All valid points so far, especially the Fark.com aspect. I only have anecdotal evidence but I think fark is quite possibly dying with a whimper not a bang. We had historically high voting in farktography just because statistically, the large fark population produced a large farktographer population. I myself am burdened in exactly the same manner as orionid right now, 72 hour weeks of night shift. It’s killing me to not have a camera in my hand. But enough about me, I’ll be back.
The way I see it, we have the dwindling farktography and at the opposite end of the spectrum the chaotic and unfocused world of social media. I don’t know facebook, twitter and so on, but I joined G+ a few months ago. I imagine the rest are similar. The questions forming in my mind are these: Where do we want to fall in the spectrum? How do we inject the energy into our orbit to push us there?
I don’t think a change in theme policy will get us far. It might gain us a few more regulars but in the end, we’re still in near fark orbit. There are scattered references to farktography around (pinterest, g+,..) but they all seem to whither. G+ has the infrastructure and audience, but it certainly would not be the learning tool that farktography has been for me if I started there. It seems like more of a “look what I can do” environment. Voting and feedback seem unfocused, therefore less useful (again, I am a noob there so maybe it’s just me).
I know a handful of amateur photographers of various skill levels. I have tried to convince them of the benefits of this community but they must see it differently, or not understand my point, or are too busy or just don’t care.
So, I have nothing but questions at this point. Are we SpaceLab? Past our prime, mission complete and doomed to burn up in the atmosphere? I hope not.
Do we start a marketing campaign? Vote whoring the internets to come play with us? Is that even possible?
The more someone has to do to participate, the less likely they are going to. For fark, you must register (yes it’s simple but I know it has dissuaded some people). Same for G+ and so on. Is there a way to make participation easier?
The newness of fark has worn off, as it will with G+ and anything else. Honeymoon over. How do we make it in the long term?
(not very organized thinking, just woke up, still drinking mah coffee).
