I got to say, this thread is awesome.

A couple of things I can see expanded on are gaming and things like competitions.

Gaming was a failed experiment, in my opinion, that needs another chance. Now I know that there are still some gaming aspects in DLP , but not enough. The ninja game was a nice attempt, but everything else is on IRC, which isn't organized by definition. This isn't new, but it should be revived and improved upon, imo.

Another thing I think could be fun is silly competitions that fit the spirit of the site. Things like "post photos of 'DLP' in awesome places" and such stuff could be fun.

Also, less hate of Israel would be cool...

 

Project DLP, similar to a project <insert gaming clan name>, we post up pictures of db appearing in RL. I posted a building at college which was called DB

 

You read too much Blazer my friend.

 

Not really sure about changes, although I like the idea of expansion and growth. I really like the idea of a podcast; that's something I've wanted to try for a while anyway.

 

IRC is the best place for it, I reckon - you feel like a game, look who's around, and ask who's there if they're up for a game. That's how it's worked for Team Fortress 2 and Sins of a Solar Empire and a few other games, and it's done fairly well.

But yeah, it'd be nice to have a way of seeing a list of who plays what, and then being able to hit someone on the relevant list up on IRC to see if they're up for a game.

 

It's all great until Vash gets involved. Him and his segment called "Porner's Corner"...

 

That works well for some games, like TF2, but some require a large number of people - which can't happen of IRC. TF2 could benefit as well from tournaments, set times where a lot of players log in and whatnot.

Blasphemy. Blazer is awesome.

Edit: Not exactly an extenstion, but a search engine upgrade would be great. Don't know if it's possible as it comes with vBulletin, but it would be much appreciated.

 

There's only a couple of reasons I'm still here after all this time, despite my serious lack of actual participation (at least as far as posts go).

- Cybernations (Game communities): Being able to build up a community of DLP outside of DLP - the DLP foreign Legion - has been easily one of the best things I've been part of here. Getting to know the crew that run it all and bringing in more people have added to it. Plus kicking some serious ass under the banner of DLP (shame we had to change that) there was win.

- Decent threads: Yeah, that's really general. But being supplied with news 3 or 4 days ahead of the mainstream media, decent discussions, random themes like Fitness February (or whatever it was called) have all been good. Plus, I only go through the Library occasionally.

- New interests: This forum got me into Death Note, CN and the Dresden Files. It definitely needs to continue expanding beyond just the HP stuff.

I don't know how any of that helps, but it's what's kept me here.

I'll go back to serial lurking now.

 

I like the idea Taure brings up, about calling the forum we have now 'DLP' and the "main" site something else, we'd get a new name, but still be able to use 'DLP'.

 

Name change: DLP isn't really known as Dark Lord Potter anymore. It's known as DLP. I'd say expand on it if you will, but don't lose the foundation. I don't know about ProjectDLP. I think in the long run it will still be referred to as DLP no matter what you do.

Direction: Fiction. We seem to all have an affinity toward Fantasy (whatever sub-genre) expand on the other sub-genres. Eventually there will be another "Harry Potter". Currently it's called Twilight and I can only pray that it will change in the very near future. If Dresden has reached its peak already. It's not going to be Dresden... sorry guys. The only saving grace would be a Major Motion Picture, if done properly. But since the TV show failed, I see little chance of that happening.

Lose the burning house logo and go with something snazzier, that doesn't have anything to do with HP.

The podcasts, columns, etc. that are being bandied about...: What's stopping you from doing this already? There would always be a place for it here on the board, and if it became relevant enough, stickyed, or even a major category, all which could still be accomplished through the board.

Summary: Why all the hubbub about change? Is it just for change's sake? Are you bored with DLP, the look, the topics, the people?

Patronus Charm: It's sad that PC wasn't more successful, because I think it is a superior site, but I guess it just arrived too late in the game.


I think that was more than $0.02.

 

Shiiittt, easy for you east-coasters. Some of us live in the Republic of Western Australia.

