So, I was looking at the comments that people have had on the forums and some of the ideas tossed around. And then I looked at the forums. And I did what I do: I organized. So please hear my out and read through this idea. Then give your vote in the poll on what you think. I figured poll voting would be the easiest way to see if you, our forum members, would like to see this idea happen. (Note: when I say things like, "We will," I mean that if the plan goes through. Not that it has actually been decided to happen yet.)

I looked at all three forums and separated the items that make them genre specific, and which ones are more general writing. I discovered that the genre specific items were, or could be condensed easily to, 6-7 subforums. Just think about that: the entire genre specific forums really are 6-7 subforums. Is this really enough to keep the genres separate?

So I came up with a plan, and it will be easily reversible, so if we want to give it a trial run and decide to revert to our old format, it won't be a big deal.

First, we'll make the links to sci-fi and historical stop working. The forums will still be there, so if we want to revert back to them, we'll just pick up where we left off. Nothing lost there.

Then we turn the Fantasy side into a more all-encompassing forum (stay with me, this will be explained later). Elanor has talked about making the forums more writing focused, which I think this will help with. I think this may be able to help with a community feel, too. And it should allow us to start on possibly allowing for clubs sooner.

So we take all of the non-genre specific areas and put them all on the writing forum and allow all genres, or no genres, be discussed in those areas. The forum's purpose will be focused on writing instead of just genres. So you could get writing help, work on poetry, ask for help on poetry, review other stories, develop your own, role play, etc.

From there, we will still have Fantasy, Sci-fi, and Historical Fiction. We'll take the areas on each forum that truly are genre-specific (the 6-7 subforums) and put them in their designated genre area. People who want to just talk Fantasy, Sci-Fi, or Historical, develop those areas, and work on just those genre-specific items can go to those areas.

And then we'll have areas for discussions, general talk, and things like that.

My mental image for this plan is a book store or convention type setting. In a convention, you have the general assemblies, general talks and informative sessions, break out sessions to more specific areas, and coffee breaks to talk.

Or, book store visual: You have the reference desk, all of the books, some specific sections, and a coffee shop for talk. I think laying it all out for y'all might be easier. So take a look (the names in parenthesis are just suggestions. Feel free to suggest your own! And obviously the actual room names will need to be adapted from Fantasy specific names.):

Oh! One more thing. We'd keep the Citadel, but it'll be for clubs and rank official stuff only.

Official/Non writing related stuff
(Bulletin Board/Intercom/Reference Desk):
Official Chatter
Introductions and Celebrations
Signing on, signing off

Actual writing related stuff (finished products, helps, and tools):
(The Workshop/Writers’ Table/Writers’ Conference/Bookshop/Round Table)
Forge
Writing Help [Village Lore + general helps and editing and stuff]
Projects
Quests
Fire Side
[*]Stories
[*]Blog Posts
[*]Scripts
[*]Poetry
[*]Essence
[*]Arts Guild

Genre Specific:
(Fiction department/Genres)
Fantasy
[*]World Building
[*]Culture
[*]Magic and Cobha
[*]Village Common
[*]Realms Beyond
[*]Triterrus

Sci-Fi
[*]Life Forms
[*]Culture/Geography/History
[*]Machines
[*]Theoretical Stuff
[*]Worlds/World Building
[*]Science Class
[*]Community Stories

Historical Fiction
[*]Ancient History – Fall of the Roman Empire
[*]480 – 1700 Medieval, Renaissance, Reformation
[*]1700-1900 Colonial through Turn of the Century
[*]1900 – WWI through Present History
[*]Science Discussion/General Historical Fiction Talk
[*]Collaborative Stories

Discussions/socializing/things beyond writing, such as publishing tips:
(The Coffee Shop/Round Table/Conference Room/Coffee Break)
Watch Tower
Harold’s Hall
Tricky Subjects (or in writing related stuff? Not sure)
Theology
Writing Discussion
General Discussion

The idea is that we'll be able to work together as one community focused on writing, instead of three different communities focused on just genres. But we'll still have the genres as a part of us. Also, this would make modding the areas much easier.

