Most of you know me anyway, but I thought I'd formally introduce myself as your latest D/G forum mod.

I'm moogle (as my name says, lol), and I've been a D/G shipper since about 2005. I've been on and off in the forums here, but I never seem to be able to pull myself completely away. So naturally when I was asked to be a D/G moderator I accepted, as this place has a lot of fond memories.

Now, the point of this thread is not just to blabber on about myself, but to get some feedback from you all. Since I now do have the mod powers to make some changes where needed, if you have any suggestions for this forum you can put it here and I will get onto it. If you would like mini competitions for D/G, I may even be able to put in a good word with the other mods and see what we can contrive.

In any case, I really want to pick this place up, but I'll need all hands on deck to do it. If you see newbies don't be afraid to greet them and help them feel welcome. Here in the D/G forums we're a nice bunch where people can just relax from all the heated debates that happen with other ships, and I hope to keep it that way. If you are a newbie don't be afraid to introduce yourself to us. I promise we don't bite, and I can assure you that we will love to have you here!

That being said, I look forward to hearing your ideas and I hope that we can all work together to make the D/G forums a fun and enjoyable place

Hi all, as forum co-admin (along with Bec aka Harry/Hermione4 eva), I'd like to say thanks to moogle for accepting our invite. I'd have put a formal announcement here in the D/G forums sooner, but my city lost power for more than 24 hours due to a storm!


The mod team seconds that. I believe the 7 'Fore '7 Competition actually started as an idea here in D/G? Or at least the former D/G mods (InTheStars, Sakura1287 and vanillapuf) initiated it or were heavily involved in it.

- Pen

I don't know, but the 7 'Fore '7 competition was definitly a lot of fun. It'd be great to get something like that going to get some more people interested in here. I think a lot of us in here have expressed at least once we'd like a D/G competition, if only to get some people interested in the ship, or at least get it more 'broadcasted' in a sense.

Oh, a competition would be fantastic!

One idea that I was going to do for another site was the 12 days of Christmas, but having it being short ficlets that centre (or must involve) each item of the day.

Eg, the first ficlet has to have a partridge in a pear tree (or at least have the words said if people wanted to go the symbolism way in having a character being the 'partridge').

It's something to think about anyway, and there's plenty of time until Christmas to get things fine tuned.

Personally, I think an exchange would be a good idea. You know, like on DGficexchange on LJ. You put up a list of what you wouldn't mind writing/drawing, and compose a request for somebody else to write. And then we have an exchaaaange where requests and people who want to write are matched together.

Random other opinions where forum cleanup is concerned:
* Other D/G Websites seems like a somewhat extra subforum -- in my opinion it would go just as well within D/G topics that won't die, or maybe the ex-main.
* JKR & D/G doesn't seem much more pointfull. A little more, but not much.

I'll talk to Pen about those subforums. It does seem a little unnessecary because D/G doesn't get much limelight with JKR.

The sites one just hasn't had much love. There are plenty of D/G sites that can be put forth, but most of that could be covered in one thread, so I'll see with that one too.

A D/G fic exchange sounds like something we could do later when there are more people. It'd be a bit hard to do something now when there are so few people to actually be paired up.

I have an idea! We could get people from other ships to write D/G. Sort of like Slashers Do Het challenges that I've seen from time to time. And we could write fics for other ships in return...though I'm pretty sure I'd fail at that.

About forums reorg - I'd rather not have a main "catch-all" forum because people tend to post anything in there and simly leave it to mods to move it to the proper area. But I have no problems with moving / re-ordering / renaming / possibly removing some of the subforums we have now -- I basically patterned them after H/H.

While I appreciate the mods' and members' enthusiasm in trying to make the forums a bit more active again, I honestly think we should focus more on making the threads easy to find and fun to read months or years from now. The entire fandom is on the decline already, so it's unrealistic to aim for 40-50% of PK's peak levels in 2005 - 2007.

It's normal for active members to wonder why I'm paying so much attention to inactive members. But we have to keep in mind that we ALL will lose interest in HP or PK at some point. You WILL lose interest in HP or PK sometime. But if you do visit, say 1 - 3 years from now, wouldn't it be great if you could easily find the threads you used to love? That's what I'm aiming for.

I'm not looking at 100% neatness, just enough for long-time absentees to find their way around here. There are fewer than 200 PK-ers actively posting in the forums since Apr 2008. Majority of them/you weren't around during PK's peak times.**

Still, we will support you guys if you want to come up with competitions or something. I'm just saying don't be disappointed if you don't get much response from D/G fans. It's not because you haven't worked enough; it's because a. these projects are always tough to do and b. the fandom is at the tail-end of its life cycle.

