- sir_brilliant
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- Exalted Mythic Member
ok, i've already posted a response to everything here, but for whatever reason, it didn't stick. anyways, here it goes again...
i think that making a fanfic forum(like the septagon or new mombasa) may be a good idea, but it also has its downsides. for instance, most people stick with one forum that they always go to. i know this to be true because most people i see do that, myself included for the most part. when i first joined bungie.net, i was always in the underground until my fanfic thread got moved to new mombasa, then i only hung around there.
bearing all that in mind, if most people like to stay in one group and not leave it, then why would any random user want to go check out the fanfic forum? although they are very visually appealling, it is very time consuming and out of the way for many users. i think that's why those of us who have been posting our fanfics in new mombasa have been getting such a large fanbase: because there are alot of people there, and even though they might not start of reading the fanfic, if it sticks out, they'll eventually look at it and give it a chance. for the most part, they like it.
if a fanfic forum is made, then it kills that whole 'oh, let me go check it out...its been there forever' experience, to some level.
of course, there is really very little that can be done to make those of us in the fanfic bungie community stick out. there have been hundreds of groups, countless threads that have been lost and that have stuck around forever, but there really isn't a perfect solution. the best thing i can offer is this group...the official fanfic group.
obviously, a group cannot do all the same things that a forum can, but a group attracts more attention in a different manner, allowing people to feel like they're more a part of something than on the normal forums. and that is something that is necessary with people who are looking for responses on their works, so in some sense, it has a potential to work better. if implemented correctly, i might add.
so, as of last week, i took the liberty to make this official fanfic group in hopes of fixing this current problem we've been having. truthfully, the fanfic index hasn't helped much because most people don't want to have to look through the index to find a person's story, they want to see it on the front page. hell, i know that if i'm looking for my own thread, i never use that index. i always just go through pages if i don't see it right away. sure, it bundles it up all nice and sweet, but doesn't carry the same thing that actually looking and finding it does. if there was a way to show the same thing we see at the front page of any forum(ie. each thread, the number of posts, the last user to post, etc) in the index, then there would be no problem with it. but we don't have that.
so, at the moment, i believe the actual group to be the best solution, at least for the time being. maybe in time, making a forum for it on its own will be fine and draw the same or more attention, but for now, the group works better. therefore, all i can say is that we've grown quite well, getting about 90 people in just under a weeks time. that's awesome. but we need more. and with groups ranging in the thousands, its kind of sad that this group is so small. there are so many authors there posting their stories, and we don't have enough people reading them. the only thing i can say is that we just need more people. hell, the group has posted stuff about us everywhere: classifieds, groups, fanfic threads, everywhere. some are even pm'ing people directly.
we should be bigger, and if we get there soon enough, then it may solve the fanfic problem altogether. so consider it. hell, even great_pretender has joined in, although i think i'm the only person who has read the fanfic he posted. (means mod's are more than welcome...)
EDIT: actually, i just realized that great_pretender isn't a member...he was, then left. so don't anyone think i was messing with you.
[Edited on 9/16/2005]