Here's what it'd look like, all condensed, on the front page:

Official/Non writing related stuff:
Official Chatter
Introductions and Celebrations
Signing on, signing off

Writing related stuff:
Forge
Writing Help
Projects
Quests
Fire Side

Genre Specific:
Fantasy
Sci-Fi
Historical Fiction

Discussions/socializing/things beyond writing, such as publishing tips:
Watch Tower
Harold’s Hall
Tricky Subjects
Theology
Writing Discussion
General Discussion

What are your thoughts? Are you for, or against it? Please vote in the poll. Do you have additional ideas/changes you'd like to suggest? What problems do you potentially see? Please speak up. I'd love to hear your concerns or thoughts.

Thanks for reading all the way through! Y'all are awesome!

When I first started reading this my initial reaction was "No!" I tend to dwell on the past too much, and it's hard for me to want to change the forum from the way I've known it for so long. However, I kept reading, and I do see the sense in this. Three separate forums hasn't seemed to work very well, and now with the addition of the Citadel it's even harder. For example, some people post goings and comings in the Citadel, some on the genre forums. It's all so confusing, and difficult to keep up with.

So after some consideration, I realized that this could actually be a valuable change. (And I personally love the Fantasy theme the most, so it wouldn't be heartbreaking if we moved everything over to the Big Blue House. [I was actually very sad that we kept the sci-fi chat room instead of the Fantasy one, and am waiting for that to be fixed...]) Side notes aside. My concern is the amount of work it would be to do all this. I take it that we would be transferring full threads over here and such. As always, the transition stage would be ticklish and probably annoying to the members caught in the middle of it. And change is not always fun in the middle of it.

So in conclusion, I would be willing to give this a go, although the nostalgic side of me rebels against the idea. I would be willing to help out in any implementation areas, although you may not want to saddle me with any vital things because they might explode.

I'm tentatively in favor. (I haven't "voted" yet because there isn't a nuanced option for "wildly in favor if ... but against if not" )

I wouldn't be happy at having to migrate my bookmarks and subscriptions yet again, and I had some other reservations that I can't remember at the moment.

On the other hand, like I said in the other thread, HW currently takes up almost a quarter of the "pinned" tabs on my browser; being able to see whether there's anything new in all of HW in one tab would be a great good in my opinion.

I think this is a good idea. HF and Sci-Fi have very little activity and I think having it all in one place makes for easier navigation, simplifies things and makes less work than to keep hopping back and forth between the patchwork forums. I suggested it awhile back but got the idea the bosses were not in favour so sat back and waited. I look forward to the changes

Overall, I like the idea of condensing and putting everything into one forum. It is after all, along the lines of the (May 2013?) account-merge thing that we did before, right?

Speaking of which, if this merge does go through permanently, what will happen to the unfixed threads we have on HF and Sci-Fi?

Another minor point on my part is that I liked the individuality that each forum had, even the Citadel, but again, that's just a minor point.

I really like this idea. I think it will allow for some more cross pollination between genres and help build a better community.

One other thing I would love to see on HW eventually is a simple "Fiction" genre. I have been delving into writing screenplays lately. Those stories generally fall into a more reality based feel. It would be like the Historical Fiction genre but without the History. I would be willing to try to help get this section started if need be.

To make it easier to read I think I should number the different things I will be saying, but I do not want anyone to think that I am being stern or mad, I am just...

*puts on mustache *

1
There is an idea here that I am very enthusiastic about: the separation out of what is really genre specific.
However, in the proposed plan, I do not see them fully separated. I think that will need more work. The thing I hope it will solve is the necessity of posting a thread in three or four places and copying posts and setting links back and forth between them. No doubt this also makes it far less likely people will find the things they are interested in, when they have three, four, or five different places to look.
I definitely would like to see that fixed.


