Small Web September: Retrospective & Feedback!

[enchantedsleeper]

As I mentioned in the Wrap-Up Post for Small Web September, now that the event is all done and dusted, I'd love to know if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions to share! (It's totally okay if you don't, of course!)

This is the first time that the event has been run, and I'd be excited to run it again next year if there's interest. But I'd also love to know if there's anything that people would like to change, add, or do differently. Freeform thoughts are incredibly welcome, but I've also come up with some prompts/questions if you're not sure what aspects of the event to feed back on:

• What did you think of the event format? (Regular 'check-in' posts with engagement/replies in the comments)
• What did you think of the check-in frequency? (Weekly check-ins for a total of 5 during the month). Too many/too few/about right?
• What did you think of the themes (goal-setting, troubleshooting, recs, etc.) - are there any others you'd like to see?
• What did you think of the timing and duration? (I like the name "Small Web September", but I'd still be open to feedback about how September works for everyone, timing-wise! And who knows, maybe there'll be ideas for events at other times of the year... 🗓️)
• Do you have any other thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks in advance for anything you'd like to offer! 😊

Comments

[alaterdate]

I enjoyed the event and I'd love to do it again next year. The weekly check-ins were perfect and I liked that they fell on Sundays. I liked the prompts provided for discussion, you did a great job facilitating conversation on the check-ins. As for the themes I liked them and I liked the order as well. For me September was the perfect time. I really have no criticisms. Thank you for running the event!

[enchantedsleeper]

That is so lovely to hear, thank you! ^o^ I really appreciate you giving some thoughts on the event! Hearing people liked how it was run this time is also really valuable to know ^^ I'm grateful to everyone who took part as you all made it such a fun and lively first event! <3

[tarlanx]

Thank you! And I hope you do another event as I managed to clear a few things off my horrendous TO DO list :)

[enchantedsleeper]

Me too, me too! And even though it doesn't feel as though I did a lot by volume, I did manage to accomplish a couple of really worthwhile things that I just hadn't got around to before SWS. I'm really pleased you found it helpful! ^-^

[larissa]

Speaking generally, I'd love to see more events along this line! As someone motivated by deadlines, most of the sites I've made have been through community events, haha. I'd love to see something much sooner than next September.

Everything else worked well for me!

[enchantedsleeper]

Thank you very much - that's great to know! And hard same here - a lot of my inspiration for this event came from taking part in March Meta Matters earlier this year, where I accomplished a lot of worthwhile archiving that then spurred me on to do more the following month! It's really great to hear that SWS can do the same for people. Sometimes I set personal targets but having the community and discussion element helps a lot too, I think.

[fred_mouse]

I appreciate that the event ran, I failed to engage in the way I hoped to, and I wish I had any idea how to get that engagement from me. The weekly posts were good; I could possibly benefit from more frequent if I was actually making progress, because I'm very much a small wins type person, but I wouldn't want to ask for that given I don't know if it would work -- I do know that another community that posts daily has motivated me to work on other projects; possibly if I had linked my neocities as a craft project that would have helped.

Timing wise - I don't have any strong opinions. Length wise - maybe on the short side for the goals I set myself, which is a me problem.

[enchantedsleeper]

Thank you for the thoughts! <333 At the beginning kalloway and I debated whether to have posts that were more frequent, but since this comm has historically been pretty quiet, we were worried about suddenly flooding the comm. Next time this event runs, we could potentially have more, though I think there's also some merits in spacing them out so that people have time to make progress in between. But it was nice that people created other posts for the comm in between to provide spots to chat.

[pebbleinalake]

- What did you think of the event format? (Regular 'check-in' posts with engagement/replies in the comments)
I thought it worked great, honestly. Whenever an event has it where participants have to check in by making their own update posts, I tend to forget or procrastinate it forever. Being able to check in on the community posts and have discussions with other participants was great.

- What did you think of the check-in frequency? (Weekly check-ins for a total of 5 during the month). Too many/too few/about right?
It was perfect. Long enough gaps in between to actually get some progress done, but not too far apart to forget about the event altogether.

- What did you think of the timing and duration? (I like the name "Small Web September", but I'd still be open to feedback about how September works for everyone, timing-wise! And who knows, maybe there'll be ideas for events at other times of the year... 🗓️)
I think it worked fine. Since October and November are such busy/chaotic months for the writing community, I definitely wouldn't be opposed to moving it to an earlier month in the year, but I also don't have a problem with just keeping it in September.

- Do you have any other thoughts or suggestions?
It was a very fun event! I appreciate how much I managed to check off my to-do list. Definitely looking forward to doing it again in the future. Thank you for running the event!!

[enchantedsleeper]

Thank you so much for the thoughtful feedback - and I'm really glad you had a great time with SWS! Thank you for being part of it! :D <3

I've never taken part in an event where the update posts were self-directed, but oof, no, I wouldn't think that would work particularly well. In my mind, the event organisers are the ones who should provide the 'infrastructure' for people to congregate and to make things as easy as possible. Besides, if you get a lot of participants, that would lead to a bit of an overload in update posts 🤔

[tempural]

First of all thank you so much for everything! And for having pre-made questions for us to answer, cuz i def need that help to think of things to comment...!

• What did you think of the event format? (Regular 'check-in' posts with engagement/replies in the comments)

I liked it! Checking in thru the week felt nice, and then refreshing the page the next day to see what else people have made. I feel like people who post later in the week may not get as many eyes on their post though, so I wanna see if DW has email notifications for posts within a community 🤔

• What did you think of the check-in frequency? (Weekly check-ins for a total of 5 during the month). Too many/too few/about right?

Just right! 5 feels perfect, especially with the retrospective and wrap up to digest everything.

What did you think of the themes (goal-setting, troubleshooting, recs, etc.) - are there any others you'd like to see?

Loved all the themes. Felt like they fit in perfectly with a "narrative" of us trying to get stuff together, doing research, and then finding help. I especially love the rec theme, I love browsing curated links! As for other themes... Maybe one week focusing on accessible HTML (for screen readers and general best practices)? CSS styling?

• What did you think of the timing and duration? (I like the name "Small Web September", but I'd still be open to feedback about how September works for everyone, timing-wise! And who knows, maybe there'll be ideas for events at other times of the year... 🗓️) Do you have any other thoughts or suggestions?

The timing was good, I don't think there's too much other stuff happening in September and 1 month is good to get one small project done! I'd love to see other events at different times. Maybe some very small events, like a week-long bash, or even a flash weekend where everyone huddles for what time they can find from friday to sunday?

Anything is cool really, I'm just glad this is on DreamWidth cuz it seems like almost everything else is on twitter, tumblr, or discord and i can't keep up with those sites! Thanks again for a smooth fun event where I got a lot done and got to see so many other people's marvelous work.

[enchantedsleeper]

Thank you so much for all the detailed thoughts! <333 You know what, that's a good point about posts/replies later in the week (as I checked in at the end of the week on a couple of posts myself, due to being busy...) - I think you can turn on tracking for a specific post and get notified about new comments, and I imagine that would also translate into emails if your notifications are set up that way? Maybe it's something that could be included in the event information.

Accessibility best practices is a great theme idea - and I feel like mobile-responsive HTML/CSS would be a useful one to have, too...

I think some flash events would be fun! It would be cool if other members of the comm came up with an event or two - I expect people might feel like they don't have the right status to run an event, but I'm just a regular member of the comm and decided to run something because kalloway encouraged me to give it a go xD It would be nice to see other people try that out!

Thank you for being a part of the event!! \o/ <3