Had an epiphany figuring out pillowfort and legit galaxy brained why it is so damn quiet.
The image above was mostly for me to mental map any issues/feelings about these spaces, they’re very ‘my problem’ and I cross off things as I figure out more about the sites and the admins as well as highlight things I really would like on these spaces to ask staff about.
That said, with the admins of cohost being very vocal about changes they would like as well as some design choices they have no interest in, makes it really easy to understand cohost’s direction and what it aims to be.
Pillowfort is harder for me to gauge, especially as I discovered the whole “can’t add to a reblog” that has made me understand why it’s lacking activity.
It HAS users, people ARE posting, but there’s little more to it than that.
TO BE CLEAR, not being able to add to a reblog isn’t the sole reason pillowfort seems hollow, but it feels like a fundamental design choice of the owners and if that’s their general philosophy on interaction within the site, then it helps me understand what it wants to be.
I feel like the admins are very weary/scared of perceived conflict and having to moderate actions such as a reblog chain getting out of control. That or they really like the design of dreamwidth/LJ but also want a reblog system without the risk of users at each other’s throats?
Browsing cohost and pillowfort it feels like my initial fears of pillowfort serving as nothing more than a gallery space are now very founded. Yes, you can 💬, ❤ and “🔁”.
All those feelings of “it’s like livejournal/dreamwidth but you can reblog” hit home so much harder when, yes, that’s it, that’s all you CAN do.
Removing the ability to add to an original post, also removed an amazing level of engagement that really MAKES people want to do more than “nice post 💬, ❤, 🔁, k I’ve done my daily browse here and had a small banter with OP…. let me go to another site.”
And I get it, for some people the idea of your post being taken out of your circle can be horrifying but that’s a risk for users to decide, the reward of starting an amazing chain of conversation and ideas, the bounce back of writers, musicians, artists and people with knowledge on said topics bringing their forte is ENGAGEMENT.
This doesn’t mean pillowfort is “bad” and indeed people are thriving off of being in an enclosure, however from where I’m looking it fulfills the niche of dreamwidth with retweets rather than reblogs.
That’s perfectly fine!
However to everyone who asks, and in case the staff of pillowfort are asking “There are people here but no activity?” it’s because fundamentally the site design doesn’t really encourage more than being a showcasing site for images, personal blogging is there and serves its purpose, but take away an ability for users to do more than look at and explicitly “promote” posts will make people FAR more guarded and more reluctant to share their interests on an internet that currently scolds everything in bad-faith.
I have no idea if they plan to change the design to accommodate such style of posting, and if they’re worried about threads getting out of control unfortunately that’s what moderation teams are hired for, and if users are worried about too much exposure I see no reason why posts can’t be checked as “opt-in” for engagement and additional open feedback with followers whose commentary won’t just die in the comment section, instead when they reblog they get to engage with OP but also their own followers to discuss the original post and elaborate more than “I’ll reblog this thing I like and my followers will have to guess my feelings about it”.
INHALES
At least this is how I feel about engagement on the site, it feels weird signing up, checking under the hood, finding a functional site that serves pretty well and would be suitable for twitter users who already lack the ability to spice up their profile page, though they can at least add a banner to the top, please pillowfort I don’t know why it takes an age to make UI more friendly to visual artists but I’m begging here.
But there are so many little issues that add up into a bigger problem. All of those CAN and are being fixed/looked into.
All except for this one, which I feel is a pretty big one...?
What would get me to use pillowfort as a main? (currently I’d have not much issue with both cohost and pillowfort, I….have the time…)
UI, it’s miserable, even Livejournal allowed custom main pages with imagery, it’s being worked on.
Alternate accounts, I like having an art focused account and personal account, hell wouldn’t mind making niche interest accounts, they need to be separate though. This is also being worked on.
Image handling, I appreciate getting a full image through click through but really hate opens to a new window by default and no lightbox-esque enlargement that I can click off and return to scrolling through the site. This is a very personal gripe, maybe others don’t feel the same way, if I tab out of your page though, I’ll peace out it's very disengaging.
If they have no interest in expanding the reblog system however I can only see it being a very secondary site.