2
We always need to remember our original vision, which was why we came here, and was what we came here to do. How we go about it can and should change, but this change must be to better serve the vision.
Even for those who have not directly read the vision of Holy Worlds, they are here because of the vision of the people who were here already.




3
The forum should never move towards being merely another writing forum, since we do not want to be trying to do someone else's job. And there are a lot of people doing a far better job in that than we could ever do, since we would be changing our focus and starting from a completely different foundation.

We also do not have the right people: we all came because we were Christian Fantasy/Sci-fi/Historical Fiction writers. If we wanted to do something more general we would have to get a lot more variety into our backgrounds. And with such a large community already here it would be very hard to draw anyone but the sort of people we have already.


4
Even if many things in this forum would apply to writers in general, there is another aspect that has to be considered.
Whenever you have something that tells you how to write, the first thing it tells you is to think about who your audience is.
This works the other way as well. Everything that has been written in this forum was written for a specific audience, not writers in general, but people who want to help in writing Christian Fantasy/Sci-fi/Historical Fiction.

Everything may not be Fantasy specific, or Sci-fi specific, or Historical fiction specific, but everything is Christian Fantasy/Sci-fi/Historical Fiction specific. I definitely would not mind having all three on one page, as long as it remained those three.

Christian Fantasy/Sci-fi/Historical Fiction writers is hard to say, but it is who we are in particular. A Holy Worlder is a very specific type of writer.


5
I do not know, but I tend to think that the lesser activity on the other two forums consists of a lot of activity by a few people. So they may be helping a lot, just for fewer people.
Remember that the Fantasy forum is vastly more active than most ordinary forums, so we probably should not use it as a measure of how well the other two are doing.
If we disable the other two forums it may not be so bad for us, but it could be near catastrophic for those who do use them.
And it certainly would not be catastrophic for us to let them continue. Reorganization within forums is easier and less of a risk to people hard earned posts.

I think that the change will not be as easy as it appears. It is easy to make the links to the other forums stop working, but to start any conversations from scratch, without access to any of the previous conversations or posts?

And if it is made permanent, we would have to move all the threads over, and something could go wrong, like last time, and things could get confused, or lost. And the whole time those threads and posts would have to wait longer to be able to be used, even if nothing went wrong.

6
In conclusion (someone wake up Pooh), I think we should work on putting the things specific to all three genres in one place, and the things specific to only one or two of the genres together in other places.
But we should not be adding any other genres, individually or in mass.

7
Just to make it seven points.

8
Just to make it not seven points. Heh!

Tsahraf ChahsidMimetes, well said. I retract the request to make a "fiction" section; however, I do still think that it never hurts to discuss topics that are not genre specific, aka writing in general. It is also helpful to stretch each other as writers in ways we are not used to being stretched. I think you are basically saying this, Tsahraf, but with an emphasis on caution. I just want to place emphasis on the possible benefits of the change. There are certain topics and discussions that would benefit from the cross-pollination of the other forums. I for one am all about mixed genre stories, yet I am not sure where to start such discussions. I think that if everything was in one place, it would help to boost creativity and make for more lively discussions.

I have basically frequented Historical only up till now, because that's what I write, but I've always had the sense that the Fantasy and Sci-Fi forums were much busier. I definitely wouldn't want the historical-specific sub-forums to go away, because that's where my main interest lies, but I do think it would be nice to have access to a more active community when it comes to things like general writing discussion (as a previous poster mentioned, without having to visit a number of different forums/threads on the same general topics).

Just so y'all know, I'm not ignoring this thread! I'm reading the posts. I hope to be responding soon. Thank you for giving your input, I really appreciate it.

Hey Calista! Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Honestly, I had originally planned for just me to do it so no one else would have to worry about the amount of work. But I'd welcome any help if we go through with this. I can get into specifics later, but I don't think it'll be as time consuming and difficult as it may appear.



You never gave your if and if not conditions. What would make you wildly in favor, or against it?



