This thread is a slightly abridged version of what I presented to the Mod Squad recently. There are other ideas coming for a number of forums in the near future. Very exciting stuff!
This time of year most folks plan for a diet or to kick a bad habit. Well, not me. This thread is the culmination of a long time I've spent thinking about the next phase of our boards and how we plan on continuing to thrive and grow.

The films represented key moments in our history of growth spikes, if you will. Now that the DVD's out and Episode III fervor is settling into an equilibrium, I find myself wondering what's next?

There's a TV series scheduled for sometime maybe in 2007. We know for a fact there are no more films. That's certainly a fact that will most likely have the effect of less posts per year overall because more and more people have a sense of closure and are, for a lack of better words, 'Star Warsed out'. But not me. I?m just starting and I love this site so much I feel like all of our success and recognition all the years leading up to now was in preparation for now. It was easy to grow the boards then because the films drove the boards. But with that gone it will take some foresight and planning now in order to take that next leap. And I am fully committed to taking on all the work necessary with all of you and your help and turning this place into something beyond our wildest dreams.

We find ourselves in a pack of about 5 messageboards all around the same size. I?ve been spending lots of time in the past few months lurking at those sites to see how their mods do things, how they?re set up, and where most users seem to post. To be accurate, I don?t spend as much time on the two French sites and the Dutch site because I have no clue what?s being said.

So for this first phase of growth and opportunities for prosperity, I would like to formally announce that we will be adding a new forum to this site. This forum is a logical progression of the core basis upon which the site was created. Therefore, it is my pleasure to announce the upcoming [b]Sci-Fi and Fantasy Forum[/b]. This new forum will be its own separate category off the main page and will encompass things such as Lord of the Rings, Flash Gordon, Star Trek, Fantasy books, sci-fi books, The Matrix, Lost in Space, Godzilla, Planet of the Apes, Harry Potter, Firefly, and anything back as far as sci-fi goes. Or maybe Drizzt Do'Urden and Gwenhwyvar, Gremlins, Conan the Barbarian, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Superman. And then again, there?s Dune, Babylon 5, Terry Brooks' Shannara series, A Song of Fire and Ice, X-Men, Battlestar Galactica, Narnia, Buffy, The Twilight Zone, and The Outer Limits. Star Wars is welcome, but not the focus. It should be used to tie into a comment or thread about something outside of Star Wars.

We may expand the forum in the future to have books/Lit become its own forum. For now, it will be all-inclusive. We?re very excited about this and can?t wait to share it with you. We?re very close to rolling it out officially. It may just be in time to be given as a nice holiday present. We?ve got a beautiful banner with a stylesheet in development. We?re working on establishing who will moderate that forum. For now, it will be existing mods because of the high expected level of posting activity in the beginning. Experience will be needed. Most likely, there will be 6 mods. I will be one of them and stay on until I feel it?s self-sustaining and where I envisioned it. And then I?ll begin developing the other ideas not mentioned here. So that may open up an opportunity for a completely new mod to be promoted. That is actually my preference. There may be openings in other forums as current mods decide whether they want to double up on forums or dedicate themselves solely to the SFF Forum.

Please stay tuned to the Communications Forum for all sorts of exciting things to come in the future. You?ll always want to keep on checking to make sure you don?t miss anything. I welcome any and all input an>

 

Thank You Sapes. I seriously hope this goes through. You know I'm a nut for Sci-Fi/Fantasy and this would be the perfect place to continue CBC after I'm done analyzing the SW films.

 

We can't wait and definitely share your enthusiasm.

 

Woah! [/Neo]

Will this mean the JCC will be losing sci-fi / fantasy discussion, or will the two forums share similar topics?

EDIT: And if they are to share, what will define sci-fi fantasy discussion in SFF, and in the JCC? What will be the tone of the discussion?

 

I think this forum could and would have some wonderful discussion, and I look forward to posting in it

 

The exact balance is still under discussion, as is the relationship between the new forum and the Amphitheatre. I think it is safe to say, though, that our goal is to ultimately have each thread in the forum that it is best suited for.

