Torn World - one month update and upcoming Muse Fusion

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

So, Torn World has been live for a little over a month, and we're steaming along nicely:

We've put up 8 stories, 2 poems, 7 pieces of artwork, approved 16 characters (many of whose character sheets read like 'stories ready to happen!'), and a whole lot of new setting articles.

There are 16 published contributors (and more in the works), about 60 registered members, about half of them registered as contributors, we've got several supporters (and a little more than $100 in spending credits floating around in the system - few of them have been spent, so far).

In January, nearly 2000 unique visitors viewed the site, downloading more than 75,000 pages.

Trading in karma has been brisk and encouraging.

A few dozen public comments have been logged (private comments may be sent with karma, they don't count).

I think there have been more than 2000 forum messages logged in that time - we've been finalizing a lot of sticky details like population figures, temporal physics behavior, climate and climate change, and lots and lots dealing with flora and fauna, as well as brainstorming several upcoming storyplots.

Several webpage and code improvements and fixes were made throughout the month, including a sortable character page, article submissions, automation of some of the karma stuff...

I've got some more personal observations about the challenges of sharing a world here: http://ellenmillion.livejournal.com/1020511.html

Our sixth contest has been announced: http://community.livejournal.com/torn_world/12984.html
Results of the fifth contest will be announced on the 15th of this month.

And, next Tuesday, Feb 9, we will be hosting a "Muse Fusion," where any interested party may leave prompts for our creative team to tackle. Some of us will be writing flash fiction, some will be writing poetry, and some of us will be doing sketches. You are invited to drop in and leave us prompts! To participate as a creator, you must be registered as a Torn World Creative Contributor. (It's free!) For more details: http://community.livejournal.com/torn_world/12218.html

Let me know if you've got any questions!

Using Polls on Your Blog

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I found this post about using polls to attract reader attention and feedback.  This is a very useful technique that many crowdfunding folks employ.