Hmm. Totally get this. That could be pretty frustrating, and I don't think there's a way to avoid having to resubscribe. But I don't think there would be as many threads to subscribe to in the transition. My plan was to, at least for now, bring over mainly the currently, or recently, active posts on the other forums. That way we wouldn't have to wade through non-active posts, kind of like a giant spring cleaning. I don't know if this helps at all, though.



Thanks for giving your thoughts, Legatus! I agree with you, which is partly why I think it would be a good plan.

I'm breaking up my posts because I don't want it to be a million miles long.



Ah, glad you brought the unfixed threads up. As I said before, we'd be bringing over the threads that people are using, and leave the rest (much like archiving old topics and leaving the active ones on a forum). In bringing them over, I can give the post to the original poster. If we can't figure out who the original poster was, and the thread is more general, I can just post it myself. If we can figure out who the original poster was, I can change it to them. And then we'd leave the threads on Sci-Fi and Historical, because those sites would be inaccessible anyways. I hope that makes sense.

Yeah, that is the downside. The individuality is pretty nice. (Keep in mind, we would be keeping the Citadel.)



I definitely agree.



I'm sure you could interact with the different genres even with Ficiton. A book series I read called the Kingdom Keepers is modern-day fiction, but has elements of Fantasy and Sci-Fi in it. So if you have something like that, you could probably talk about those elements in those different areas (also something that might be easier with having it all on one forum).



Why don't you think it'd be fully separated? I'm curious to see what you think about that, as you see something here that I don't.




Thanks for bringing this up. Much appreciated, and a very good point. I think that the plan would still do this, but it's definitely good to keep this in mind and make sure it's the focus. Thanks.



Also a great point. I think the plan will help focus our attention on writing, but writing within those niche areas. That's the focus, which is why we'll still have the three areas, and then the more general areas will be affected by those three genres being applied across the forums.



Also a great point. Which, again, I think the plan still accomplishes that. (I think it might allow a little bit more for people with more general writing, but still remains focused on those three genres.)



Again, in the switch, I'd be bringing over the active topics. For the ones with fewer responses, I can bring over all the responses. The ones with more, I can bring in the most recent responses or start the thread fresh. That way the topics that are being used won't be completely lost. So I don't think it would have a negative affect on those using those forums, but I could be wrong. You make a good point there.



*nods* Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Thanks for sharing again, Andorin. I think it's a good idea to come into it with caution in knowing it might not work or something could go wrong, but also knowing that there are benefits that can come from this.



Thanks for sharing, Elisabeth! The Historical-specific sub-forums would not be going away. We definitely want to keep that area so you can keep working on your writing. But, ideally, this plan would make it easier for people to see the Historical area and contribute to it, and give you access to a more active forum.

Does anyone else have thoughts to contribute? Responses to my responses? I'd love to hear your ideas, concerns, and anything else you'd like to share on this.

What would be the purpose of keeping the Citadel if everything else is condensed into one forum? Wasn't the Citadel supposed to be a central place so forum-wide discussions and general stuff could occur? If everything else gets condensed, there wouldn't be much need for the Citadel. It'd probably end up turning into the next Fountain, since it would mean going somewhere entirely different for a lot of announcements and planning.

I agree with Varon here; I think it would be good to keep the Citadel to expand into the Club plans that we have (people having their own forum rooms and so on), but I don't think Captain discussions and etc should be held on a different forum when we would only have one forum. It's hard enough for some people to remember to check the Captain/Mod rooms, and if we're going to drop to one forum, I think we should bring those back to the one forum to simplify things, personally.

I absolutely agree about the Captain/Mod rooms. It's hard to remember to check those in the Citadel.

Okay, that makes sense. And I think most of the information on the Citadel came from the Fantasy forums anyways, so it should be archived. So it shouldn't be too difficult to bring that back. I had said that we'd keep the Citadel because it seemed to work well from an administrative and official point of view. But we can move those back over if it really is more cumbersome over there.

