Birth of an Enclave (FORMERLY: Does anyone else...?)

[A_Non_Ymous]

Does anyone else lament the grand unification of the old "Community Exchange" forum with the Forums for "Writers" and "Artists"? (I think of it as the Anschluأ?.)

I suppose the current arrangement has its advantages, but the other discussions that made up "Community Exchange" tend to swamp the submissions from the smaller ex-forums. The erstwhile "Writers" forum was a bit less busy. "Community Exchange" traffic can easily push it down or off the page. It's hard to compete with the frequency of postings about "Moorcock babies," "French miniatures," and the like.

LSN

[DeeCrowSeer]

Speaking purely from a selfish and vain place, I was a little sad to see the "Artist" section go. As you say, the current is a little stronger in these waters and things tend to get lost over the falls much quicker (it's early and my brain is too sleepy to know if that's a good analogy or not). I think it's a shame that it will require more effort to keep my log afloat now, but it's not my forest and I wouldn't want the job of keeping all the logs bouyant, so I bow to the judgement of the King of the Forest. I am but a humble beaver...

Translation: I agree with LSN, but I sympathize with Berry.

[Doc]

At the risk of adding nothing, I think Dee put it best: I agree with LSN, but sympathise with Berry.

I liked the other sections, even though I didn't actively participate in them. I know the threads are there, but they are often hard to find, especially when I have only a few moments to check the entire forum.

I also liked the idea of having those sections.

[Whiskers]

I'm about to unify the games section into Tanelorn. I haven't decide yet. It's very low volume.

[A_Non_Ymous]

At the risk of adding nothing, I think Dee put it best: I agree with LSN, but sympathise with Berry.

No one is arguing with how he organizes the site. He owns the responsibility, so he gets to make the rules. I just feel something was lost in the process, and wondered if anyone else felt the same.

I liked the other sections, even though I didn't actively participate in them. I know the threads are there, but they are often hard to find, especially when I have only a few moments to check the entire forum.

You participated on occasion, in a small way. You're fortunate not to have put an e-mail button on your postings, or Perdix, Grey Mouser, and I might have been pestering you about submitting work to the verse threads, as well as Prototype 1.

(I coped with the matter by creating an "alias" e-mail address that matched the screen name. Not a big deal, in general. Anonymity is often too hard to come by.

I also liked the idea of having those sections.

That's another matter entirely, and on this point, we're agreed.

LSN

[A_Non_Ymous]

I don't know if I'd characterise my reaction as depressed. I've just been mildly unhappy with the effects of the change.

For me, the Writers Forum was an amusing little ghetto where I could hang out without much notice. The other people that looked in or participated were (like me) happy to fool around at our literary games, or had somewhat more serious intentions, but thought it was fun. At any rate, they were reading the forum because they wanted to read that sort of stuff.

For me, THAT was the true Game Forum. We each have our amusements.

But it's not a big deal. I still carry on the activity, but mostly via e-mail with friends instead.

LSN

[Doc]

At the risk of adding nothing, I think Dee put it best: I agree with LSN, but sympathise with Berry.

No one is arguing with how he organizes the site. He owns the responsibility, so he gets to make the rules. I just feel something was lost in the process, and wondered if anyone else felt the same.

Oops. I inadvertantly accused you of being surly. I'm pretty sure we'll know when you're actually ready to rock the boat

I liked the other sections, even though I didn't actively participate in them. I know the threads are there, but they are often hard to find, especially when I have only a few moments to check the entire forum.

You participated on occasion, in a small way. You're fortunate not to have put an e-mail button on your postings, or Perdix, Grey Mouser, and I might have been pestering you about submitting work to the verse threads, as well as Prototype 1.

(I coped with the matter by creating an "alias" e-mail address that matched the screen name. Not a big deal, in general. Anonymity is often too hard to come by.

I need to put an email in my profile at some point. I wouldn't consider email from most people here to be pestering.

Interestingly, I started missing the writers forum (at least the first time) when I had some time on my hands and was ready to contribute (sporadically) to the verse collection. I had a head full of prose, and nothing to do with it.

As for Prototype 1, the stories are almost ready to go to Perdix.

I also liked the idea of having those sections.

That's another matter entirely, and on this point, we're agreed.

LSN

Given the nature of the site (and MM), it just seemed appropriate, but that opinion is far from a complaint about the decision to condense.

[Whiskers]

I am open to the desires of the community. It's very important to me. I like to see activity and I desire the participation of LSN and DCS. There is almost no work for me to do once a forum has been set up. The condensing of the forums into Tanelorn was more about increasing the activity in Tanelorn than it was about the stagnation of those forums. So, I propose the following:

I'll create new forums that you guys decide amongst yourselves we should have as replacements or recreations of those that are gone. For those of you who want threads to be moved from Tanelorn to the new forums, an amount of work I cannot commit to, then you must volunteer be a moderator so that you can perform the thread migration.

If I had known about your guys's interest, I would never have eliminated those fora.

[A_Non_Ymous]

Thanks, Berry. I wasn't trying to get you to do anything. Doc is correct that I've been known to rock the boat if I think there's something worth making a brouhaha over. :oops: In this case, I was just wondering whether anyone else felt the way I did about the disappearance of those Forums.

