor so managers get enough motivation out of it without needing to rely on comments for encouragements. In the past, hell..even as recent as 2-3 months ago..readers' support was enough to keep players going but the Vibe of today hasn't given the career posters the love they deserve at times. Tho it's only a little blip if we want it to be.

One last thing re writing/updating style, one idea I think I have seen somewhere is write a regular update followed by a summary. Those with too much time on their hands read the whole thing and those that don't but still want to follow it or keep up to date with lengthy careers can still do with a "summary". It's an option I'm considering for a lengthy career I'm planning in a month or so from now. Kinda depends on how Vibe's vibing at that point.

[Ashez]

Similarly to Bati's points is why I use spoilers. I have the basics out so everyone can quickly look at it while anyone wanting more info/thoughts can dive into the spoilers. Admittedly I've not gone too deep lately as I've not had a save where I've had much to say but it's an idea I think works (impossible to know if people open the spoilers mind :p). It keeps the skimmers and the in depth readers happy without getting in each other's way too much. I also keep everything in defined updates so you don't have to go through the comments for extra details or the odd random small update etc, I'm really not a fan of the random bits of info thrown out into careers in random comments as it makes catching up a lot harder, I'm not knocking anyone who does that it just doesn't appeal personally.

[kts365]

I've been guilty of this over the past month or two with very few comments. I haven't had much time, luck, health or motivation so for that guys I apologise.

[Stam]

Agreed. The sense of community needs to be reignited. 

I have certain ideas that could potentially boost activity in terms of getting more posts from our members. I've jotted down almost a dozen and will be talking to some of you in private to discuss them and others that you may have. 

[veerus]

What perfect timing!  I was just getting ready to play some of my El Ejido save tonight after another lengthy hiatus.  And maybe my next update won't be an echo chamber between me and you, @BatiGoal.   Kidding! (mostly)  

Seriously though, I think comments depend on one of two things:

1. Frequency - most of us can't pump out regular updates every weekend so many people become distant with a given career over time after a typical hot start (we're in July - how many careers started 3, 4, 5+ months ago?).  This is where a quick catch-up summary may be useful ("Last time we left off,... , etc).  No one will ever remember the details of your career like you will.
2. Content matters - everyone has a different topic of interest they respond to best.  Some people love player evolutions and they will comment on player development.  Others love results or crazy challenges and will respond when various stages are mastered.  I like tactics so any career that discusses formations and team decisions is likely to peak my interest whereas many other threads get the occasional scan to see if there's anything interesting (for me) in there.

Another thing to consider is having way too many screenshots.  Spoiler tags should be standard for screenshot-heavy career posts.  There is nothing wrong with them as a storytelling vehicle but when it takes 30-60 seconds to load 25+ screenshots (and this happening every time I check new posts), it's almost a guarantee that I won't come back to that page more than once.

[Fish18ish]

Agreed. Careers boom for a little while but a week later there's only one or two regular commentors (and by that point they're running out of compliments). There's several careers I was really enjoying that ended due to lack of interaction. Come on guys! 

[BatiGoal]

3 hours ago, Fish18ish said:

Agreed. Careers boom for a little while but a week later there's only one or two regular commentors (and by that point they're running out of compliments). There's several careers I was really enjoying that ended due to lack of interaction. Come on guys! 

And it's not just careers but the community as a whole that benefits from comments.

The importance has been addressed by @Ashez - Why A Comment Isn't Just Text

Really hope people take the time to read the above article. Like any other fansite, comments make or break a community like this one.

[Brenty92]

I can't say anything on this subject better than has already been said by you crazy bunch! We've all binned many a save cause of lack of interaction, it's not a pat on the back we need as such, it's more just discussions or people wanting to know a little more about our way of doing things etc.

[Meow]

It's honestly quite sad to see people who take the effort to make good careers just stop making them. Personally I'd love to comment more, but I'm not really online on this all that often. Usually it's once every 2 weeks or so, and most of my time here is actually just inactivity while I'm on another tab doing other things.

I do take the effort to comment on the careers I do see, and I wish more people would do it. And a surefire way to ensure I come back is to quote or tag me (sometimes I forget to follow). I just wish I had more time, if I did I might even post a career once in a while.