I expect that some threads will be redirected to the new forum, much like some threads will be redirected from the Amphitheatre. The exact limits are not set in stone, though.

Kimball Kinnison

 

Its gonna be rad man. Totally rad!

And what KK said.

 

The way sci-fi and fantasy is handled currently in the JCC will remain. But now instead of one massive thread covering a specific item, it can be broken down into as many threads as you desire such as the way it is currently done in the films section, for example.

 

This is pretty exciting.

 

Okay cool. So SFF will be accepting of JCC light-hearted discussion, and Amphitheatre style serious discussion?

 

And SFF will take both light-hearted AND serious discussion.

 

Then it rocks.

 

And don't forget about analytical discussion of sci-fi/fantasy films by DVD chapter next summer.

Since this is would be a less general forum, would there still be an official LOTR, HP, Trek, thread or are the threads for such topics going to be more centralized on a specific topic.

For example:
The Official Harry Potter Thread (what we have in the JCC now)

or

Ron and Hermione in love. Discuss?


I prefer the latter since topics will be at a minimum with the old way. However, the new way does pave the way for spam and confusion among different franchises. I mean when one thread's talking about Ron and Hermione and next thread talks about say Aslan and Narnia, it does kind of get confusing for the outsider who may get confused. It would work however if the title was HP: Ron and Hermione in love, CoN: Aslan pwns all, Ser: Serenity 2 rules. Just wanted to play all sides of this.

 

Right now we're open to just about any thread to see how the overall forum evolves without up-front restrictions. Let it seek its own level at first.

 

I don't see why there can't be a general discussion thread for each one and then multiple threads.


For example:


Stargate SG-1 General Discussion

and then we have threads such as:

Claudia Black as Vala Maldoran on SG-1
Is season 9 when Earth's populace learns about the Stargate program? (speculation but season 9's min-season finale does beg the question)
Amanda Tapping on both SG-1 and SG-Atlantis!?!
Weapons of the Go'auld
etc.

I'm not familiar with Harry Potter so I used something I'm familiar with, SG-1. I hope this answers your question?

 

Sounds like a very good idea to me, and it sounds interesting to see what it'll be like with a mixture between serious and light-hearted.

 

Obviously it'll be clearer after it exists, but I think a forum like that could do well mixing light-hearted and serious discussion.

 

That's what I was trying to get with the HP example.

In the JCC we have 2 HP threads. One general and one book 7. Same thing goes with any other franchise. But with this I think it could play as a double-edged sword.

If every topic inside a franchise had their own thread, then we'd have. (I'll use Trek as a better example)

DS9: The Addition of Worf
TNG: Picard in All Good Things
DS9: Who's hotter Kira or Dax
VOY: Why No 8th Season???
TNG: Dr Pulaski??? Where's Bev

As I said be before, if this is the way we're looking at, thread creators should tag each of their threads with an abbreviation since we're going to have so many topics from so many different series and films.

TNG (The Next Generation) , LOTR (Lord of the Rings), Ser (Serenity) and so on.

 

Yeah, its probably better to have each thread tagged with the series/book tag.

Sape: Roughly what kind of timetable are we looking at for this?

 

Sweeeeeeeeeet deal [hl=yellow]Sape[/hl]. You are now in my good books.

I can see this going very well.


(Bob Saget wanted to be Captain Kirk)

 

Kewl!

 

Cool! This really sounds amazing. What a brilliant idea, Sape, I really can't wait.

As I said be before, if this is the way we're looking at, thread creators should tag each of their threads with an abbreviation since we're going to have so many topics from so many different series and films.

I agree. Otherwise... I can just imagine the chaos.

Again, I am absolutely thrilled.

 

A Sci-Fi and Fantasy Forum? Sweet!!!

 

Moleman, that would be a possibility and easily done. It is something that will most likely be developed with the forum, depending on the mods and frequent posters of it. I think it's a great idea though

I too am really excited about the forum, it'll be great to all the SFF stuff together to talk about and compare/contrast.

 

GET OUT!

*giddy laughter*

I would so LOVE it if there were a place here to discuss DragonLance, Forgotten Realms, and all other things associated with them.

I can't wait!!!