I'm not against anything that will help the site in the long run. The gdoc convertor thing is what I care about the most, but really, at this point, it's just a QOL thing since adding the macro into gdocs isn't hard and converting only takes like 5 seconds.

I do wish the star ratings were removed from the WBA since I still feel like all it does is detract people from reading a story that people rated based on the first chapter and before edits.

Library star ratings should also definitely come back. I also know we've discussed several times in the past the 10+ year old fics that wouldn't make it there by todays standards. I think they should be archived in some form, perhaps sorted by year. It just feels to me like right now the Library isn't even usable by default. Like, you just click the link and it takes you to a massive list that is sorted alphabetically and it takes some effort to search by a usable metric.

Lastly, and this is mostly just an observation. I'd like to think that I have my pulse on the fanfic community, but I am dubious to how popular quests actually are. It feels like that fad peaked like four years ago. I'm not opposed to incorporating a system to streamline them here, but I'm not sure how high of a priority that kind of thing should be. But, I suppose I could be completely off base, or maybe I'm just biased since I hate how meta they are and how it devolves to bandwagoning/railroading by people who can speak the loudest. Just feels kinda different than the whole vibe of this site since our WBA is barely active as is.

 

DLP is perfectly capable of running quests in the forum style, but fiction.live has become immensely popular off of their vote and in-quest chat systems. While chat is obviously not something that would fit DLP very well, perhaps some more streamlined voting system or specialized mechanics could be added.

 

How does the donation system work right now(ie is it through Paypal or what?)? I'd be interested in offering five dollars from time to time.

 

I'll need to read up on Paypal's fines then, but provided they aren't exorbitant, I'll see about getting that first donation in for the first week of June.

 

Maybe set up cryptocurrency accounts? It's not exactly anything particularly stable, but I know a lot of people have extra cryptocurrency lying around.

 

Man what the fuck

 

On the topic of the site's future, my first thought is it's not my business. There are various paths DLP can start down and still flourish. I'm not a long-contributing member, or a pillar of the community in any shape or form. If I don't like it I can leave. Which, if a lot of others feel the same way, might actually be part of the issue. Anyway. Since this thread's here I'll share my DLP Journey and hopefully it's of some use.

I was never an active contributer on the forums, and from the outside looking in, DLP felt like the clubhouse for an already established clique. I had no real urge to post either. I'm not well-versed enough politically to debate at the high level expressed here, I'm not into sports or gaming, and if I ever had a question on HP lore/magical theory I'd just message Taure. I wouldn't have re-started posting if Zombie hadn't convinced me to throw something up in WbA. And I found that once you start posting, DLP sort of makes room for you.

But, yeah. DLP is straight up uninviting.

It's not uncommon to see people to dip their toes in IRC, claiming it's less intimidating than the forums. There are tons of lurkers. Click on thread ratings for anything up for review/in the library/the WbA, like Wu Gang's fic The Mind Arts. How many usernames have you never seen before? Or have like 3 posts? We can have the best facilities but if no one is going to use them, they're useless.

I guess i'll rewind a bit. Why exactly did I find DLP unfriendly? The wicked learning curve. When I initially found DLP (I think I was 13 or 14), my head was full of shitty fanon, and dealing with the forum as a whole was like tip-toeing around an abusive parent. "Wait-- why is everyone hazing this guy for recc'ing a slash fic?" / "What do you mean magical cores are stupid?" It was stepping into the deep end and suddenly I had no idea which of my beliefs/ideas were considered retarded. So you lurk. And end up lurking forever. I posted a bit in Pet Peeves and Worst Summaries because you can't really go wrong there but that's it.

We tell people to watch and learn before engaging, but for how long? Until they have Taure's headcanon doc memorized? Implicitly it's not just until you get a handle on the rules, it's until you understand not to make a thread called "What is a more powerful wand core: dementor's blood or basilisk venom" which is, frankly, a tall order when you consider the fandom. Outside of our little DLP bubble this is considered fantastic discussion. It is on hpff, SB, SV. These places aren't flooded with ready-made Halts and Newcombs. If we ever end up sending DLP invites, we'd have to be more accommodating. At least, at first.

We like to make fun of people who are scared to put themselves out there, but there's no incentive to break from the silence. Why should someone recc a fic, for which they may get lambasted for in turn, when the only upside is that a few Internet strangers might get a few hours of entertainment? Gamification here is a good idea. Give people value-backed points if the story they put up for review gets into the library.

The forum is kinder than it used it be, but that's not easy to tell unless you're only looking at New Posts. Which I definitely wasn't doing when I was new. I remember clicking on Fanfiction Discussion and skimming down thread titles until I saw something interesting. Clicking through Related Threads. Before I knew it, I was in 2006-era DLP. Even now, if you click on the subforum, you're in 2015 by page 4. Old-World DLP makes a pretty awful impression. When I was looking at 2006 threads, I wasn't thinking "wow this how DLP used to be in 2006" I was thinking "wow this is DLP". If I noticed the date at all.

