fanart_recs | any ideas to promote this comm more and encourage reccing?

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any ideas to promote this comm more and encourage reccing?

I'd love for this comm to become a bit livelier in this new year, and to broaden the reccer base.

While it is absolutely great that a handful of people rec so regularly, making sure the comm isn't (near-)dead, and there are also some new reccers every now and then, just reccing for a month, there often aren't enough reccers to average a rec per day, so

fanart_recs definitely could be more active.

One way would be to make this comm more widely known and grow in numbers, some of whom then might rec eventually. I think for that having a banner to offer people prettier linking with some embedding code would be nice, but I suck at making attractive banners myself. So if anyone felt like making some we could offer, that would be great. Maybe if we had such pretties and a pre-made promotion they could just c&p more would spread the word than now. I could also use something like that to advertise again on

dw_community_promo which I haven't done in a while.

The second way would be to encourage more current members and subscribers to make the jump to reccing, but I'm not sure what the barriers to that are there now. Is there anything that could be made easier and would make you consider reccing? Like, for example the comm could do occasional open posting periods outside the regular structure, allowing every member to rec a fanart they wanted to, without having to commit to a whole set but still dip their toes in. (though really, it's only four! *puppy dog eyes*)

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What if people choose a month to do a weekly post?

Um, I hadn't realized that posting was limited. Not sure if this would work with the structure you've got. Is there some reason people can't post rec's whenever they want? I know that if I don't rec something pretty much as soon as I see it, it doesn't happen. Out of sight, out of mind.

Edited 2013-01-07 22:24 (UTC)

I would be more likely to participate if there were free-rec threads - I'm really hesitant to sign up for a whole month because I'm not really a person who goes looking for fanart, I just enjoy it when it crosses my sight - but I'd be willing to put up a favorite or two in a free-recs post every so often

I'm not sure how well that would work at tempting me to sign up for a month, though.

*ponders* It's a great comm, but I'm not sure how to make the comm more active. My main reason for not reccing in the last year or so is that I'm in fandoms that don't have a significant fanart component (there is next to zero White Collar fanart, for whatever reason) but there is also a pretty big element of apathy/laziness to my nonparticipation, too. And I'm not sure how to overcome that, let alone how to get other people interested. Spreading the word is a good idea! I think that's the main reason why crack-van does as well as it does, because it's so large that there's a big pool of potential reccers to draw from.

Regarding posting format, I expect the crack-van style discourages some people, but it probably also encourages others. Having to sign up to rec is a hurdle to overcome, but it's also an incentive to collect recs and actually post them. And freestyle reccing communities don't seem to do any better when the interest isn't there; stargategenrec has been basically dead for a couple of years now.

Honestly, I think the system you've got is simple and easy, and couldn't really be made any simpler/easier without losing some of its functionality. I'm not sure how to handle the "overcoming apathy" part, though, except just by finding a wider pool of people to post recs.

I do think your monthly reminder posts are very helpful! Hmmm ... is there some way to streamline the signup process a bit? I know it makes the record-keeping easier if it's all in one place, but I wonder if something so simple as allowing people to sign up by commenting on the reminder post, rather than having to click through a couple of links, might help.

I wish I had useful ideas to offer; I think the model you're currently using is great, and I'd be all over it ... I'm hoping that once I graduate from my masters program I'll be able to start signing up again! (It's not the time commitment for reccing that I can't manage; it's the fact that I never get to spend time browsing for fanart anymore!)

I wonder if some combination of the crack_van-esque model you have now, and the "free-reccing" people have suggested above, might help? Maybe have people sign up for fandoms each month as before, but also host a free-for-all week where anyone who wants to can post recs in any fandom they like (in posts, not comments)?

One thing that would make it a little easier for me is having the code in a format that I can easily copy and paste when on the run. For this community I tend to use RTF so I can just copy from the post into the comment, but it sometimes comes out a bit mangled and kills the links. (and when I'm on an iphone and what not it's not as easy to post and edit the details.) Having it in a html format I can copy and paste from would make it a lot easier for myself.

(I made a copy in my journal that I could use to copy and paste from, before but I keep losing it.)

I can do the coding for it when I'm at home, if it's something you would need assistance with? But having something like that in the profile would make it easier for myself to be able to drop in more recs when I'm on my lunch break.

Banners are a great idea. Promotions to comms like

fandomcalendar might be good as well - a reminder maybe in the last week of the month?

I think if you had the copy and paste box in the sticky notice at the top that would be very useful. I have a template file that I use for my recs that looks like this:

(the code for that, by the way, is

About the form itself... as a non-art person I always have trouble figuring out what the medium is. Maybe a simple choice between manip/drawn would make that easier for me. I often can't tell hand-drawn from computer-drawn. As well, it always takes me more time than I expect to collect and type up links (Artist on DW/LJ, Artist Website/Gallery). Either it's fairly evident (artistname @ LJ, artistname @ DW, artistname @ deviantart, artistname @ tumblr) or it requires esoteric googling (to discover that artistname @ LJ is thing-thing @ tumblr), but most of the art I link to is on LJ, DW, or DeviantArt, and people should be able to find galleries on their own after following the link.... (I know I can leave things blank, but I feel like I should be complete.)

For people who don't have the time or ability to post recs, it might be nice to have a place (Pinboard, Delicious, open post) where they can point out cool art in different fandoms ("Wicked DW manip! [link]") as a resource for reccers. Sometimes I only have 3 recs and need just one more, and it would be helpful to have some recs to check out instead of searching the whole internet. /lazy

I'm one of the lurkers on this comm.

I've thought about reccing, but committing to a whole month/at least four works is not something I feel comfortable with. For one because I don't always have four works I would like to rec - maybe there's one or two which I really liked in a specific fandom, and that's it, and also because I'm not very good at committing to specific terms/times.

Also, I'm often not sure about the fandoms. I find myself thinking "oh, I could rec for fandom x" and the next thing would be "again? People have recced for that one in several months already".

I'll have a go at making a couple of promo banners! :)

I like how the comm works and think the posting system's pretty straightforward. Maybe an occasional less structured reccing free-for-all or amnesty week? That might draw in a few people. But I think the month at a time structure's good, and 4 reccs really isn't very much.

I haven't read through all the responses yet, so it may have already been mentioned, but just in case... one thing that came immediately to my mind was a pimping banner. If you had a banner that we could promote the comm with, I think that would be very helpful!

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