But, if we move all of that back over to the Fantasy forum, would we want to keep the Citadel? At that point, would it be easier to have the clubs on the same forum? It just seemed more organized having official work on one forum and actual writing work on another. But that could just be me.

It might seem more organized, but it also seems less-read. I see very very little participation in the mod rooms as compared to what they were when they were located on HWF. It just feels like nobody reads the Citadel. And, if we had a specific section set aside for the clubs or whatever, that seems organized enough...

Ah, that makes sense.

Well, I'm glad I at least make sense. XD

Just to say up front: I think it's a good idea to put all three genres in the same forum. Just... maybe be really careful when you do it, and try to make the places more specific to what they're supposed to be for, so that it narrows down where a certain topic should be posted. Otherwise it gets harder to navigate. Ever since I first came here, I noticed that the places to talk were very generalized and not very specific, and therefore a ton of different topics could get lost in it and not be organized. I would really like to see that change, even if that means the amount of scrolling on the forum index would grow.

I agree that it could help to have a contemporary fiction (place only about story and not the elements of particular genres) spot, for people who don't write fantasy or sci fi or historical fiction. No genre is better than the other, except in personal preferences. I think it would help the forum grow, and don't think it would hinder the vision of this forum.

One thing I'd really be happy about: Please better organize the Village Lore area(maybe split it up into two or three categories? One that's purely about character writing, for instance. Because there are a Lot of topics about character writing, and so many other things to consider, it's kind of hard to navigate that place, even with the Index.)

One thing I'm slightly worried about is that putting all three genres together may make it even harder to navigate here. Make sure to name places specifically, so that you know what it's for, and so that it's easier to find topics about a certain thing.

So yeah. Good idea, just... be careful with everything. (:

Yes, yes, if we go ahead and do this, be careful. All this swapping around is a scary idea because something could break.

On another note, I think that combining forums may bring more people's attention to the less-read boards and threads, and help encourage more interaction there. I would love to spend more time on HWSF and HWHF but people comment so rarely that I don't get a lot of feedback over there, ya know? One reason why I hang around HWF so much instead. XD

Yes, I agree with this 100%.

The confusion over the forum linking we did a year ago and the work we did there was fine, in my opinion, but only because it was organized so we could carry it out efficiently. The only problem we had was when we ran into a user's posts who had deleted.

So as long as the people in charge of this think things through and are very organized, I think it should work out fine.

^

If this becomes a thing, then my offer still stands to help get it off the ground. I've been writing screenplays lately, and would love to be able to share the things I've been learning.
If you wanted, I could head up an even more specific section on writing for films. I'm sure there are a vast amount of HW authors who have at least entertained the idea of making their stories into films. It is a really fun process, and it can open up your story to a wider audience if it is the sort of story that warrants being made into a film.

I was vague because my thinking was and remains vague, I'm afraid. If you could manage to have old URLs (i.e. browser bookmarks) point to equivalent threads, that would certainly be a selling point.


Not just subscriptions ... bookmarks, sometimes of old and justly archived threads. I'm leery of anything that suggests some content might get lost somewhere.

(I'd kept several topic-reply-notification emails in my inbox as Reply To This Soon, but now can't remember what I was going to say.)

One thing I wanted to make you guys aware of is the Project that Andrew was working on last year, Project Anduin. It was a move that linked all the forums. Anyway, Andrew has done half the work, but the second half is not going to be completed for several reasons. I realised that although the Leadership were made aware of this, I hadn't officially let everyone on the forum know about it, and recently someone was asking me when the work would be completed - which it won't be.

So basically, this move would also rectify all the bugs on the smaller forums caused by the linking, like the tags that no longer work, (spoiler notes, PM bugs and so on) and the mixed up user names. Some people feel that the bugs don't matter that much, but to me they're unprofessional and I'd rather have a bug free forums if possible.

