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Community Direction in 2017

Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2017 1:49 pm
by Lethe
Happy new year, Amassment! We hope that 2017 is off to a good start for you (and perhaps your creative projects as well <O><O>)!

We've been brainstorming behind the scenes to lay out 2017 in events, to refine and expand existing features and to set new goals for this year. The following is a general overview so you know what we'd like to work towards as well as what you can expect in the future.

Events
  • Next Challenge & Banner Trade
    We're taking the month of January to lay down more foundations around the community, which also pertains to events. You can expect the next Challenge sometime around February! In the meantime, why not check out Banner Trade and the currently active member marathons?
  • One Page, One Month
    After last year's spring survey, we had intended to start running two 1P1Ms per year. Things came up, and we ended up only running one; we also realize it may not have been in an ideal time slot. We aim to run two this year so as to give people more than one opportunity to join in case they miss out on the first round!
  • Icebreakers
    We know it's intimidating and overwhelming to jump into a long-standing community where everyone else seems to know each other, as such, we're continuously working on ways to try and make Amassment feel more open and welcoming. Starting this year, we are planning some organized icebreaker Activities to help facilitate some fun conversations between new and regular members. Of course, interactions are not just limited to these Activities, but we will hope that you will participate!
  • Little Bits
    This Activity is going on hiatus for revision due to organizational reasons, and will most likely reappear with rounds more spread out!
Features
  • Construction Zone
    The CZ Challenge has just wrapped up - and was a big success! We're happy to see how many shrines were started for this event, shrines that may have otherwise not been started at all, whether due to their intended size or due to lack of confidence. Encouraging more in-progress shrines while giving members a platform to get feedback and public reactions to them is beneficial to the community as a whole, so we're happy to announce that Construction Zone as a feature is going to stay! We'll be setting up a new main forum for it under "Personal Web Projects" sometime soon.

    If you want your CZ event topic to be moved to the new forum when the time comes so you can continue posting updates there, please post in this topic or poke Camy, dubiousdisc, or Robin.
    Edit: It's up!
    A shadow topic will be left behind in the event subforum. We've chosen the opt-in approach as there are a few finished event shrines, while some membersmay not want to continue a particular project of theirs at the moment.

    Additionally, the new Construction Zone will contain the less active Shrine Betas as a subforum, another feature we've been offering for shrine building. You can make use of Shrine Betas without making an "in-progress shrine", of course!
  • Member Initiatives
    Shrine events run by Amassment typically have a broad theme for the sake of inclusivity, but we all know that more narrow themes make for exciting and interesting events too, whether it's the interpretation of a prompt, an effort to get more shrines pumped out for a certain fandom, or something entirely different!

    Amassment's team does not have the capacity for that, and here's where member-run marathons come in! Though spontaneous conversations of such marathons come up every now and then, it might be difficult to get one going if you don't know whether there's a lot of interest and what time slot would be optimal. To give member-run marathons and conversations around them more exposure, we've decided to give them their own forum under the new Member Initiatives section. We expect 1-2 more posts to follow to help get member marathons more organized.

    The "Joint Projects" forum has been moved to that new section and renamed to the broader "Collaborations". Aside from initiatives such as The Herald Eight and Those Who Fight (webrings intended to encourage more shrines to a specific subject), it is open for any project where people work together towards a common goal - which doesn't have to be "joint projects" in a strict sense.

    Additionally, if you have an idea for a big project or feature that would thrive by having its own space at Amassment's forums and would like to run it, get in touch with our new Events Lead Robin or an admin and we can give you a forum or subforum under "Member Initiatives" for it! Naturally, it should be somewhat related to what we're doing here. To give you an idea of what such projects could be, here are some examples: community magazine, organizing Shrine Pageant, periodic graphic or fandom challenges, etc.
  • Shrine Spotlight
    Shrine Spotlight as a feature keeps seeing improvements thanks to your continuous feedback! As the community and its activity levels change, adjustments are necessary. We are looking into ways to make Spotlight (even more) appealing based on the feedback we've received.
  • Forums and Directory
    Masao will put her effort into giving our forums and directory an overhaul that should hopefully happen sometime this year!
There's been some minor reshuffling and renaming on the forums to fit with the features we're integrating or planning to integrate. We'll keep you informed, but if you can't find something, you can contact a staffer anytime!

Re: Community Direction in 2017

Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2017 2:49 pm
by Masao
Sometime in 2017, we will be upgrading the forums and revamping the main directory. As previously mentioned, the new forums will not (yet) have shop or carry over current items, so please start backing those up yourself so if we bring the shop back later, we can try to restore as much as possible.

With the new forum upgrade, it will be a completely different forum theme system (along with a lot of updated and overhauled forum core code), so I will have to redesign the theme, so we will sadly have to say farewell to the current theme, and look forward to the new (and hopefully better) one.

The directory should have no major external changes, I'm just going to be redoing the back-end, but we will be transitioning away from relying on WP.

There is no set schedule for these changes yet, but as soon as we have things ready for the transition, we will announce it so everyone can also transition smoothly.

Thanks everyone, and looking forward to all the stuff coming up in 2017!

Re: Community Direction in 2017

Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2017 10:14 pm
by Robin
New forum setup and style, new marathons and challenges, new...well, everything!! It's looking great so far! I think 2017 is going to be an awesome year at Amassment <3

Re: Community Direction in 2017

Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2017 11:32 pm
by Crystal
I am so excited for everything! Bring it on!

I would like my Tohru and Y'shtola threads moved over to the new CZ forum. I still have every intention of working on them.

Re: Community Direction in 2017

Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2017 5:33 am
by Eunice
It all sounds good to me! I'm amazed at all the work you do, and are doing.

I would love to have my CZ shrine moved into the new thread, please. I will be going on with the shrine to Earth Final Conflict! I've set myself a mammoth task! The CZ event did give me the kick-start I needed to get on with it and it would be lovely to have a thread where I can go on posting updates to it etc. Thanks for that!

So glad I joined, and even gladder I came back! Can't wait to see what great shrines we all build in 2017.

Re: Community Direction in 2017

Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2017 3:05 pm
by Camy
@Crystal and @Eunice: The threads will be added when the new section is up in about 1 or so to give people time to comment and for those who have CZ shrines can have a small break~

Re: Community Direction in 2017

Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2017 5:31 pm
by Crystal
Camy wrote:@Crystal and @Eunice: The threads will be added when the new section is up in about 1 or so to give people time to comment and for those who have CZ shrines can have a small break~
Sounds good! Am I still allowed to work on my sites and make posts in my threads or should I just wait until the move?

Re: Community Direction in 2017

Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2017 6:31 pm
by Masao
Crystal wrote:
Camy wrote:@Crystal and @Eunice: The threads will be added when the new section is up in about 1 or so to give people time to comment and for those who have CZ shrines can have a small break~
Sounds good! Am I still allowed to work on my sites and make posts in my threads or should I just wait until the move?
Yeah, that is totally fine. Please carry on as usual, and we will get those moved over when the time comes. Thanks for all the understanding! :heh:

Re: Community Direction in 2017

Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2017 7:14 pm
by Sophia
Ee! Excited about everything! Love the idea of icebreakers, and am glad to have the CZ event going on - though I'm a doubleplus newb, I bet that will be helpful as I try to build things. :)

Re: Community Direction in 2017

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2017 8:20 am
by Rems
Ahh, this is all very exciting! <3

I'd like to ask for my CZ thread to be moved over to the new section as well, please. As I finally finished Serah I'm actually gonna, y'know, work on it instead of letting it fester, SO. Gonna make it happen this year...!!