Bringing Community Back: FWJ is Giving Away $150
October 1, 2009 by Deb
Filed under Announcements
Once upon a time there was a blog. This blog had several thousand visitors each day. They shared. They chatted. They commiserated. It was all good. Soon some mean people came by and began scaring away the happy chatters. The vibe changed from warm and fuzzy to not so much fun anymore. The owner did her best to build up community, but she was so busy with her projects and her job it wasn’t happening. She put a comment policy into place but the damage was already done. She had a reputation for having a community that liked to bicker.
She wants to change that.
If you remember the days when FWJ was a huge, lively community of writers helping writers, you may miss the golden days as well. Let’s try and get it all back. Several years ago, we built this community with a contest – a comments contest. We offered a $25 gift certficate to the person with the most comments. People came and never left. It was good.
We’re doing it again, except we’re upping the ante.
Beginning today, October 1st, we’re giving away $150 to the people who help to bring back this wonderful community. We’re giving away three $50 prizes.
- The person with the most comments between now and October 31st, on the homepage Freelance Writing Jobs blog, will receive $50.
- The person with the most comments across the whole FWJ network by the end of the month, that’s all of the blogs, will receive $50.
- The FWJ blogger who does the most to build community and join the conversation will win $50 at the end of the month.
Just a few notes:
- Comments that only say ” I agree” or add nothing to the conversation won’t count.
- Comments not adhering to our comment policy will be deleted and won’t count.
- Spammy comments or comment dropping links – unless they’re truly offering something to the conversation – won’t count.
I know you’re here. I see the numbers. Thousand of people visit each day and even more subscribe. Come join the conversation. Let’s bring community back!
I agree!
…sorry.
No money for you, mister!
I usually bribe–er, I mean reward–my students for NOT talking. This is novel and exciting!
Bribe? Nah – just a little friendly competition!
I’m game! Sounds fun and it will be nice to meet some new connections.
Great idea Deb. I’ve seen this done on other blogs before and it seems to get people yapping.
This sort of idea makes me feel all special seeing as I’ve only just discovered your community. Brilliant building idea!
I remember the first contest and it did bring in a lot of newbies. Should I happen to win, I’d actually prefer to have the money given to the breast cancer society (it is breast cancer awareness month and I’ve lost two friends to the disease in the past five years). So I’m assuming something like that could easily be arranged?
Yep, I’m one of those who visit the site regularly and have a subscription, but I seem to procrastinate when it comes to commenting. This should be fun:) Gotta love a friendly competition;)
Kudos to you for thinking of creative ways to build the community! I am on here everyday, I guess I’ll just start piping up a bit more
I do enjoy visiting Freelance Writing Gigs on a daily basis, and I usually have a comment in my head, so I might as well start sharing it!
I don’t really want the dough.. But I am looking for some interesting topics to write about. Trying to get my foot in the door on natural talent is like turning water into wine.. If anyone knows a good source to write for, or can offer a great idea to stimulate the creative senses, I would appreciate it. I’m too poor to care if I get paid. Thanks, Ellie
This is an awesome idea, and one I will recommend to some of my clients. Thanks Deb!
I’ve had an everyday reminder in my outlook for over three years, never commented, never had a need to, but I guess $50.00 is a good reason. But I do appreciate all your hard work on the job finder ideas(though I’ve never used any). It’s fun to read them and think–I could write … but never do. Busy writing my book.
Thanks for your diligent work and postings,Deb.
This is so clever. Good luck with rebuilding your site. I’ve enjoyed looking around today and even applied for a job. Thanks.
This is a delightful idea, but now that we are all in agreement, can we get the ball rolling with more conversation? Just wondering, those of you that have websites and blogs, what companies people are using and if they are happy with the service. Thanks.
I use HostGator and have been using it for 3 years now. The times I’ve had issues (hackers, stupidity on my part, etc.) they have been super helpful and gotten me back on track again, even though it wasn’t an issue with them.
@Abby – Before I dropped my book review website because it became too demanding for my schedule, I used BlueHost quite happily. They were reasonably priced, helpful when I ran into problems and had a great track record against outages. I have heard a lot of this depends on how much traffic your site gets, some with huge sites and lots of traffic have more issues than I did.
Before BlueHost, I was using NetHost because a friend recommended them. My email was always down and they’d say it was one of their servers crashed. After a few weeks of limited email, I gave up.
I also use BlueHost. It is my first site (had it for almost 4 months now), and so far my experience has been satisfactory.
I contacted them via chat about a problem concerning my website, not their hosting services, and recieved help instantly. They weren’t obligated to help, but they did. A great example of perfect customer service:)
Hiya Deb,
I think its a great idea to get people commenting. That being said, I agree with a previous commenter that the money should be used for charity. I love coming here and check the jobs frequently. The thing is, I usually do it during lunch at the day job and don’t have enough time to leave a comment. Or like today, I was too busy running around to look at my computer to comment. It’s been that kind of couple of weeks and I think the next few weeks will be like this too. Supercrazy.
If the winner prefers to donate to charity, I’m certainly down with that. We actually have a charity campaign going now – any time any of the posts in this network is Retweeted (by Thanksgiving), I will donate a nickel to the Community Food Bank of NJ in hope sf buying a few needy families Thanksgiving dinner.
Commenting is great, but the conversational flow kind of stalls when you have to keep waiting for your comments to come out of moderation. This has happened to me with the last two comments that I’ve made. One of them included a link, and Deb explained the reason for that moderation. That made complete sense to me. However, I tried to comment on the “Five Things that You Should Say to an Editor” post yesterday, and my comment was still in moderation as of earlier this morning. I don’t think I violated any rules, there’s no link in what I wrote, and it was a positive comment agreeing with something in the post. I’m not sure what I’m doing incorrectly, but the desire to post decreases when what you say seems to be frequently put on “hold.”
As for who gets the money, I consider myself to be a charitable person who gives to causes when she’s able to do so, but I think it’s perfectly OK to let someone from the community have the money (and I’m not talking about myself.) Times are tough right now, and that money could help a struggling community member pay for groceries, utilities, etc. You know what they say, “Charity begins at home.”
Andrea, you raise a very good point. The “5 Things” post is on another blogger’s blog and though I have moderation privileges for all blogs in this network, I usually leave it to the individual bloggers to moderate.
Usually the first comment by someone (on each blog) or a comment with links is held for moderation. After that first approval, it should be ok.
I’ll talk to the bloggers about getting comments approved in a timely manner.
This is great! Is this going to occur every month or was it only for the month of October? I’m a newbie and this looks like fun.
I love contests for comments written in haiku. Just an idea for another time…