the freeform knitting 365 project continues, with its core group of four. we've had a few members come and go now, and found all around that while newcomers were welcomed enthusiastically, as soon as it became clear that they were not totally down with the challenge (as evidenced through missed days), the bond from the core group itself became somewhat weakened. other members had a hard time "connecting" with those who weren't putting in the same effort that they were, and i felt the same way.
also, as administrator of the group, i'm the person who handles the requests to join, which have increased exponentially. it seems, though, that people don't necessarily read, or process, or even anticipate what be might be meant by a group called "freeform knit 365". i have gotten requests from people saying they wanted to join the group because "they had always wanted to try knitting". i have gotten requests from people who seem to have given, from their messages, more consideration to the social interaction that they anticipate than they have to the idea that they are committing to a 365 consecutive day process, which will require actual knitting, and knittng without a pattern. i've even gotten a request from a man who was signing his wife up for the group, unbeknownst to her, in the hopes that she would decrease her stash this way.
it'd be nice at the very least to know that the requests for invitations are being made on behalf of the actual person making them, but i don't think it's setting the bar too high for those requesting invitations to also stop and think about whether or not they actually want to contribute to a freeform project, alone, for every day of an entire calendar year. sometimes, it's not fun to take out the knitting on a given day, particularly not knowing where it is going. sometimes, you're just too busy, or too sad, or having too much fun, or too worried, or sick, or excited about putting energy into something else.
not only have the four core members of the group worked through days like that, but they joined early in the group when there was no evidence of social contact or enjoyment. i was the only person in the group, and based on that (god knows) nobody could really say whether or not it would become a situation where there was lively discussion and support, or whether everyone would just work silently alongside the other. frankly, it still vacillates, but i think now that comments and discussions have piled up as evidence of communication and enjoyment of the group's pool, it has led prospective newcomers to consider the prospect of a new venue for chatter as well as think about taking on the project itself, and perhaps, in some cases, more.
the original members didn't have that consideration; they made a "good faith" leap into a project that promised nothing but work. but then again, it isn't just the first three joiners who have coincidentally stayed on course; there were some before them, and some after them, who just never posted, and have probably long since forgotten they joined the group.
while the freeform group's discussion boards and comments are often interesting and fun, they are also the kind of thing i've avoided in other online pursuits. the comments on this blog have been open only for specific posts and at very specific periods of time. i find them extraneous; i also think they can suck the life out of communication under the guise of "creating" it. some community sites, like metafilter, create their barrier to entry in requesting a time delay on actually posting content to the site until having made a number of comments first. this seems to be a "quality control" measure, so that newbie members can "get a feel" for the "kinds" of posts metafilter considers "quality". this is what makes metafilter metafilter, as opposed to another community blog, for better or for worse, and what draws members who get more out of it than they would do another user-driven content site.
the expectations are inverted in the freeform 365 group. since everything in the group is entirely public for viewing, anyone can see anything at any time, and comment on it at anytime. they may also read the discussion boards, but only members may contribute to them. (i had been mistaken in thinking that only members could see them as well, but apparently even the locker room talk is available to all and sundry, although ours was all i'm sure, disappointingly for the true voyeurs, on-topic.)
to belong to the group, one needs to contribute to the group, and the only perk of membership in the group is knowing you are on the same path that all the other members of the group are. literally every other benefit of "belonging" is available to non-belongers except the ability to use the discussion boards. the ability to make comments on photos is still available, and it is as easy to bookmark the group pool as it is to bookmark an individual set. to put the "belonging" before the "doing" must be what some people need, but there are so, so, so many other places to get it.
again, in inverse to what metafilter does to stop the complete bottleneck of first-time-out posters to its site (which would create so many more posts than there are on the site now that it would flood, and a greater percentage of those posts would be not of the "type" that metafilter likes), i decided that people who want to belong to the freeform group should begin their project ten days in advance of actual "joining" of the group. (actually, i said FIFTY days. actually, BEN said fifty days and i went with it - but group members pointed out, rightly, that none of us had gone fifty days "alone" and that it was too long.) this would not be a ten-day "isolation" period (unless the freeformer chose not to let anybody in the group know that they had started their project, which would be entirely up to them.) this would be a ten-day start on a project they purportedly intended to continue with for more than thirty-six times that length, which would receive, day by day, even in the first ten non-"member" days, comments and general cheering from the group. again, unlike metafilter, our "comments" have never been ascerbic and witty and vitriolic; goodness knows there are enough pretenders sitting behind those personas elsewhere on the web. we actually just talk about the projects and techniques, for the most part.