Some people have said to me that making this change won't necessarily bring more people in - and I agree that it isn't a solution to bringing more people to the forums. However, I believe it's more of a solution to keeping new members if they join. For instance, if I joined a writing forum for Historical Fiction, and when I had a look around there were only 3 or 4 (or maybe none, which it has been in the past) active posts, I wouldn't be tempted to stay. However if I joined a forum that had different sections dedicated to genres, and it was an active forum I would be far more interested in finding more out about it. I really believe that leaving the smaller forums as they are, because it's easier not to change things, will eventually end with them dying out. I don't personally have the mentality of 'they're quiet so just let them run along at their own pace until.....', because until what? I don't think they're just going to magically pick up pace of their own accord, and I think it's much more feasible to bring the forums together under one roof. Not only that, having three forums is much more work than having one. Now I know some of you have said 'just concentrate on the Fantasy forum, and leave the others to go along at their own pace', however although that's what my focus has been, it makes me feel like I'm just leaving them to die out -and I really don't want to do that. I don't think it would take more work to keep one forum up and running at all, in fact I think after the initial process of changing over it will be a lot easier to keep on top of everything. Many of us have full time jobs, full time schooling, actively pursuing being authors and so on, and running four forums - which is a lot of work - seems to be pointless when ideally we could be working on just one.


Also, I want to make clear that whilst making this change should be pretty easy, undoing the work would be much tougher. Especially if things are very quiet - I think it would be impossible to go back to the way things were unless we were a very busy forum, and we felt that it was feasible to make some changes. I don't want you guys to think we might be 'trying' this, and seeing if it works. I think that once the change is made, it will be extremely hard to undo all the work if people decide they don't like it.

Anyway, just a few things I wanted to add on to let you guys know what I'm thinking.

We're not rushing with this; we know there are some people on the forum who are very busy, and they want to offer some thoughts but haven't been able to do so yet.

Thanks for all the offers of help with the project, should we go ahead with it!

Thanks, Elanor, for sharing that information!

I've pulled together a few thoughts, although I do admit I feel disconnected lately due to being away.

I've thought of a few specific things as far as structure. One, The Fireside could get quickly and rapidly overwhelmed if all the genres were put together, so we might want to keep that genre-specific. In addition, I think Charrie Intros/Marketing might be helpful to keep genre-specific, but I'm less certain on that.

I think the main question that keeps coming to mind, for me, is whether we want a mega-community of writerly things, or a series of interlocked genre-specific forums. I think whichever direction we go will affect the essence of the forums.

I'm not the hugest fan of change in the world, myself, but I do recognize it's a necessary thing; I'm trying not to go off of the fact that it's just different. I can see both sides of this issue, and so logically, I don't know where I am at the moment. If anyone wants me to unpack what I've said, I'd love to do so.

Hi Emilyn!

Thank you for your suggestions! Having a space for contemporary fiction is certainly an option, however some people aren't too keen on the idea as they feel the forum focus is on niche genres - its in our vision that our focus is for niche genres. I think the concern is, if we divert from our forum vision, the focus of the forum might change considerably. Again, I'm not saying it's not going to be - it's just not something we'd want to rush with; so it might not be added into the change first thing, as it's something we'd need to discuss more.

I think some people have been worried about how expansive the forum will get with everything on one forum, but I think it will be a massive improvement on having four separate forums - and I think it will be smaller than people realise as there will be sub forums.

As for making sure that everything is clearly labelled, we'll definitely be careful with that when we're creating the rooms. (And if you have suggestions for changes to room names that we already have, don't be shy about shouting out!) We could have some specific sub forums in the Village Lore, but if we're not careful it will get even more confusing if there are too many rooms.

Kingjon, bookmarks and subscriptions on this forum board shouldn't change, as none of the threads on here are being touched. The only ones that would lose current subscriptions and bookmarks would be the threads on HWSF and HF, as new threads would be made to transfer topics over here.

Andorin, Aubrey was going to set up a room for script writing. I think she's just got majorly busy and it didn't happen. So I think adding that to the forum somewhere won't be a problem.

