Would you like to combine Outer Rim Territories with the rest of CEC?

[Jae Onasi]

When we staff decided to add in non-Star Wars stories to CEC, we decided having a separate forum would be a good idea. That way those who wanted to read only SW or non-SW fics could do that easily.

 

What happened, however, is that ORT fics receive little attention. Some of that may be due to the fact that they aren't SW fics, but I think it's more a case of 'out of sight, out of mind'. People just aren't seeing the ORT fics, and some really good stories are getting missed as a result.

 

I tossed around some ideas with some of the other staff and I asked if combining ORT with CEC should be done. I also thought it would be a good idea to ask you all.

 

So here are the choices:

Leave it as is--if you think the system is working satisfactorily

Combine the ORT forum with CEC--everyone would have to mark in the thread title if their fic was SW or non-SW, but that's easily done.

You don't know or don't care one way or the other--only if you truly don't have an opinion on the matter.

 

I'll leave the poll open for 10 days.

[Darth Iniquity]

Even if you combine them, with proper tags in the subject line the possibly golden non-SW fics are simply not going to get the traffic. No help to getting them read and the CEC gets buggered up with fics many would rather ignore. I think it is great people have a place to share their work, but really the readers by and large are coming here for the SW fics... in my humble opinion.

[Inyri]

No help to getting them read and the CEC gets buggered up with fics many would rather ignore.

Then they can simply ignore them, no? Most people seem fairly good at ignoring the threads they're not interested in. It's part of visiting forums.

 

From my experience subforums -- especially subforums within subforums -- get ignored simply because people don't notice they're there. Moving the non-SW fics to the main forum won't hurt anybody, but the authors of those fics are certainly being hurt by the placement of their forum if it's not getting any traffic simply because it's not noticeable.

[Ferc Kast]

Sounds like a good idea to me. The only plausible downfall I could see from this is that authors would have to scroll further to find their fics when revising/adding chapters. Although, that shouldn't really make that much of a difference. Other than that it would be a conceivably perfect idea.

[Rev7]

I only say yes because I think that people that write non-related to star wars fics need some attention too. In my opinion, I think that most of the time, these kind of fics are overlooked or ignored. I think that it would be a good idea to me.

[Jae Onasi]

Sounds like a good idea to me. The only plausible downfall I could see from this is that authors would have to scroll further to find their fics when revising/adding chapters. Although, that shouldn't really make that much of a difference. Other than that it would be a conceivably perfect idea.

 

Well, we can use the search function if it gets to be a challenge to find. I have mine linked in my sig, but if I didn't, I'd have it bookmarked to make it easier--1 click and I'm there, no scrolling at all.

[igyman]

I think they should be kept separate. The Outer Rim Territories description clearly says what's in there, so if people are interested in reading some non-SW fics they will go and check it out. You might however want to edit the CEC description, adding the words "Star Wars and non-Star Wars fan fiction", just so everything's perfectly clear to everyone.

If the forums are merged, it would become quite a mess, the non-SW fics would have to have one more tag, not to mention editing the titles of existing non-SW fics to add that new tag and having too many tags can sometimes add to the confusion instead reducing it.

[Bee Hoon]

I would say aye, but non-SW fics probably should be the ones which require tags. As it is currently, "out of sight, out of mind" barely begins to describe it:/

[machievelli]

As one of the major contributors, I am torn. Wanting them shoved over into CEC might get a better audience, but as the critic it makes my work load larger.

 

Still if I can't take a joe, I shouldn't have accepted the job.