ok frugal village challenges

**Sara Noel** · 12-27-2008, 04:16 PM

I think I have all of the group challenges organized now. They are stickied for the upcoming year for those that want to participate in a group. Now they're easy to find and join. Personal challenges need to be placed into blogs and not on the forums. The forums are for group challenges. New personal challenges can be copied and pasted into a blog or I can move it for you.

If you have a new group challenge you start, please let me know so I can sticky it.

**homesteadmamma** · 12-27-2008, 04:23 PM

Thanks Sara. I like that all the challenges are together (the group ones). I love reading the challenges which will be so much easier to find now.

**McD** · 12-27-2008, 04:47 PM

Thank you very much Sara.

I love having them stickied. Would you prefer we stop posting updates in the individual challenge threads and switch it to the blogs?

**MommyBliss** · 12-27-2008, 05:14 PM

Thank you, Sara!

**dwallyfam** · 12-27-2008, 05:35 PM

Thank you very much Sara. It will be easier to find them.

**Sara Noel** · 12-27-2008, 05:40 PM

If you already started one, then no. But any new individual/personal challenges should be placed in our FV blogs. If they're posted, they'll be moved to the blogs. The challenge forum posts that aren't stickied can be for weekly or monthly threads. Does that make sense? Like for years we had frugal challenge the week of or the month of:

It was still group but broken down for people that wanted to stay on track in smaller increments of time.

The forums have a major update slated in 2009. This should provide better integration of the social groups and the blogs. So they don't seem like the red headed stepchild of the forums. Excuse the term for those that are possibly offended.

I love the challenges and don't want to seem like I'm nitpicking, but I want everyone to understand that the big picture is 100's and potentially thousands of personal and individual challenges and how confusing that is for newcomers and well anyone. Not to mention, many people come here for frugality and that's one of the least active forums at the moment.

I've mentioned all of this before and always get the response that they get more views on the forums. Well if it's your (not you specifically but anyone) own personal accountability and it's all about you (for lack of a better way of saying it) then it's blogging and not a community forum post/thread. The blogs don't get the eyeballs that the forums do because everyone is blogging in the forum. Some without realizing it. Some that do.

To clarify, if you've ever been on other forums that don't have blogs, they have individual journals on the forums. That just gets out of control with literally hundreds of people having their own section. That's why there are blogs and social groups here. So you have a place that's individually "yours"

I'll also add, OK let's say one person starts a frugal challenge and says if you'd like to join me, you can. Then 10 others do the same in their own threads. There's 11 frugal challenge threads and the main frugal group challenge thread and while it's awesome we're all doing challenges, imagine how the person who has one person join their challenge feels when comparing themself to the person that has 50 people participating to theirs. Especially, if the person with only one person sharing started theirs first. Oy. Ahhh yes, these are the e-mails and pm's I receive. So please, to decrease animosity, let's try to get back to group challenges in the challenge forum. And then breaking them down into weeks and months if desired. And blogging in the blogs and creating groups if you ever want to run your own anything.

We'll keep existing personal accountability threads as they are. But in the future, how it's always been done is new challenges start each year. They're stickied and then they're often splintered off into weeks and months. If a challenge wasn't stickied and started in the new year, then new group challenges are posted in the forum and stickied later when requested.

Phew..hopefully I made sense. I know many won't agree but you'll have to understand things from an organizational point of view. Community collaboration and accessing information are part of my key objectives.

*edited to add* Hopefully everyone understands that it's not as if anyone has done anything wrong. It wasn't an issue when there were only a few. It's becoming an issue, so before it gets out of control, we'll organize it.

Or in a few months, if it doesn't seem to be working out and we'll try something else that might.

**jacqueline** · 12-27-2008, 05:55 PM

understand and agree with you sara

i have categories set up in my blog to write (keep myself accountable) about my own personal challenges and plan to join in discussion on stickied (team) challenges that other fv'ers are doing. those i will either favorite or subscribe to so i will be reminded i signed up

**Mom23boys** · 12-27-2008, 06:07 PM

Thank you, Sara for sticking the challenges at the top. It makes it easier to access these. Also, I whole-heartedly understand your reasoning for not wanting individual challenges in the challenge forum. You, as always, are doing a wonderful job keeping the forums running smoothly!

**Debbie-cat** · 12-27-2008, 06:14 PM

Thanks Sara!

**Tnmom** · 12-27-2008, 07:06 PM

Ok to be honest, I really don't understand, But I guess thats because I am fairly new here..I will go back and read later but I have to get off the computer ASAP...strong storms moving in NOW..

**McD** · 12-27-2008, 08:33 PM

Thanks for the clarification Sara. I'm going to go play around with the FV blogs a bit more so I get used to them. I think it's one of those often forgotten about features of the Village. I'll switch over to it!

Thanks again for all you do to make the site fun and manageable.

**mrsmac62** · 12-27-2008, 08:48 PM

Thanks for the clarification. I've been aware for awhile that my thread was becoing a blog, but wasn't sure what to do with it. I'll move to the blog page.
Btw- The new format is great!

**kaurand554** · 12-28-2008, 12:04 AM

How do we see the blogs?

I see the top 10 or latest when you sign in again... but how do we see them all?

I like the individual challenges for those of us who do not post regularly but do lurk... they give us daily inspiration... and as you mentioned... are the most read, watched and commented on.... and give daily inspiration to us.... to send that $3.00 we have left to a bill....

Just confused....
Please advise

**MomToTwoBoys** · 12-28-2008, 01:38 AM

Originally Posted by kaurand554

How do we see the blogs?

I see the top 10 or latest when you sign in again... but how do we see them all?

I like the individual challenges for those of us who do not post regularly but do lurk... they give us daily inspiration... and as you mentioned... are the most read, watched and commented on.... and give daily inspiration to us.... to send that $3.00 we have left to a bill....

Just confused....
Please advise

You can click on Blogs (between Invite Friends and Members List) and there'll be a drop-down menu. From that menu, select Blog List and that should give you a list of blogs.

Thank you so much for the sticky, Sara! I figure I need to start the blog up and debated doing this blog for FV and one of my own. I loooooooove blogging!