It should be a simple process really, as it just means the forum will go back to being one instead of three, and we're simply creating new rooms then. But I understand the concern; there were unforeseen glitches in the Anduin Project.

Yes, I think it's why a lot of people have stopped commenting on SF and HF, Calista. If you want to get a discussion going, it's pretty hard if there's only about three or four regular members over there.

Thanks for commenting, Shawn! I personally don't think Marketing would need separate rooms, but I agree that Character Introductions may. It's definitely something to consider. Unless we have a system where a thread was marked via the title to note what genre it was for? But otherwise we could just have sections within the room for each.

I also completely agree about the Fireside. It would definitely be too cluttered, I think, with all the genres in one room. We could either change the Fireside to have Genre named rooms, and not separate novels/poetry/short stories etc, and have people mark their title with what category if falls under. Or we could have genre named rooms with the sections inside like we have them now. But I agree they should be separate.

Hmm, well the forums will still have a large genre focus - but we will still have a large writing focus, as we are a writing forum. The specific genre focus will still be there though.

As to change - I know. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love the Historical Fiction forum. I've always been very partial to it. So I understand how people feel who are very fond of the SF forum and etc. A lot of people put work and a lot of effort into setting those forums up, and getting them off the ground. It's not an easy decision to make, but I do feel that it is a necessary one. I'm not sure anyone is a fan of change - it's like when you move house. You might love the new area you're moving into, but the whole move can be rather a lot of work - I don't think change is ever easy personally. I don't find it so anyway. But I do think that this change will benefit the forum long term.

Just to let you guys know, we've put a deadline for 31st of May for discussing this before it happens. We'd like to get this started in the first week of June so that it's ready for Summer.

If you have any other suggestions/concerns or comments keep them coming! We're still discussing this with you, however we just want to be sure that we have a start date to aim for.

My vote doesn't add to the discussion at all, but I've run many polls in the past, so I know its always nice to know why people vote as they did.

I voted to abstain. I am very new to the forums and am just figuring my way around them as they are now. I'd be happy if they stayed, but I'd also be happy with the proposed changes. Those that have been here a lot longer and put the work and effort into making this place the great place it is deserve to make the decision, not a newbie like me

One final thought- with any community, be it online, in person, in church, school, work...wherever: ultimately, it is the people that make the community, not the building or website. Holy Worlds has some of the best people I've had interaction with, so I am sure that, no matter what path is taken, it will be great because the people here are great!

I gathered that---it was the same way in "Project Anduin." However, I would guess that about half of my bookmarks are on HWSF . And in Project Anduin, I could simply make a list of all my subscriptions and bookmarks before the "flag day," then visit the URLs afterwards and re-subscribe or re-bookmark. (Still better, because URLs didn't change, my off-site bookmarks still worked.) Since URLs are going to change---at least for any active threads---it'll be a lot more work to get "back to normal" with this transition, unless something is done to make HWSF and HWHF URLs redirect to equivalent threads in the unified forum.

So I now have a date to get caught up on HW by.

That's the date we'll start making the transfer, but it won't be the date the other forums are disabled. We'll give people plenty of time to catch up/retrieve threads they want to keep.


I'll ask Andrew about that, Kingjon and see what he says.

I didn't mean caught up reading, I meant caught up replying ... whenever there's a post I want to reply to, I save the "topic reply" or "forum post" or "new thread" notification in my email inbox until I either get around to replying or decide against it. But unless a redirect scheme is implemented, all the links in those emails will become broken, so I'd better make my replies before then.

Ooh I see! Sorry I misunderstood.

I'll ask Andrew about re-directing and see what he says; if he couldn't do it with project Anduin though, I don't think he'll be able to do it with this either.

Thank you for voting, Fox!

We love to hear everyone's thoughts, a fresh perspective can be really helpful!

I love what you said there. You are right, it's always the people that make the place what it is, never the building!

