I disagree with this statement. While it may be cliquish, there is no reason that it can't happen with a small group of people. You can absolutely cultivate a relationship with smaller groups and get the sort of discussions AFC had. However, I want to point out a flaw in your logic that you are not considering: I feel there are two very obvious reasons that a lot of people don't go into that kind of discussion in the WbA threads.

First, and most obviously, is influencing. Some people, be it rightly or wrongly so, may feel talking about that kind of stuff would have an influence on the story's direction and may take away from what the author had planned and force them into moving in a different direction. There is a valid argument for that, but generally I think its just people overthinking things. Regardless of what I think, though, there are some people who do think that way.

Secondly: Syaoran and I used to annoy the shit out of xiph0 and others by discussing stories openly in IRC (some more-so than others.). Why? The ideas were something that were genuinely interesting and going to the level of discussion about them told them everything about the story and that is a bad thing.

I would wager that something like 75-90% of the member base of DLP are readers and not writers. They don't engage in that level of discussion because they don't want you, as the author, discussing the plot in such detail openly, where you are effectively spoiling the entire plot. Yes, you can enjoy the story even if you know whats going on, but that isn't what the vast majority of people want.

That, in my opinion, is why the WbA developed to be the way that it is, and probably won't change. I don't think it should, either. Rather, here is how I have always viewed the purpose of WbA:

While the access to group betaing of stories is nice, its more of a way for me to find the people who are going to go more into detail about what you are doing, why its good/bad/etc and help you start to build a connection with them. You take those connections and keep your little clique private. Be that discussions in PM or using the forums group function to create a private area for you to discuss those things. Just remember not to stick solely to those who are like you. Echo chambers are bad and you are bad if you support them.

TL;DR: Most people don't want those kinds of discussion in public view because it would spoil stories. Creating a Group and using it to discuss things privately is a far better solution. Use WbA to find people you think would benefit your group and not as a place to have those kinds of discussions.

I also need to learn that the forums are not discord and *'s does not italicize words. >_>

 

lol yes I did. Now I'll have to avoid assassins for the rest of my life. I'll stop with the complex proposals.

Ah, okay, thanks for the clarification, gents. I think I misunderstood why a lot of writers and readers use it. I just remember reading some reviews in WbA recently and thinking, 'that's all well and good but the person didn't submit the story to get that kind of feedback.' That people would use it to find a smaller group makes more sense. That's just difficult to do if a lot of people either silently read the rough draft as an actual story, or aren't willing to comment on more than beta-level stuff as they go.

Hopefully the squad's efforts can get more people engaged there and everybody can find what they're looking for, because I agree that WbA should be an important part of DLP.

 

People may be aware of the idea of the "sales funnel".



I think this idea has relevance to how to get WBA back to its former levels of activity. The forum is a kind of funnel:



Each level is a subset of the level above it. If you don't have enough people coming in at the top, you won't have enough writers or enthusiastic readers (readers who are sufficiently interested that they offer critique/discuss the stories rather than just reading them).

With respect to the various inventive ideas people are coming up with, I think attempts to convert casual readers into writers/enthusiastic readers is doomed to failure. Rather, I think the key to getting more people at the bottom of the funnel is to increase the people entering in at the top. Some proportion of those individuals will filter down. Others will be like the majority of the present userbase and not progress further through the funnel. That's fine - those individuals and the discussions they generate form the pollen which attracts further userbase.

Take care of the top of the funnel, and the bottom will take care of itself. The old WBA didn't need special schemes to make it active. It was active because the userbase contained a critical mass of members who wanted to write and discuss other people's writing. That critical mass was always a small proportion of the total userbase.

So if the site is to engage in any kind of special scheme, I would suggest that those schemes should focus on the top of the funnel: making DLP the place for HP discussion to take place. Some of you may have already noticed I am making an effort to make more discussion posts; I encourage others to do the same.