I can only think of one (not very good) suggestion on that front, which is to ban Arthellion make threads which haven't been posted in since 2010~ inaccessible until you rack up 15 posts or something. It might also encourage new members to make threads, fostering new and fresh discussion, since they can't pick out all their answers from old threads.

Between expanding / lowering our library standards, I prefer the former. SB/SV are stretched thin as is trying to encompass everything but ultimately they label themselves as sci-fi forums. Could we do fantasy?

It's true there's a dearth of 'good' fics. Someone said it elsewhere-- at the quality DLP currently considers 4 or 5 stars, the fic author largely has the chops to cook up their own Mother of Learning and make $900 per chapter, or even publish traditionally instead. And when they realize that, they do. Or try to, at least. I also like the idea of expanding towards reviewing published fiction. Why not put Joe's books up for review? Or Sanderson's? Self-published amazon ebooks? The idea of an elite GoodReads tickles me pink.

And meh, as a name Dark Lord Potter is kinda lol, but Digital Literary/Literacy Project sounds so damn dry. I say continue calling ourselves DLP and if anyone asks what it stands for, give them a wink and coyly tell them it's a secret. But never actually tell them.

That's it for now. I don't want to outshine sauce on post-length or he may turn his Eye of Wild Accusations towards me and LoOk.

 

Some really interesting ideas and reflection in there.

I particularly like the general fantasy suggestion and the published fiction review function. So just: commenting to second, I suppose.

 

Seconded. I joined here a while ago and I lurked for months because I had no clue how to interact with anybody. It felt like I had social anxiety, like suddenly I was the shyest person in the world. In an internet forum.

 

This is actually a really good idea. I don't know how difficult implementing it would be, though.

More general fantasy discussion is something I've been wanting to do here for a long time; if others participate, I'll be making more threads than a seamstress.

And it goes without saying that I'll add my name to the petition to ban Arthellion.

 

Agreed. This is a local forum for local people.

 

Also a relatively lurker member here (38 posts), and like biebergrl I lurked for a very long time before actually saying anything, and to be completely honest I still mostly lurk and read. It was actually the 5 post requirement for WbA access back in 2015 or 2016 that got me to stop lurking (can't lose access to HP and the BWL >.>). Before that I generally lurked for two reasons:
1. My taste was too shit back then for DLP and I knew it
2. The number of fanfic discussions was so damn low and I was only interested in specific ones which limited it even more
Quite frankly, unless I was forced to post to maintain access to the WbA, I probably would've had max 2 or 3 posts for an incredibly long time. I agree with whoever it was that said that IRC was almost like a DLP-lite that made it easier to post because I sat there for a while to see what people shit on and what people enjoyed.

The splitting out of megathreads as proposed above would be really useful to increase engagement in fanfic discussion. Off the top of my head I can think of "HP questions that don't deserve their own thread" which is filled with questions that deserve their own thread and "New and Almost Recommended" which is basically "people who don't want to get roasted for rec-ing a fic that someone else might not like." That second one is also the black hole in which many, many fics are lost and never found.

Direct responses to the original proposal (scroll down for general thoughts):
> Encouraging writing
I think this might be one of the most important points so I'm moving it up to the top. DLP achieved its fame because its members wrote a lot of popular and quality fanfic. That is no longer true. I think the story competitions were an excellent step in terms of getting people's creative processes going. Personally it got me writing for the first time in a couple of years even though I didn't finish on time. More short pieces (e.g. 500-1000 words) would go well between the competitions I imagine. Either way, we need to get people writing as much as possible. And readers and other community members will go wherever the authors are: a rising tide lifts all boats type thing.
Don't really know anything about the Anthologies, so no comment there.

> Subforum consolidation
10/10 imo. Tons of overlap and dead forums. Agree with the consolidation of HP disc and FF disc. May want to consolidate multimedia even more. Books, anime, movies & TV are all fairly similar and not terribly and music is rare enough that I think that it could be rolled up. Otherwise I mostly agree with everything else.

> Binary rating system
Two buckets aren't fine-grained enough I think, but Lord Ravenclaw has already made his thoughts clear on that

> Consolidating for review, library, wba
Great idea, also one thing to consider may be to consolidate the mature wba into the general one and use tags to distinguish. Not sure how popular that idea would be especially since I'm not sure if the mature wba was made because people were annoyed by mature fics mixed in with the rest. Currently though those forums are fairly dead.
Additionally, it may be useful to sort out for review entries after review into Library, Almost Recced, Everything else. That would probably serve better as an archive than the current system and would maintain the comments on the fic. Plus sometimes you're just in the mood for some dogshit with the right tropes.

> Expand Library to published works, etc
I think expanding the library in general is a good idea, but isn't the original fiction section already that? I guess making it more prominent would do a lot to make it more active.