unlike metafilter, nobody needs to prove or match "quality" in the freeform 365 group. could be one stitch. could be a sewn-on button. could be a thread scotch-taped to the larger piece. somebody could suggest that their contribution that day had been invisible, and as long as their was a post documenting it, i'd frankly love it. (of course it would have been more sly if i hadn't thought of it first, but i WOULD love it.) one could contribute daily, comment on everybody's piece daily, and send pies and flowers to the homes of every other contributing member; one could contribute daily, and never comment or even post a description or explanation of your day's work. but "membership" comes from the good-faith effort of considering, and attempting, the project. daily.
not only has it been interesting to see the number of people who want to join more than they want to participate, it's interesting to turn the picture ninety degrees and marvel at the dearth of people willing to take it on. wasn't it only a year or so ago that the internet was overflowing with brand new knitters who were so "addicted" that they blogged about taking their knitting out while driving their cars, when stopped at red lights? i have never liked the casual talk about "addiction" to knitting; knitting is a balance of freedom and control like all other disciplines and knitters who show up at their LYS with a friend in tow to whom they cheerily "want to spread the addiction" are just casualties of mouseketeerism. rah rah rah. spread the addiction. i think what the three other members of the freeform group have done is amazing. what they have done for themselves is amazing because they live with those projects, each of which, honestly, i'd buy any day and have UV-protective-framed immediately. but what is also amazing is what they continue to teach me; that while i have lived a life, from earliest memory, of being "not like everybody else", when i looked, and didn't settle, i did find a few other people who are - if certainly not in every way - one thing like me. there is nothing about me that's like nobody else. how comforting it is to find someone who understands, and can take on, a similar challenge to the one i saw in this one, single, rule - contribute and document, every day, for 365 consecutive days.
now i see what a big challenge this was to take on, and would be for anyone to take on, because i see what these three women did without the promise or even suggestion of anything but the artistic endeavor. freeform, obviously, is scary to a lot of people. if you put me in a room full of people with paintbrushes and palettes, and said "get going," i would be mortified. i would be frightened. i would not be motivated. and i would be not only afraid (and ultimately unfulfilled and frustrated) to do my own thing, but scared to look up and see how much better everybody else's was. paint scares the shit out of me, and it's completely understandable that freeform would scare other people - even not daily-prescribed freeform. it's as alien, even to talented knitters, as might be painting. or writing, which i continually forget, is not as easy for everybody else as it might be for some.
the ten-day prestart period for the freeform 365 group allows for someone interested in the project to either let members of the group know, so that they can cash in on whatever unguaranteed social interaction that might be available on those days (it's a moody group), but also, if they choose, to be left alone in a room to try it out. if someone happens by the doorway (as is possible on flickr), they may get a comment or a question. but to come to the group ten days into the project seems, to me, empowering. most of the false-starters who have joined previously and then died out lasted fewer than ten days total, so this will also give me one less thing to do in controlling the possible bottleneck of "freeform 365" posts that are actually "freeform days 1, 3 and 5 and three weeks of silence" posts.
freeform 365 is still an emphatically public group. its four members would love to see a new active member, and it's never too late to start. the group is not "intimidating", but its members are serious and encouraging. there has never been a content-versus-comment situation; everyone can have the latter; those who choose to try can have the latter and the former. current active members are as friendly and commenty with AWOL members and members who have never posted at all as they are with their active-duty comrades; they simply are not having the "freeform 365 experience", for better or for worse, with those people. there's no need to create more "members" who are encouraged to be inactive. membership has its rewards: for the freeform 365 group, that reward is the "oh, SHIT" feeling you get at ten o'clock at night when you remember you haven't added to your piece that day and have to drag the damned (increasingly heavy) thing out of its lair. the rest is all - free, public and accessible - gravy.
the poet w.h. auden once quoted rainier maria rilke (perhaps in auden's own translation), "... if only we arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us that we must always hold to the difficult, then that which now still seems to us the most hostile will become what we most trust and find most faithful." sometimes, the freeform 365 group is difficult, but with active members - or, as individuals - it is greater than the sum of its parts.