As for DLP, change is good. Although one of the main reasons I visit these forums (besides to bless you all with quality fanfic) is because of the zero tolerance toward users disregarding spelling/grammar and the zero tolerance for asshattery.

DLP - there are signs of intelligence.

 

I'm angry at myself for sleeping through this. :|

While I agree that a DLP name change could be a good thing, I can't see it working. DLP is DLP. It always will be. I could roll with an acronym change but even then I think it would be dodgy.

One thing I have been staring at for a while and thinking "What the holy fuck", is the slogan. There is only fanfiction and those too weak to read it. That has only started bothering me recently, but it's just strange.

Whatever happens, the site can't be allowed to lose its identity. We aren't Facebook or Myspace and if it starts to go in that direction I don't think many people will be happy. Also, a DLP academic journel? Am I the only one who thinks that's a little stuck up and elitest, even for DLP?

I'd love to see DLP around for the next ten or twenty years and I think that's possible with the way the site is moving. Don't fix what isn't broken and all that. Unless membership and activity is down or something. Could we get stats on that, Raven?

I think that expnsion of WbA and the library are the most important issues atm.

Also;

Sorry, no can do.

 

If it wasn't for the community I'd have been out of HP fanfic a long time ago. So I like the idea of a general move from the visible focus of the site.

DLP, keep the acronym: Digital Lulz Provided

I'd like the site to reflect our interests as it does right now in the common area, etc. Technology, Entertainment, Fringe interests, etc.

I mean, come on, we have a T&A page now...if that isn't a break from reading/writing about a bunch of 11-17 years olds I don't know what is.

 

That sounds like a good starting point. With the journal idea, as I said in my first post, it would be something that'd evolve out of a something like a forum like that. If it turned out that we had some pretty nice essays collected, we could then PDF them and give them an ISBN (an ISBN only costs about £10).

 

The reason for change, in my opinion, is that HP is dying off and we are, by our name and header, tied to it. The simplest move would probably be to whip up a pretty new header, change what the DLP acronym means (Digital Literature Project and DLP Literature Project have been bandied about), the postcount title system, shit like that. Make it less HP-centric so that we don't get dragged down with it.

 

That was kinda the point. We can still refer to it as DLP while moving away from "darklordpotter", specifically. On of the things that was discussed was to keep darklordpotter as a subsite, and to expand around it. To be clear, darklordpotter isn't being removed or anything. Just stuff added.

More general Fantasy Fiction (original and fanfiction) is definitely a logical progression. We already have some of that stuff going on, and a little more won't hurt.

I think forum threads really aren't the best way to do any of that stuff. Sure, we can discuss particular podcasts/articles in forum threads, but the content itself should be more organized (a sticky isn't enough, imo). A main site would be more flexible.

I think the point is to futureproof DLP. Keep what we are, but add more so that when our main draw (HP fanfiction) starts to die down, we don't go down with it.

PatronusCharm probably has some sort of future; it can be used as a repository for pieces of writing not in the HP fanfic world. It's a great website, and we definitely shouldn't scrap it.

I don't think DLP's long-term survival is assured with just HP and some minor Dresden stuff going on. While I think DLPSpace/DLPBook should be avoided, we can still have a wider focus.

I agree with you regarding the Library + WbA being important areas in the short-term.

 

Authors could write stories that can only be found in Patronus Charm, and promote them in their author's notes at their stories posted in fanfiction.net

Could that work?

 

I really like a lot of the ideas I've seen bandied about in here so far and just throwing my two cents in here. Something that might be good in terms of fanfiction to try is a section with writing tips and tricks for new writers to take a look at it when they run into a wall. Another thing that might help with that is if we had a beta section where any member can go and request a beta/editor for his fic.

The other thing I think might be kind of cool is if we finally tamped down all the gaming for the members, you know who has what, what schedules people have and the gamertags for whatever various system networks they happen to be on. Then once we have all that down people can start playing matches against other DLPrs and theoretically at some point we could start holding monthly tournaments for a randomly voted choice of game for each system category with the winner getting maybe a special user title and a bigger inbox or something like that.