Message Board Sales Pitch

[dontknowmyname]

In order to properly explain my crazy ideas for the “Hunter’s Lounge”, I actually went and created a message board. Nothing there is set in stone nor is the actual idea of having a message board finalized.

A bit of a recap:

Awhile ago, cherry916 made a post about bringing more hurt!Jared to the community. My suggestion was a comment fic meme, which

Comments

[harrigan]

Hey there! I left my questions on the other thread - maybe while you were posting this? I don't think that comment was effusive enough, though, because this does look AWESOME!

I'll copy my main questions here:

Can folks set it up to be alerted (e.g. by email) when a new post or reply is made in the forum?

I am a little fuzzy on what might still be posted on the community rather than the forum besides the newsletter. I don't think it's a pro/con issue - I think we can have both. I'd just like to chat about some ideas we've mentioned before. Like, one month the spn_littlebro might do an 'Ask the Author' Q/A. I wouldn't want to make readers go to the forum to participate in that. If we wanted to have a music vid discussion, and solicit clips and songs and so on, who decides if that belongs on spn_littlebro or the Hunters Lounge forum? When someone on teamlittlebro has an idea like that, do we discuss it here to decide where it goes

[dontknowmyname]

It looks like members can subscribe to individual threads. So they can see when there's a new reply, but I'm not sure about being alerted to new posts.

As for your other questions, those kind of depend on how others feel. I am viewing the board as being separate, from the community in that we can open a discussion post with each theme pimp, or the community could advertise a comment fic meme that is going on at the board (but the community would exactly be hosting it).

But from what I've gotten, people are feeling like it would be helpful to hold all discussion type events for spn_littlebro at the message board. I honestly doesn't matter to me how those types of things work out

[cherry916]

I love everything you are doing now with that being said should we put on the poll asking members about wanting or being able to do a message board? That would include, writing help etc. etc?

[dontknowmyname]

I think that's a good idea. I actually found a more popular hosting site that allows for more creativity. I'm thinking of using the one I already set up as a beta. We could include that at the poll. Maybe we could open a post here for a bit, and everyone could come up with the ideas they think will draw the most attention.

Basically the original message board would be a beta. That way members here at the community would have the same visual we all had when deciding if it's a good idea or not. Then after we get a few responses, and we decide to launch the real deal, we can launch it on the new server.

Definitely think with how confusing it originally was, that having a visual would be helpful to members. What do you think?

We could ask if members would be interested in using a message board as a discussion forum for writing help, artwork help, and other hurt!Sam and hurt!Jared topics? We could point them to the beta board just as an example. I can close it off to actual posting, and just make fake posts to show the general idea.

[ash48]

It's sounds really well thought out hun. You've put in a lot of thought and I think there is enormous potential for a great site

[el1ie]

Having joined L/J many moons ago from a Stargate message board/forum over at Delphi - I have to say I've always been a little disappointed in the way that the journal system is much harder for general discussion topics, personal journals are like people's homes, you have to be careful how you tread and communities aren't really geared up for topics of discussion - so I'm all for this message board/forum - call it what you will and I really hope it takes off

[ash48]

LIBRARY ROOMS!!!!!!!!!!\o/

What a cool idea...

and a great way to make it clearly organised.

Also links to the whole idea of Library of Hurt.

WOOT! (hee... I hope dontknowmyname likes it of course...*g*)

But yeah... the messages boards I know how clear areas and it makes it easier to browse and know where to link stuff.

xx

[el1ie]

So, some of that mess made sense eh? Hee!

I think my main reasoning was - it's hard to keep people on topic and limiting all the rooms to HURT as it is at the comm is eventually going to be very difficult - people by nature jump around when they get inspired and it would be hard to shut that down.

So, making all the rooms for now, start off with the hurt as that's a great jumping off point, having one room open that's directly linked to the comm and can be kept to the hurt aspect of Sam and Jared, means any of the other rooms can eventually take off in whatever direction anyone feels like talking about on any given day, without anyone having to mod constantly to keep it on topic. Also useful if the comm wants to invite an author/artist for a workshop or host a fic meme on the specific hurt topic, it automatically is in the spn-littlebro room

[dontknowmyname]

I LOVE those ideas! I think it'll keep the main page of the board fairly short and organized. Plus, it'll probably be easier to use in my opinion. I like the idea of combining the medical questions with say mythology questions under the research room

[harrigan]

Just a quick fly-by comment, as work looks to be busy this week!

I *love* everything that's been discussed here. (This is such an awesome group of brainstormers!) I do agree that a visual aid will help that last poll question, and maybe the earlier suggestion about using a screencap is a good way to go. (If not, you could link to the beta site but emphasize (on the poll and maybe on the site) that it's a SAMPLE only - do not register/post now?)

The question I had about things like Ask the Author doesn't need to be resolved now. No worries! I only was curious now in case it affected the wording of the poll, or possible questions that might come up in comments to the poll. But if we can phrase things so it doesn't matter yet, I'm fine with that.

Is someone proposing revised wording for that poll question?

Finally, does anyone here know why the Limp Sam forum died out? Was it because of a lack of interest, or were there lessons to be learned from that message board so his new one doesn't suffer the same fate?

[ash48]

Jumping in while I'm here, but I would love to know the answer to why limp Sam forum died also. Not sure if faydartmouth ( I think she was the main instigator yeah ?) lost interest maybe? If no one here knows it might be worth one of us asking her..

But yeah... We could learn from them for sure.

I'm thinking cherry will rephrase that question....she did make mention that she will. Though as the discussion continues it's becoming clearer what shape this might take, so it might be a simple question of "would you be interested in a message board style forum like this one? " Yes/ no/ maybe ...

[dontknowmyname]

I'm working fairly closely with Faye and Sendintheklowns on the Summer Sam Love challenge, and I know Faye has lost interest (which is how I got my role lol), BUT that didn't happen until this season

[ash48]

I think the loss of interest is the major reason. A fab spn vidding site shut down recently because the owner lost interest. Such a shame because the site was still very active.

I think this has a real chance but it would be good to ask the question in the poll... see how many peeps who are members of littlebro would consider being involved at the message board.

(I also wondered about a return of some sort of fic awards... they can be fun and get people interested. Maybe... :)