LiveJournal vs PAPA: Mailcomms at 11

[major_clanger]

I've just written my resignation mailing to PAPA.

I'm not a PAPA member of particularly long standing - I only joined two years ago and have contributed to perhaps a dozen mailings. Some of my submissions have been long and involved, some short minac, but until the middle of this year I took my membership fairly seriously and tried to produce at least some sort of mailing.

Then I joined LiveJournal. And missed a mailing.

Well, I was busy. And stressed. Really busy and stressed.

Then I realised that another mailing deadline was coming up. And that I had nothing prepared. And that I didn't feel the urge to have do a mailing. That itch had already been scratched, and I had a pretty good idea of where the scratching had come from. As I said in my final mailing:

Somehow it's important to me to at least have the option of people responding to my thoughts and views. At the same time I like to be able to do this in a controlled community of some sort, so that if necessary I can discuss aspects of my life that perhaps I'd feel uncomfortable exposing to completely public display. PAPA has filled this need, but I admit that the two-month delay in getting any feedback is less than ideal. With LJ though, I can post an entry to my restricted Friends group and potentially have comments within minutes or hours.

And that's the point. Somehow LJ fills the niche that was previously occupied by PAPA, and does so more quickly.

So there you have it, the phosphor screen kicking out the printed page. Of course, theres more to it than that; many LJ'ers happily keep up APAs as well, and I'd be the last to suggest that LJ has somehow made APAs obsolete. But in my own personal case, it looks like LJ does a good part of what I joined an APA for, and does it in a way more to my liking.

Of course, LJ doesn't do everything I got up to in PAPA. It's not suited for long articles, for instance. But perhaps this will encourage me to go the extra mile and finally do my own fanzine, something I have been wondering about but putting off for some time. My APA activity is splitting in two in a manner oddly reminiscent of the Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo*; short form to LiveJournal, Long Form to the second incarnation of The Eccentricity Vector.

Life moves on. We change. Goodbye PAPA, you were fun. But now I'm major_clanger.

MC

*This comment should in no way be taken as an indication of the quality of my fanwriting, just to forestall any derisive snorting out there.

Comments

Re: Apa versus LJ

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

I suppose this depends on what your definition of a 'long article' is; for me, I would feel that the equivalent of about a page of A4 is the most I would post to LJ in one go. LJ has a very short reply half-life; if someone hasn't commented on a post within 24 hours, then frankly they're not very likely to do so. As such, any post that takes more than a few hours to frame a decent response to probably won't get one.

On a related matter, what do people think is the point at which one should lj-cut? I tend to go for the first paragraph if the whole post is more than about twenty lines or so, but I see a lot of variation.

MC

Re: Apa versus LJ

[fishlifter.livejournal.com]

if someone hasn't commented on a post within 24 hours, then frankly they're not very likely to do so

Ooh no. Some of us get at our web access and email every three or four days. It means a lot of back-tracking, but it's nearly always worth doing that.

And as regards your earlier comment: do the fanzine. Go on go on you know you want to...

Re: Apa versus LJ

[maureenkspeller.livejournal.com]

I suppose this depends on what your definition of a 'long article' is; for me, I would feel that the equivalent of about a page of A4 is the most I would post to LJ in one go.


Bearing in mind that 1,500-2,000 words seems short to me, we probably have different views about this. It's a rare month when I don't write 40+ sides of apa contributions; sometimes it's more. I was hoping that in LJ I'd be able to put up some of the more general material I write, the stuff that doesn't really belong in the topic-specific apas I contribute to, but I think it's going to end up making more sense to get my new website activated and sorted out, and put things there, with links. Not what I wanted, but I don't see much point in flogging deceased equines.

On a related matter, what do people think is the point at which one should lj-cut? I tend to go for the first paragraph if the whole post is more than about twenty lines or so, but I see a lot of variation.

I also see a lot of variation, quite often from people who have been previously sighted making pronouncements about such matters. I generally try to cut within a paragraph, unless I know it's going to be a short post.

(And I'd love it if people stuck their photos and suchlike behind cuts as some of the bigger ones throw my monitor out of whack and it's getting very annoying. I can't figure out who's causing it, may even be two or three people who don't realise they're doing it, but it bugs me.)

M.