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I've seen a couple threads on at least one other forum that it might be handy to have analogues of here:
- For when you don't want to open a new thread for something along these lines or feeling like doing that wouldn't be worth it, perhaps because such a thread would be so bespoke and short-lived:
- 'General Recommendations Thread' (For seeking and sharing story recommendations.) (N. b.: You could also have per-genre/-theme/-category versions of this one, too.)
- 'Fic Search Thread' (To help people find stories that they know already exist, perhaps having read them before, and can't find again, but not for helping them find stories of a certain kind they aren't sure exist in the first place.)
There may be others I'm forgetting along (roughly) similar lines.
(This doesn't mean I'd start any of these threads myself; I was just wondering if anybody else thought any or all of theme might, hypothetically, prove useful to have. Whoever took charge of them would have to commit to maintaining/moderating them, and they'd be much more long-lived threads used on a rolling/'round-robin' basis.)
Things like this are pretty much what the 'forum' was for.
Or at least was supposed to be for. I've been here for about 16 years now, and the forums have never been used to the extent you see in a lot of communities: people just talk via blogs and stories more often than not.
Part of the problem, I think, comes simply from visibility: new forum threads are listed in the same menu as new blogs, and the forums themselves aren't really featured (least not that I've seen) in a major way on the front page the same way stories are. As a result, the forums are treated, functionally, as no different than blogs by a lot of us.
I used to use the forum part of the site quite a bit, posting story challenges and such.
Melanie E.
Hmm?
I used to have separate blocks for forums, blogs and weblinks. So few were posted, it seemed better to combine them. What do people think?
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Re: Hmm?
I tend to skip straight to looking at what threads might be new in a specific sub-forum or if there are any new replies on threads I've been following and/or actively participating in, but, yeah, I don't doubt some people would appreciate having a log of recent updates that've happened anywhere in the forums; it should be separate from the blog post update feed, at least as an option for a module users can check in their site preferences. Maybe some folks might still like the option to use the combined feed instead, though…? (I don't know, just a thought. Shrugs.)
Always with a song in their heart.
Lyrical magical, confound it all; I've gone and gotten myself stuck lost somewhere deep in the Infinity Library again…
I think it depends on how much we'd use it, to be honest.
Like I understand *why* it's combined like it is -- the forums were never the busiest part of the site, since people can comment on the stories and blogs directly -- and I don't know if splitting them up would provide enough extra traffic to make it worthwhile... but might be worth a shot? the site's in a pretty different place than it was back when everything was combined, at least it feels like it is to me.
Ultimately it's up to you though hon. *hugs*
Melanie E.
Re: Spare Ideas for Threads I Wish We Had
Oh, another idea for a thread like these others would be 'Works you'd like to see continued?'
Always with a song in their heart.
Lyrical magical, confound it all; I've gone and gotten myself stuck lost somewhere deep in the Infinity Library again…