Opinions sought

[ralst]

As I've no doubt mentioned, the site is coming up to its 5,000th story - by my estimation, some time during the latter half of November - and I've been thinking about ways to celebrate that. Hence the questions

Comments

[soporificeffect]

I'm thinking you should totally go at it from a different angle, forget for a second the writers, and concentrate on the readers (I'm, of course, including my self in them). Let the readers celebrate the 5000th story with a tribute to fanfiction, a "testimonial" section of sorts.

[ralst]

How do you mean?

[soporificeffect]

I don't know, something like.. how they started reading fics, where, how they got to p&p, what is their favorite fandom. what comes first, the fic or the show ... something like that.
it's just me an my weird ideas.

[ralst]

It's a good idea, and I'd be interested in the answers. I'm just not sure how to go about it ... definitely something to think about.

[atfm]

1. Definitely. It's a milestone.

2. I like the idea of there being at least one story for every major fandom, but I think it might be difficult to obtain stories for those fandoms you mentioned that haven't had any submissions lately. But it's worth a try, and if you do go for that approach, I'll gladly write something for any of the three fandoms I'm comfortable with, though these aren't very rare.

Something other than a challenge doesn't come to mind right now. I think it'd be great if every story of the update had a reference to 5,000 somewhere in it.

3. This doesn't go beyond stories, but perhaps multifandom stories with a requirement of at least three pairings? Graphics? A publication of stats? Writers recommending their favourite on-site stories?

[ralst]

Those no-submissions fandoms are going to be tricky. Two of them I could, possibly, write something for, given enough time, but I've never even seen the third.

And thanks for the offer, I'll gladly accept any stories you manage to come up with.

Multi-fandom stories would be good - although they can be a pain to code. Multi-fandom videos and graphics would also be nice. And recs are always good.

I think for the stats, I'd like to do something a bit more, if possible. Sort of show how the site's grown, with a combination of stats and format changes - in the beginning P&P looked a lot different.

Thanks for those.

[atfm]

What's the third fandom? Would it make sense to look for communities for the more difficult fandoms and encourage people to submit stories, explaining the 5,000 stories occasion?

I'd love to see that and I'm sure others would too. It's a great idea to show the development; numbers, layouts, fandoms of the months etc.

[ralst]

Mutant X - the others being Hex and Fastlane. I'm not sure if there is a community/group for Mutant X but I do remember one of the writers saying they were wanting to write more, so maybe I can get in contact with her. Comunity/group pimping is a good idea.

I just had a look back at an earlier incarnation of the site (2001). It was so dinky and kind of sweet in its simplicity. It's gone and make me all nostalgic.

[the_girl_20]

I think it definitely needs celebration of some sort.

As for the 1 story per fandom thingie...what if you were to post a table of said fandoms round about now and have people sign up to create something in one or more of them. That way you're giving folks time enough to think of something while it still being a bit of a challenge. And it wouldn't have to be one person per fandom, to increase the likelihood of getting a submission, you could have as many as were willing to do something. There must be more than 46 people out there willing and able to submit something for such a momentous occasion in the site's history.

[ralst]

A table's good. That way I can spot any missing areas and search out possible writers. Good idea, thanks.

[accoustic_girl]

1. YES, it's a definite milestone. :)

2. I liked the table idea. It seems like a logical way to request a large amount of stories in differing fandoms. Community pimping also seems like a good idea.

3. I liked the suggestion about the testimonial "How I discovered Passion & Perfection".

Unfortunately, I'm horribly unoriginal. If something happens to strike my brain, I'll definitely post it up.

[ralst]

I'll post a table shortly, so I can see what kind of response it generates.

I like the testimonial idea, I'm just not sure how to do it, technically, as I'd like it to be self posting, rather than go through me. I'll have to look into it.

[accoustic_girl]

The only thing that I can think of that would be self-posting is a bulletin board of some sort, but I know that comes with it's own set of problems.....

Good luck! :)