> Digital Literature Project
Hate the name tbh. Sounds like a university project to digitize old literature or something. Super dry. Could potentially rebrand to just DLP, but unfortunately the website name has potter in it which is a bit of an issue. I agree that just putting up a less edgy skin is probably the path to go.

> Quality of Life
Good shit. Importers especially.

> Tag system
To be honest I was pretty much unaware that tags existed for an incredibly long time, and I still never use them or look at them. Making tags a major part of the DLP experience would require a really major overhaul in terms of making tags more prominent, adding clear filtering tools, etc. Forums don't particularly lend themselves to tag systems though. DLP would need a much better search infrastructure than exists right now.

> PatronusCharm
May as well just kill it off. Do people still use it? I'm not convinced that Quests could be its saving grace.

> Scryer
I think this thing may get more traffic than DLP lol. Definitely was a needed addition to fanfiction.

> Recruitment
Direct recruitment is an incredibly good idea. Allows for invites to higher quality membership and targetted content.

> Other Fandoms
tbh I think that as long as DLP treats Harry Potter as the fandom being catered to, it will never truly become relevant in other fandoms. If I were a ASOIAF writer and I came here and saw "Harry Potter" and "Other Fandoms" I'd probably be pretty put off. Some would still post, but I think a lot wouldn't even bother. Not sure how to solve that problem though because a lot of people are here because and for Harry Potter and mixing it up with everything else loses a lot of that.

> Community
I think IRC and Discord are important, but I also think that they drain the forums dry to some extent. It's a lot easier to post a question on IRC and get a bunch of answers relatively quickly than it is to post a question on the forums. That being said, they kind of have to exist because chats are a major part of modern online communities.

> Encouraging Writing
See above

> Quests
I'm not terribly convinced of the popularity of quests tbh. Generally there's an uptick in interest, but that seems largely relative and Spacebattles makes it easy for anything to look popular since every fandom ever is all shoved together. That being said, adding some basic tools to make questing easier would go a long ways toward drawing in that audience.

> Gamification
Great idea, but would take a good bit of mod effort and community buy-in. House points is always good because it makes people competitive and drives up engagement. Might be good to have a major gamification system surrounding quality posts too. That's the best way to make shitposters into quality forum members I imagine.

> Mobile application
I think when the new forum was founded only one or two people asked for tapatalk back. Agree with Lord Ravenclaw that making the site usable on mobile is a better use of time. It's already pretty easy to browse on mobile, though posting is a terrifying experience.

> Scryer tracking
Tighter integration between the Scryer and DLP would probably be good, though it would take a lot of thought in terms of what to do with it and how to engage people. Bot bumps for updates I thought was a good idea at first, but I think that would mostly end up bumping things that no one cares about. Actively followed fics and old favorites usually get user bumps fairly rapidly.

> DLP C2
Auto-adding is a good idea both for activity purposes and for poor Enembee.

General thoughts:
In my opinion, DLP lives and dies upon its ability to create good content. Right now the community is focused on social aspects and curation of content. That's great, but it isn't much of a draw for people to engage with the forums. Incentivizing the creation of fanfic is exactly what needs to happen to grow the site and increase activity from current members. I actually disagree with some of the other posts that HP fanfic is dead. It's not even close to dead, honestly, it's just that almost none of it is happening here. Yes it's fallen from peak days, but there have been around 500 updates posted on ffn and ao3 just today. The WbA averages what? A few updates a week if we're lucky?

Part of it is that many of the original DLP members are older now and have real lives that suck up a lot of their time, but newer membership would solve a lot of that. It used to be that people would post "Winner of Fall 2008 XYZ Competition" in their fics. We should be using the story competition and writing efforts to draw in (DLP) newbies as well. Hell, didn't that last competition have a new member? And we could encourage entry members to post their stories (or cleaned up versions) on ffn and ao3 with the story competition in their summaries.

The other thing is that many of the good writers in the HP fandom these days aren't on DLP and many of the good writers in the HP fandom aren't writing in the genres that DLP likes. There are (I know this will be shocking for some of us) good next-gen writers. Very rare and you have to wade through piles of shit to find them, but isn't that also true for the stuff we like? Hell the only good love triangle story I've read was a next-gen fic on hpff.com (helped by the fact that it was an actual love triangle not some stupid mini-harem). And there are good romance writers who never get posted on here. Expanding horizons would add a big crowd of quality writers and readers who have good taste to DLP.

Though yes, I do agree with the expansion to other fandoms. There's been some expansion when people get their other fandom fic posted on here and then start to engage and post, but that should be increased. And I think some level of reaching out to good authors will be necessary to make the process faster than organic growth.

Regarding funding, I think an automatic monthly thing is incredibly necessary. $2-5 a month over a bunch of people without having to remember to go in and renew every month would add up really quickly. I would certainly donate a small amount monthly (could call them "subscriptions" or something) and I'm not even that active.

tl;dr Arthellion must be destroyed.