The main reason we are looking at this change is because of how quiet it is on the smaller forums. I don't think it's as noticeable here, because we still have quite a few members on this side. Sometimes we only have three active posts on HWHF because only a very small handful of members post over there. I don't think this will affect the community in a negative way, because it's just bringing people together in the end; we're making one community instead of three separate ones.

Thanks for the encouraging words, Fox!

With Project Anduin there wasn't any need for it; every forum, thread, and post was still located at the same URL. (Except for threads that were moved "by hand," mostly from the Moderators' Lair etc. to the new Citadel.) This transition, on the other hand, will make the URLs under which threads' activity continues change, even if the old URLs continue to contain the "old" version.

As I don't know the technical details of how this transition will be accomplished, I don't know how much work it would be to create a list of every thread and post on the forums being closed and the newly-created equivalent in the combined forum. If it's feasible to create such a list, it shouldn't be difficult to make the server respond to each of the old URLs with a "Moved Permanently" response redirecting to the new one.

*nods* I think that makes sense.



*nods* I understand that the genre focus would still exist. I was thinking more in terms of how it would affect interactions. Maybe in how it would change the essence of the forums? *thinks*

(Yes, I'm still alive. And finally responding to this thread in some way.)

I wonder if a part of the reason why I haven't been keen to throw myself back into HW stuff this summer is that (1) I understand some basic aspects of story craft and (2) the ways I interact with my friend group is off the forum now. So the main thing I would look for in the forum is a place to learn advanced aspects of story craft -- or at least have a focused discussion on story. While looking through the New Posts earlier today, I was struck with the lack of focused discussion. Discussions were being had, but the point of the discussions seemed all on the community of writers, and little to no focus was on learning and applying.

Are the sorts of discussions you want more like 'The Evolution of Story Writing Through Time' and the place of writers to realize what is happening, to go along with the good aspects, or to buck the system – or 'The Application of Three-act Structures' – or both, or something else? * half grin *

I think I know what you're talking about, but I'm not sure.

I was thinking primarily the latter (though by no means necessarily that formal sounding), though I could see applications for the first too. Does that make sense? xD

What you mean is you'd like to see more teaching/learning about the art of writing/story creation in a more in-depth discussion; rather than just 'scratching the surface' discussions about writing in general within the community? Have I got that right? I don't want to misunderstand, so just checking.


I often think that HW is great for people who are beginning a story - so character development and story development in the beginning stages, world development and so on. However as people get deeper into writing, story craft or published they seem to disappear. I don't think with writing you can ever stop learning, as you progress through the publishing/writing journey and the more you write, the better you will become. But I think somehow HW falls short when it comes to the more 'mature' writers in some ways. That's what I mean about 'scratching the surface' discussions, not not digging deeper. Shifting the focus to be more 'all inclusive' would be good - but you have to have people willing to join in the discussions then - and people at the same stage/level of writing that you are at and etc so that you feel you're being challenged/progressing in your learning. Am I making sense there with my thinking?

Thanks for commenting by the way! (Do you have any thoughts on the merge?)

I think so, but there's no reason to take away from the surface discussions. Those have their place too.

It might not require any shift in focus, I think. It already fits in the purpose of HW and would not need moderating anymore than surface discussions. It just takes more than one person wanting to do so and taking the initiative.

(Not many. Not many that are coherent anyway. Honestly... I think that there could be consequences, which I worry about, but the decision seems to have already been made.)

*catches up*

If I may ask a question, are we identifying the source of the lack of activity as an organization issue, or some other problem (i.e., people are busy, lack of more experienced members at this time)? It's sounded to me more like it's more the latter (correct me if I'm wrong).

Mmhm!

It's just funny, because I have wanted for a little while to have discussions along those lines as well, but... I don't know. I didn't start any because I wasn't sure who would be interested, I guess. Something like that.

What sort of consequences do you worry about? Well we're still listening to concerns, and we may have to lengthen the deadline anyway, because of some technical things. We put a deadline on the discussion because we could sit and talk about it for months and we didn't really want it to go on for that long. We didn't want to quell discussions about it. So we still want to hear your concerns.