*I know there are lurkers out there who'd gloat at that, but I'd rather have an inactive forum than to have an active one full of quarreling. Besides, PK still gets at least one new forum member and 1-4 fanfic applications everyday.


EDITED TO ADD:

As for other D/G sites - actually, I was thinking of putting up redirect forums, like the ones you see in Fanart/Media forums now (I'll move those to H/H soon.) I'm thinking they could redirect to other D/G fic hosting sites, because there are many D/G stories that won't meet PK's criteria. So I haven't really intended "other D/G sites" to be an active forum, but I certainly won't mind if more threads pop up in there.

Moogle, I didn't know you had become a mod! Congrats!

And I'm all for brining D/G to it's former glory. Let's do it!

I can understand your feelings on that Pen. I have noticed a definite drop in activity over the years, but I also know that there will be some who will continue on, despite growing out of HP (I am one). I was never an extreme shipper, and while at first I was hugely active in the H/Hr forums with essays and such, now I am more than content to just write fanfiction and chat to people in the D/G forum (and wherever else takes my fancy).

Perhaps renaming the JKR forum would be good though, as then we'd be able to put a bit more from the temp forum there. I think some people might get the impression that the temp forum is under lock at first glance because of the name.

Having a redirected sites forum sounds good though.

In any case, even if we can't do a site-wide challenge (which would be great at least sometime in the future) we'll still be able to do mini-challenges in this forum like we have done in the past with Valentine things and such. I'll just see if I can make it a bit more 'concrete' than our little ficathons.

Thanks Hobbes. It's good to see you again! I've missed your posts in here.

I've renamed the "temp forum" to "Misc D/G" and have done more changes to D/G. Have also moved a few challenges and ficlet threads from the temp forum or archive.

I'll be offline for a few days, but go ahead and let moogle know of any suggestions.


Yup, me too.

Anyway, what I was trying to say is set realistic targets for whatever projects you do. If you look up "Idea!" threads here in D/G and in H/H archive, you'll see that there were plenty of projects proposed at PK's peak activity levels. Methinks those projects didn't last long, not because of lack of enthusiasm, but because of unrealistic expectations of what online fans can do. That's not meant to disrespect those who were involved in those projects.

Oh yeah, I know what you mean in that respect. A lot of the time people will say they're interested, but when crunch time comes you only have very few actually participating. It's why things have to be quite basic and not asking too much- that way people won't get thrown off. It will be harder now though, with so few people hanging around.



Thank you!

I hope you enjoy yourself whatever you're doing for these few days. Hopefully it's for something nice

oooh! look at you moogle, a moderator...very fancy. lol

congrats my dear!!

Haha, thank you.

I feel very fancy too.

Maybe we could start a "movie" subforum of D/G Topics That Won't Die. ...or not. It's just that I was trying to start one in the Misc forum, but it kinda wouldn't let me.

Really? That's odd. Can you tell me what it was saying when it wouldn't let you?

Also, I think movies goes in media, right? You can talk about the films in that subforum.

(goes to double check)

I'm not really all that with it this morning. I have an exam in half an hour.

Edit: Yeah, anything to do with movies goes in the media subforum.

Oh, and are you sure it was the Misc you were putting it in? As far as I know, only 'D/G topics that won't die" is restricted from new topics.

Okay, so I started the topic in the media forum. Butttt...

It's not letting me start one in Misc. D/G (just to see if it would) and it's not letting me in D/G ficrecs either, which sucks because I had a fic to rec (smut! lofffffly smut!).

I'll ask Pen about that. It could be that she has accidentally restricted it.

Thanks for telling me, otherwise I would never have known.

Oh, and it would really help if you could explain what happens. Like, does your thread go through but then it doesn't show up? Or does it come up with a board message saying you do not have access? Or do you not have the icon to make a new topic at all?

I click "new topic". It gives me this:

Board Message
Sorry, an error occurred. If you are unsure on how to use a feature, or don't know why you got this error message, try looking through the help files for more information.

The error returned was:
Sorry, you do not have permission to start a topic in this forum

It's like I don't have enough posts or something... it's the same for all the forums. Have I been banned personally from making new topics, or something?

I would not say so, but I will talk to the admins to find out what the problem is.

Edit: Well, I have talked with Pen and you should be able to start new topics in the Misc board from now on.

As for why you could not start a rec thread:



Hopefully this helps

Hello D/G forum goers. Just letting you know that I won't be able to do my full mod duties because of real life issues, so if you have any problems or concerns please go to one of the other mods. I would love to help you, but I'm afraid if you PM me it could be a long time before I can get back to you.

Hope you're all well, and I'll try come back properly as soon as I can

Aw. I hope all is well, darling, and that you will be able to return to us soon enough!

I fully second Mia's sentiments. I hope things work out. No need to worry about us. Much love!