That Sinking Feeling

Introduction

This is a problem we all have and I am not sure what the answer is because however we address it, events and social media posts fall away into the past, often to be forgotten.

When we post something, although it is permanently on the digital platform, other posts then supersede it, so it effectively disappears.

Is There Anything We Can Do?

Pinning is available on a lot of Social Media and Vocal allows us to pin three stories that we see as important, or we want to be read, though that can only work if others visit our profile. Latest stories, our subscriptions and notifications are just an ever-changing stream, with no permanence, although permanence and change are obviously at odds with each other.

On Facebook, Groups can have a Featured Stripe and we use that in the Vocal Social Society where we create threads, and stories posted on the threads effectively are part of something that is permanently at the top of the feed. We have threads for Poetry, Challenge Entries (Official and Unofficial), Unofficial Challenges, Old New Borrowed and Blue, Fiction Friday, Microfiction Wednesday and to highlight Creators, The Dynamic Duo and Community Adventure.

Things that don't fit are dropped into the normal feed, but the threads keep the normal feed less congested although many still drop poems and challenge entries there, but they soon drop out of sight.

While threads are not perfect, they can be used for categorising story types so it is easy to find what you are looking for. If everything goes into the main feed it eventually just becomes a messy mass and there are not many options for filtering.

Conclusion

I am not sure what the answer is, and people still can find stories using Vocal's excellent search facility, but it is a fact of life that once a story is published after a day or so it is considered done. I suppose it is a bit like a daily newspaper.

Thank you for reading and I would love to hear your ideas and opinions.

The music is "Sink or Swim" by One Direction, and we are swimming.