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cimoreneIt's sad when tracking every bookmark in a tag on delicious gives you more comments on old stuff that you've read and disliked, or just read and aren't ready to reread, than benefit from amusing comments or new bookmarks. Largely inactive tags are even, paradoxically perhaps, preferable to very active but stagnant ones that are high-volume without any new content. And really, that's a simple and rather graphical illustration - a very effective one - of the way a fandom holds reader attention.
The volume of new bookmarks in a tag on delicious, or the tag's activity, can be taken as a measure of demand for that fandom (or sub-fandom: it's often a pairing) - it shows what people are reading. The variety, and the amount of new fiction that shows up in that tag, shows the supply that the delicious-using community is drawing on (of course there can be things written which don't get bookmarked and there are even, shockingly, groups of people who aren't delicious-networked; that part of the analogy won't work for them).
A good volume of activity with all-new material (an excellent supply, possibly exceeding demand) and/or a good volume of activity with a healthy percentage of new material (demand somewhat exceeding supply, but supply healthy and adequate) is ideal. In that situation the top page of results in the tag doesn't look the same all the time, but changes, say, at least every week or few days.
No activity and no new material can't hold anyone's attention, at least, not after the original fixed-size pool of material is exhausted (no isolated individual is going to get into a fandom where there are no other interested participants and no new fiction).
A high supply and no demand scenario, which would correspond to lots of writing with no tags on delicious, is, I believe, practically nonexistant in fandom, because (a)the analogy doesn't stay together - a fandom with plenty of writing and no tags on delicious would merely indicate that its readers don't use delicious, not that it hasn't got any readers; and (b) I'm fairly sure there are no fandoms with a constant supply of new fiction and no readers. That's a situation that can't possibly last very long any more than businesses will keep manufacturing products they can't sell. This isn't to say supply can never exceed demand in fandom, just that if it exceeds it very much the supply is likely to fall back, or at least some demand is likely to spring up. It's not hard to get readers in fandom, even if it is sometimes hard to get as much feedback as the author would like. In the delicious-networked areas of fandom that would result in a tag that was only moderately active and didn't represent the quantity of new fiction being written.
Finally, the high demand/no supply scenario. Disproportionate activity in the delicious tag, or the fandom, with a lack of new fiction, is the worst possible situation: not just because it fills the reader with frustration and impatience, requiring time to keep up with the tag without any payoff in the form of new reading material, but because it's an economy with demand and no supply.
A bunch of consumers can't create a fandom economy without some fannish production going on. Fandom's solution in situations like this is ideally to get the consumers writing for each other - and that's basically the entire premise of fandom, after all! - but that doesn't always work. When it fails to happen (usually because interest is a little too weak - where demand is strong enough, some consumers will eventually be pushed over the line and begin to create a supply), fandom begins to substitute its best (but unfortunately deeply inferior) alternatives to fiction: summaries and outlines and ideas posted by people who don't have the energy to invest in making them into stories, and the fruitless wishing of the wistful consumers for something to consume. Eventually, if the demand doesn't give rise to some supply, the activity fades out as well as people turn their energy to other, more successful searches.
The volume of new bookmarks in a tag on delicious, or the tag's activity, can be taken as a measure of demand for that fandom (or sub-fandom: it's often a pairing) - it shows what people are reading. The variety, and the amount of new fiction that shows up in that tag, shows the supply that the delicious-using community is drawing on (of course there can be things written which don't get bookmarked and there are even, shockingly, groups of people who aren't delicious-networked; that part of the analogy won't work for them).
A good volume of activity with all-new material (an excellent supply, possibly exceeding demand) and/or a good volume of activity with a healthy percentage of new material (demand somewhat exceeding supply, but supply healthy and adequate) is ideal. In that situation the top page of results in the tag doesn't look the same all the time, but changes, say, at least every week or few days.
No activity and no new material can't hold anyone's attention, at least, not after the original fixed-size pool of material is exhausted (no isolated individual is going to get into a fandom where there are no other interested participants and no new fiction).
A high supply and no demand scenario, which would correspond to lots of writing with no tags on delicious, is, I believe, practically nonexistant in fandom, because (a)the analogy doesn't stay together - a fandom with plenty of writing and no tags on delicious would merely indicate that its readers don't use delicious, not that it hasn't got any readers; and (b) I'm fairly sure there are no fandoms with a constant supply of new fiction and no readers. That's a situation that can't possibly last very long any more than businesses will keep manufacturing products they can't sell. This isn't to say supply can never exceed demand in fandom, just that if it exceeds it very much the supply is likely to fall back, or at least some demand is likely to spring up. It's not hard to get readers in fandom, even if it is sometimes hard to get as much feedback as the author would like. In the delicious-networked areas of fandom that would result in a tag that was only moderately active and didn't represent the quantity of new fiction being written.
Finally, the high demand/no supply scenario. Disproportionate activity in the delicious tag, or the fandom, with a lack of new fiction, is the worst possible situation: not just because it fills the reader with frustration and impatience, requiring time to keep up with the tag without any payoff in the form of new reading material, but because it's an economy with demand and no supply.
A bunch of consumers can't create a fandom economy without some fannish production going on. Fandom's solution in situations like this is ideally to get the consumers writing for each other - and that's basically the entire premise of fandom, after all! - but that doesn't always work. When it fails to happen (usually because interest is a little too weak - where demand is strong enough, some consumers will eventually be pushed over the line and begin to create a supply), fandom begins to substitute its best (but unfortunately deeply inferior) alternatives to fiction: summaries and outlines and ideas posted by people who don't have the energy to invest in making them into stories, and the fruitless wishing of the wistful consumers for something to consume. Eventually, if the demand doesn't give rise to some supply, the activity fades out as well as people turn their energy to other, more successful searches.
