Discussion Due South Communities

[mekare]

Hey everyone! I love the new influx of people and seeing new comms come into existence! I have been reading a lot because of the recent Tumblr purge and a post talked about how hard it is to get activity going in comms and to keep them alive. We are a tenacious lot here and I am confident we’ll keep the noticeboard going.

But since our fandom is pretty small over here (though probably growing, there’s a new comm imported from Tumblr dsvirtualbar) I was thinking what to do with ds_flashback. And just, if we should keep comms as broad and open as possible or give them definite uses? Like, noticeboard is for basically everything (links to recs, meta, cons, discussions etc), duesouth which has a lot more members (though not much activity) for fanworks and keep ds_flashback as an archive of older recs? I have no influence on duesouth as helen78 is mod there, and for ds_flashback I am only a comod.
Basically I would like this to be a central gathering place, though I’m not sure it is in reality. I’m trying to see this from a newbie’s perspective, it might be helpful to know where to find what kind of fanstuff? What do you all think?

Comments

[serialscum]

Sounds good to me. This is already the fandom's central repository for general stuff and it would be nice to see those communities as extensions of this one for specific types of content.

[mekare]

TYK for chiming in !

[higglety]

Hi there! as a recent tumblr import. I'm still getting my bearings, but I was thinking it might be helpful to know that one thing I'd like to do is have virtual watch (or re-watch, as the case may be) parties, or episode specific discussion posts, or something, and I was hoping I could find folks to do that with. Otherwise I'll just end up yelling into the void, which is still fun, but less so.

[mekare]

Welcome! Episode rewatch or discussion sounds very good to me, I’ll make a poll about that soon. I haven’t been in the fandom very long (about a yearish?) and I haven’t watched everything yet! So I totally get the need to talk about stuff :-) I linked some episode reaction posts here in this comm (e.g. here), or just browse through the +meta tag.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Oooooh! You've got some fun coming up (it's due South, it's all fun, just a question of major or minor key.)

I only got to watch the Ray K once the DVDs came out.

Just added this comm!

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I've been on DW for years now, but hadn't been adding comms since my newbie days on the site.

Once we know how the due south 'sphere is configured, I could make up a post for fictional_fans which is a multi-fandom comm.

Re: Just added this comm!

[mekare]

That’s an excellent idea!

[desireearmfeldt]

It'd be great to have a social/discussion DW comm. I feel like this one has traditionally been used for announcements, mostly, but by the time I came along, DS on LJ/DW was kind of dying out, so I don't have a lot of perspective of where the social action traditionally was. People in my cohort started up a couple of things like ds-writers (I think is only on LJ?).

But anyway, those who are here can perfectly well make something up that suits them. Given that our numbers are still gonna be small, it may make sense to just pick one comm and centralize there. We can still use the special-purpose ones for special purposes, but it'd be nice to have a general gathering place.

(I think the attempt to keep traffic down here was exactly that; when the comm was started, the fandom was way more active.)

[mekare]

I feel like this one has traditionally been used for announcements, mostly,

Oh definitely I think. You expressed what I meant better than me *g*

The social hanging out place is what I would like to have here on DW. It could be this comm or another one.

[clevermanka]

Personally, I like broadly-defined comms where I can choose what to read and not by posts/threads. But I know I'll join as many dS comms as I can find. I'm still sad I didn't find out about the dS meta LJ comm until years too late (which is why I'm a fan of having as few comms as possible).

[mekare]

I'm still sad I didn't find out about the dS meta LJ comm until years too late (which is why I'm a fan of having as few comms as possible).

That's too bad. :-( Too many comms may not be an issue here on DW but you make a very good point.

[ride_4ever]

For the next two weeks my dS activity is very wrapped up in the dSSS -- *points to icon* -- but I've put the comment tracker on for this post and I will be back in January with thinky thoughts and <3 <3 <3.

TYK to mekare for getting this discussion going!

[mekare]

Great, see you then.

[thisaintbc]

So maybe I'm just a grumpy oldtimer who doesn't like change, & I mean this in the nicest, most welcoming, community-outreach-oriented way possible, but I kind of like having different little corners of fandom that do different things, even if sometimes we can't quite articulate what those differences are? There's a reason that the dsvb lists, say, fuckyeahpaulgross & thebrickwhitenorth as affiliates rather than those being tags on our comm, & it's not just that tumblr as a fannish culture isn't exactly known for being well-organized. Yeah, we're all on tumblr and we're all basically part of the same community and we all reblog each other/interact with each other's posts, but we provide the broader community with different things...and the same holds true for DW, to me. I LOVE that I can pull up ds-noticeboard & know at a glance all of the big things going on in fandom, etc, but I'm not so sure about assigning different roles to different comms. The dsvb was created, on tumblr & on lj, largely as a space for a group of friends (& anyone who wants to make friends with us!) to hang out, & I'm wary of the idea of trying to make it serve any specific function. Anything & everything relevant to the comm members is appropriate to the comm; that's the point (within reason, obviously, I'm not trying to rehash the Ray Wars here). You could argue we're a "meta" community or that we've been a "livestream" community at points and so on, but ultimately the only thing we're trying to curate is that we're a friendly & inviting community.

This is a lot of writing to say that I'm in favor of our current decentralized-but-connected fannish structure, but I'm also trying to use this comment to think through why that's my preference & if it's just because I'm resistant to change. All of that said, if this seems like a popular idea here on ds-noticeboard, I may go ahead & put this to the dsvb folks once I'm done with the archival project. I don't want to just dismiss this out of hand on their behalf!

ETA: sorry if this is a little incoherent--it's late & I'm tired, probably should've waited till morning to comment!

[mekare]

No worries, you were very articulate. Reading the responses to my questions (your own included) have made my own view a bit clearer. I am looking for a social place for the Due South fandom which the noticeboard wasn't meant to be originally (I've been told).

The ds_flashback question is an entirely different matter because it regards an inactive archival comm (my idea was that it could be revived but having thought about it, we are too few people to do that. Recs can just be posted anywhere, here or in duesouth or the virtualbar. Or maybe someone will open a new rec comm. Plus, there's always the mutlifandom rec comms.)

different little corners of fandom that do different things,

I absolutely want that as well! It wasn't my intention to set a restrictive set of rules for comms I am not even a mod of. Maybe what I wanted was probably more of a community overview of active comms (and the idea to list them as affiliates is a good one). I think I'll do that with the noticeboard profile, just to have a sort of directory for new people, what do you think?)

[thisaintbc]

I agree that a community directory of some sort would be great, & I'd be thrilled for the dsvb to affiliate with ds-noticeboard! Clevermanka, Teal, & I will be putting together a "welcome package" for any newcomers who've found us through the DW comm here in the next week or so, as well, & I put out an open call (on tumblr) for ideas about what to include in that--as you're a member of the dsvb that includes you!

I didn't think that you were, don't worry! But I have to admit that as a member of a very loosely defined & organized comm, I had some concerns about potential implications down the road, the way I read your original comment. I try not to make any unilateral decisions about the dsvb or speak on the comm's behalf without their input - beyond basic interactions like deciding to affiliate with another C6D blog/comm or to say that I'll put an idea out there to see how folks react to it - but I have to admit I was also a little concerned about what it would mean for me as a mod. I was the president of a club that got folded into a larger club in college, and it was a less than ideal situation, so I may have overreacted slightly just due to a bad prior experience, as well--sorry!