Future for lgbtfest

[helenkacan]

In the previous modly post, knittinggoddess left the following comment:I understand!
In that case, if anyone has interest in co-moderating a new comm, leave a comment to this one.
In the interest of having a "clean" entry with comments only about this subject, I thought I'd made a separate post for it

Comments

[little_missmimi]

I would definitely love to help out in some way, but I can't commit to co-modding due to a busy schedule.

[helenkacan]

Hey, I'm sure there'll be room for lots of varying degrees of involvement. So thank you for responding!

[clex_monkie89]

I might be interested in co-modding this.

[knittinggoddess]

Do you have any opinions about how it should or should not be structured? What do you want to keep the same about lgbtfest, and what might be a useful change?

[clex_monkie89]

I like the idea of a challenge, but I also think it would be neat if the comm were open year-round for LGBT fic. That could easily be filtered with just a challenge and non-challenge tag.

Sometimes I want to just read about people coming out, you know? And there isn't really as central space to find things other than specific rec lists in specific fandoms.

I actually agree with a lot of what helenkacan suggested, minus what I pointed out in my response to her (the decades thing).

[knittinggoddess]

Hey, good idea.
So, where_no_woman has a pretty in-depth tagging system, and clear rules about what is and what is not allowed in comments or posts. Posting and membership are moderated, in a large part to avoid spam.

Most of the time there are just individuals posting fic and links to fic. Every few months they'll have a post devoted to open prompts that anyone can grab and fill at their leisure. If they do have deadlines, nobody's tracking down the procrastinators or making a big deal over empty fills. There are also sporadic mod posts on a theme, like the recent International Women's Day post, with short fills in the comments. In a recent mod post reaffirming goals of the comm, a mod said that she had to delete only a few off-topic fic.

I'm a little worried that a comm focused on lgbtq themes would attract more trolls than where_no_woman does. Any ideas about that besides moderating membership/posts and disabling anonymous commenting?

[sock_de_puppet]

I'm a little worried that a comm focused on lgbtq themes would attract more trolls than where_no_woman does. Any ideas about that besides moderating membership/posts and disabling anonymous commenting?

Honestly, that sounds terrible.

Part of the reason why I loved lgbtfest so much is the aspect of community that it fostered. (Which is why I'm so sad to see it shut down so abruptly) Having moderated membership and worse, moderated posting, absolutely destroys that sense of community.

Any effort to go forward should be modeled after *this* community, not another one.

I'll also be honest and say that I like the fest aspect of this community. That's what I want to see going forward, not just a community where people can randomly post whatever they want to write.

Yeah, yeah, it's hard, and it takes up time. That's why you pick up several mods and do it as a group, not taking it on as a solitary measure. Having a community where we just post stories that we write kind of defeats the purpose. I can do that any time of the year.

[knittinggoddess]

Having moderated membership and worse, moderated posting, absolutely destroys that sense of community.
That's funny, I distinctly remember very regulated posting of entries. I thought only people who had fills to post were allowed posting access, and only during a short span of time to boot. But I never posted a fic, so maybe my memory is flawed.

The fest aspect is definitely quite inspiring. Do you have any ideas about how to make the fest happen in a less regulated manner? I'd be happy to move forward with either a loose format or one like the original lgbtfest, I just think aspects of other communities could be incorporated to great effect.

[smirnoffmule]

Unless I'm remembering way wrong, anyone who joined the comm had full posting access, and the comm had open membership.

[seiberwing]

Random: Why do we need to start a new comm? Why not just have the old mods hand over the comm to new mods?

[knittinggoddess]

Because penknife would prefer to put the community to rest, according to an explanation in that modly post. I'm not entirely sure why, maybe something to do with tying loose ends and such.

[rose71]

Thanks for posting this and starting the discussion! I would love to help out, if I can make it work with my busy schedule. I'd potentially be interested in joining a rotating group of mods. Or, if there are enough people able to commit to full-time modding, I'll definitely cheer them on, and try to help publicize the new comm. I like the lgbtfestforward name!

[helenkacan]

Yay! I love an enthusiastic response no matter what degree of involvement is needed. I'm sure we'll eventually get a few concrete ideas out for consideration.

And ::counts on fingers:: your vote in favour of the name "lgbtfestforward" has been duly tabulated!!!