Friday Q&A

Questionable Incrementation

Greetings, crickets and trolls. Welcome to another edition of the Friday Q&A. Each week, I examine issues pertaining to the Photoshop community at Fark.com. It's my way of giving back, without expending serious effort or relinquishing anything of actual value.

Q: Has contest participation begun to improve?

A: As you might already know, Fark's administrators recently began a policy of keeping the Photoshop contest live times on a more rigid schedule. The question is, will giving Photoshoppers a bit more scheduling consistency actually translate to higher participation? According to stats courtesy of Misfit Squirrels, the number of entries per year has been falling steadily since 2004. I expect the overall number of entries to fall for 2011 as well, given the powers that be waited until the late part of the year to attempt any changes.

Q: Why did they wait so long?

A: This is the question I've been asking my self. We've all been aware of the falling participation for years now, the entirety of several whiny blogs having been devoted to the subject. Why are the admins only just now waking up to this fact? And why did it seem like they were absolutely determined in previous years to put the best contests at the worst times of day?

Q: Why do you find this to be so hilarious?

A: Because none of us know what we want. We complain about people posting too many entries per contest in one breath, and complain about the number of entries per year falling in the next. We haughtily recall the good old days, when we should be reaching out to new users. All while the people in charge sit on their hands until the last minute, and then hope a stopgap solution will act as a panacea.

That's all for this time, gentle reader. Thanks for stopping by. I sincerely hope that the new measures put in place will serve to draw in more participants to our community. However, I see no immediate change. This is unfortunate, because if this is the kind of gradual, incremental change that you never notice happening, it's bound to have lost my attention by the time it does any good.

Stay tuned for more attention dysfunction from the Doctor!