Discussion Group

"You want it when?!!!"
Problem:
The discussion area has a significant noise to signal ratio. "Noise" defined as "everything is dumped in there together and nobody can find exactly what they want without digging through everything they don't want."

Draft of solution:
Eliminate the discussion area as it stands. Replace it with three separate categories:

• The Prepress: pieces intended for publication, but not quite ready yet. Pieces in this area are commented on with a goal of improving the quality of the writing. Also, the author can choose to have pieces spellchecked and proofread.
• Writings: pieces post-publication. Commentary now on the subject of the piece, as well as continuing feedback on the quality of the work.
• Obeisances: A place for writers and readers to share resources, news, other places to read good things, and offer sympathy and support as the Dreaded Blank Page chases one through the night. Connected to the soon-to-be-launched "Obeisances" group weblog.

I'm thinking of completely eliminating the "threaded" view in place of a UBB/Discus flat view, or a more slashdot style of nested and threaded nested. Most of this stuff will be handled by Conversant's brand new spanking feature "custom fields", along with a lot of use of Advanced Query Pages and conditional macros. Might throw in some RSS feeds for good measure, which means I'll have to learn RSS instead of just throwing the term around at random in a vain attempt to make myself look cool. Anybody has any ideas as to what to do with the journals, y'all let me know.

My goal is to refocus this site towards its original intent: a home for writers and readers. I've gotten a lot of feedback that people are frustrated with the current discussion system, and I agree. E-mail users, I'm going to try and make your life a little easier by putting keywords in subject lines so you can filter mail into categories. We should be able to get a subject keyword index up and running, too. That one will take some time.

None of this is going to happen in the next five minutes, mind you. But soon, oh so very soon...

Anyone interested in being an editor, I might be able to expand that role now. I still have some names on file, but I'm always looking for more. E-mail me if you're interested.