There had been a flurry of activity in the Writers forum since we moved a project associated with versifying there. It and the initial discussions on the creation of Prototype 1 started there. At least one new thread (Lurker at the Baker Street Threshold) got started there as a story project, because of banter between Perdix, Grey Mouser, and me. So there was recent activity there, but it had been largely dormant, I think, for some time until we got started. The following people had been contributing heavily there lately: Perdix, Grey Mouser, Dee, Mikey_C, mordenkainen, HawkLord, and me, with visits from people like Etive and Kommando. There were others.

To respond to Berry's question, Dee? What do you think would be the best arrangement? I'll make a strawman proposal, and you, Perdix, Grey Mouser, and anyone else who "cares" should feel free to weigh in.

My proposal, as a starting point for discussion: have a single forum for "literary" and visual arts. Threads can be created there for purposes of posting fiction, verses, or essays, and discussions about the work. Pointers to artwork, and discussions of the same, can be posted there, too. (Dee? Is there a better way to do this? What works best?) I don't think any of this should be moderated.

My proposed "joke" name for the forum is The MWM Artist's Colony. :lol: Better (more sober) suggestions will doubtless follow.

Dee? What do you think? Perdix? Doc? Mouser? Anyone?

As for moving threads, we'll take up that question if we reach something like a consensus on the proposal.

LSN

[A_Non_Ymous]

No one is arguing with how he organizes the site. He owns the responsibility, so he gets to make the rules. I just feel something was lost in the process, and wondered if anyone else felt the same.

Oops. I inadvertantly accused you of being surly. I'm pretty sure we'll know when you're actually ready to rock the boat

I know, I'm excitable. :oops: I'm working on that. I've been working on it for 49 years.

I need to put an email in my profile at some point. I wouldn't consider email from most people here to be pestering.

You've got an academic reputation to uphold. Let's just say I understand the situation. It's not a question of being ashamed of anything. It's a matter of trying to avoid unnecessary grief. Anonymity has value in many of our situations. If you want to have an MWM e-mail address, you could always create one on Yahoo or Hotmail. My ISP (pacbell) provided me with some large # of personal account "slots," only a few of which my wife, daughter, and I were using. I simply created a new one for my nom d'أ©cran.

I ended up absorbing a certain amount of hate/spam when I posted something about atheism, but that's why I kept it separate from the account under my real name -- or one reason, anyway.

Interestingly, I started missing the writers forum (at least the first time) when I had some time on my hands and was ready to contribute (sporadically) to the verse collection. I had a head full of prose, and nothing to do with it.

We're doing some of the planning and discussion via e-mail. If you have something you want to contribute, the "MWM Verse Submissions" thread is still there. Please contribute something. It's much appreciated. You don't need to force any contribution to conform to whatever feather-brained project we may be engaged in at the moment. :lol:

As for Prototype 1, the stories are almost ready to go to Perdix.

We're expecting them. I alerted Perdix some time back to expect something from you.

LSN

[A_Non_Ymous]

And you're welcome, of course, to participate in the construction of "Lurker at the Baker Street Threshold." Perdix or I (or both) could do it alone, but it's amusing when someone else jumps in and takes the story to an unforeseen locale.

LSN

[L'Etranger]

LSN: How about "MWM's Artist Enclave"?

[DeeCrowSeer]

I need to put an email in my profile at some point. I wouldn't consider email from most people here to be pestering.

Obviously you haven't seen the posts I send to L'Etranger! ;)

As I was reading through this thread, I was thinking along the same lines as LSN... a single forum for creative types to go to. Although the threads tend to be quite popular in themselves, the activity tends to be a deeping of existing threads, rather than a proliferation of new threads, so I think that discussions, creative "games" and portfolio announcements could exist quite happily side by side without anything being marginalized. In theory any portfolio announcements (or other stray posts) which cropped up in other forums would then have to be shifted to this new forum... as Berry says, this will require a migration moderator, not just now but for a good long while.

As for the name... I'd want the word "salon" in there somewhere, but you know how we "sensitive" types are...

[HawkLord]

I think that would be great, I can understand the reason why the Writers forum was taken down and if all the 'creative' forums were put together it would be better than having them in here.

[A_Non_Ymous]

Dee and I are thinking alike on this. 8O I suppose it's because our experience with these threads gives us similar ideas for what "works."

So that aspect seems to be settled for now. There's still the question of a name. Dee and L'Etranger made good suggestions -- certainly better than mine, which was a rather lame joke.

I want to leave the floor open to see if someone comes up with something that'll provoke universal approval. I can live with either suggestion advanced, but there are other possibilities, I'm sure. I'm waiting for Perdix to weigh in, among others.

Here's another silly suggestion, just to show I can create them endlessly: Call it "Ladbroke Grove: an Artist's Enclave." The first art thread to be created should be called "Chez Crosier: a Salon" -- in fact, make it a sticky thread. We don't want it pushed downwards by other postings! :lol: Every visual artist should have his (or her) own "Salon" thread.

LSN