New Weekly Serial

[Julie2owlsdene]

All your questions will be answered as you read on, John.

[Julie2owlsdene]

For those of you who are reading my serial at the moment, I just want to point out that like last week, there seems to be three words that have attached themselves together - sothatwas, which should read - so that was. Two words did the same last week. (notyet) Not yet.

Tony has explained to me what has happened with Keith's side of things, and I just wanted you to know that it isn't because I have suddenly lost my 'space bar' in the copy I sent over to Tony. There was spacing after each and every word, and I've not had a 'senior moment'.

[Daisy]

Julie! I have just finished reading the latest chapter and like it very much.... things are moving along nicely.
I don't often enjoy saying that time seems to be rushing by these days, but this is one occasion when I am happy that each Monday seems to arrive a lot more quickly that Fridays did in the days when I was reading Sunny Stories!

[Moonraker]

It is a great story, indeed. The comments seem to have dropped off lately, I hope the weekly instalments are still being read! I know if I had the nonce to write a story, I'd be eagerly awaiting comments each week!

[Daisy]

It depends on how many are waiting until they can read it in one go ... or at least how we normally read books - as much as we want to, or have time for in one session!

[Rob Houghton]

It is a great story, indeed. The comments seem to have dropped off lately, I hope the weekly instalments are still being read! I know if I had the nonce to write a story, I'd be eagerly awaiting comments each week!

Sadly it's what happens when we have a story on here! Sometimes it feels like a wilderness with no comments. When my story was being serialised last year I made a point of adding to the thread with comments similar to Julie's above - just to jog people's thoughts!

I'm still pretty sure that maybe only about 15 people ever read the serials anyway!

[Julie2owlsdene]

I too don't think many read the serials, it's just the way it is.

It wasn't my intention to 'jog' any comments, Rob. I just didn't want anyone thinking I was making mistakes when indeed I hadn't made the mistake mentioned, which is why I asked Tony about it, this week and last week. Didn't want anyone thinking I'd gone 'gaga', when I knew the copy I had sent was okay.

[Moonraker]

I too don't think many read the serials, it's just the way it is.

It would be very interesting to know how many do read them. Of course, there may be many members who read them on the website without ever looking in the forums, so we will probably never know. Unless, of course, Keith can look at the page stats...

[Rob Houghton]

It wasn't my intention to 'jog' any comments, Rob.

Well, I hold my hands up - I did it a lot while my serial was running! I have no shame, lol!

I too don't think many read the serials, it's just the way it is.

It would be very interesting to know how many do read them. Of course, there may be many members who read them on the website without ever looking in the forums, so we will probably never know. Unless, of course, Keith can look at the page stats...

When you think about it, only a small proportion of people on here have the Journal, and only a small proportion of Journal readers are on the website, plus, some members who are on here probably have no interest in follow-on novels...so the number must be pretty small!

[Julie2owlsdene]

It wasn't my intention to 'jog' any comments, Rob.

Well, I hold my hands up - I did it a lot while my serial was running! I have no shame, lol!

It's not shameful, Robert, I guess I should be more outgoing about my own writing, but aren't.

[Tony Summerfield]

A lot more people than you think read these serials, but they are not registered on the forums as they get put off by some of the utterly irrelevant threads which have little or nothing to do with Enid Blyton. It is nice to see those that do!

[Dinah Cunningham]

Actually, I also read the Serials and enjoy it very much. It's just, that I find it difficult to say more, than that I enjoyed it...

[Chrissie777]

It depends on how many are waiting until they can read it in one go ... or at least how we normally read books - as much as we want to, or have time for in one session!

I'm one of those, Daisy.
I print out each chapter and read the entire story rather in one go.

[Moonraker]

A lot more people than you think read these serials, but they are not registered on the forums as they get put off by some of the utterly irrelevant threads which have little or nothing to do with Enid Blyton.

That is interesting. I did wonder if there was a way of you seeing how many 'hits' a page on the website gets. I have noticed that you sometimes say that very few people look at items you add to the Cave. It is good that you can see which efforts are appreciated and note those where your time could be better spent. I can well imagine the frustration felt by anyone spending hours writing or compiling only to find hardly anyone notices or reads the content.

Do you know for a fact that many people are "put off by some of the utterly irrelevant threads which have little or nothing to do with Enid Blyton"? A forum can be a broad church. However, there is only so much 'Blyton' one can discuss. I think you yourself mentioned that you hadn't read a Blyton for many years. I, too, rarely read any these days, although obviously, I still have a great love of her books. Speaking for myself, I joined the forums as I couldn't believe that I had found such a website and forum where (mainly) adults could reminisce and talk about these wonderful books and stories. The Society Day was such an added bonus. I have so many memories of these wonderful events organised by you, Tony. I am sure some, if not most of us, think the forums are the Society. Of course, the vast majority of members don't look at the forums. Maybe a regular display ad in the Journal might not go amiss.

I must also admit that I don't look at many of the threads you call totally irrelevant. That is made easy by the thread titles being displayed in the New Posts page. However, it doesn't put me off the forums - and there are several off-topic threads that I find entertaining. I have made many personal (as well as online) friends through the Society forums. That such a group of friends might like to discuss their favourite type of tea doesn't surprise or irritate me - even if I don't find it that compelling to read!

As I see it, a website-forum has two functions. To provide a platform where like-minded people can discuss topics that are of interest to them - whether they be on or off-topic. A forum such as ours, dedicated to an author, should obviously have a large content of on-topic material, which it does. The second (which is debatable, but personally I think it is important) is to provide a shop-window of the website and purpose. It can advertise and if it persuades people to join the Society, that has been a success.

One thing that can put people off more than off-topic 'irrelevance' is if a forum becomes cliquey. I have looked at forums that I don't belong to and found it so. To post would seem to be butting in on a closed community. I left one forum because there was so much creeping around the administrator - everything he posted was met with "how true. Aren't we lucky to have you running this forum" when I saw this man as a bigot. Thankfully, we are a friendly bunch of people with an approachable administrative team. It can be difficult to all get along all of the time - especially between people who have not met personally. That (for most of the time) we do, speaks volumes of our society

Without researching, it does seem that we have several contributors that only discuss off-topic matters. That does surprise me. We had on contributor who mainly posted about Doctor Who. I often wondered why he joined the EBS forums when there are excellent DW forums out there.

I think if the forums were restricted to on-topic discussion (I belong to one of those where off-topic discussion is not allowed), they would be a 'lesser-place'. It can be frustrating for an owner or administrator to see topics that they would rather not see - I have first hand experience of that on my forum (although this is not dedicated to a single theme, so is a little different)! However, it is my policy that the members of a forum should dictate the conversation and if they are happy and the atmosphere is friendly, then so be it. After all, there is no need to read every topic. Just pick out the threads that are of interest.

Come on, visitors, don't run away if you don't like talking about tea, write a post about your favourite Blyton!

[Eddie Muir]

A superb post, Nigel. I had considered writing a similar one myself, but you have said all that I wanted to say and more. Thank you.