The e-publishing support group

[Dimwhit]

So I do think we'd need a private forum for this. If someone is going to solicit advice/comments on a future product, we don't want anyone to be able to grab it. Not good for business.

We could go to another board, but if Morrus were willing, we could set up a private "publishers" forum. Members would need to be approved by a forum moderator. A couple could be chosen to handle that. I would think it would be easy.

So anyway, I think there are two concerns I've been hearing (and that I agree with):

1. Privacy (your product falling into the wrong hands)
2. Time

As for the first, a private forum should solve it. For the second, well, I don't think anyone needs to commit much (if any) time. Just swing by the forum regularly, and if someone needs something looked at, take a couple minutes if you have it. If not, grab the next one around.

Such are my thoughts. I know for me if would be beneficial, and I would be happy to look at other products, too.

Any other thoughts? Should we see if Morrus is willing to set up a private forum for us?

 

[Cergorach]

Any other thoughts? Should we see if Morrus is willing to set up a private forum for us?

That would be easiest, we all come here regulary and most of us are logged in with our userid all the time, so seeing new posts would be a breeze...

 

[tensen]

At what point does a publisher get access to the forums?
After they've release the first product?
After they have release X number of them?
Before they've release any, but made a public website?

Is it just the publisher (single person) that gets access to the forum?
Which of their staff can also get access?

 

[Fast Learner]

For the second, well, I don't think anyone needs to commit much (if any) time. Just swing by the forum regularly, and if someone needs something looked at, take a couple minutes if you have it. If not, grab the next one around.

Do you think a couple of minutes of review is going to provide any useful feedback? In that time all you're going to be able to review (imo) is the general concept of the product, which could just as easily be summarized in a paragraph.

If by that you meant, say, 10 or 15 minutes, then the reviewer is only going to be able to review the equivalent of a one-page summary of the product. Useful, perhaps, but useful enough?

I bring this up because I"m part of a similar group for board game design and at least there (where there's much less text to read) it takes a minimum of an hour to understand the game deeplly enough to be able to provide useful comments, and then usually another couple of hours over the ensuing week to respond to the responses, etc.

I'm not suggesting this is a bad idea, but that if people participate they should plan on spending a bare minimum of an hour a week reviewing, and quite likely several hours a week. The system doesn't "work" if people are just subitting stuff for review and aren't reviewing in exchange, and that's an easy slope to slip down.

In the board game design review group we had to eventually create a schedule where there was only one item up for review each week. Without it weeks where there were multiple items resulted in things just not getting reviewed. Perhaps you should consider some kind of structure that will help with that.

Matthew

 

[Nellisir]

Do you think a couple of minutes of review is going to provide any useful feedback? In that time all you're going to be able to review (imo) is the general concept of the product, which could just as easily be summarized in a paragraph.

I don't know what other people are thinking, but I'm not expecting a full length, edited review of anything. This feels more like an extended casual brainstorming session - toss something out, see if people like the general idea, dislike, have suggestions about directions and points to explore, have suggestions about alternate sources of inspiration or material...

I don't think this should be looked at as a writing review board or editing session. More concept, less detail.

I'm having a temporary block on laying out my (first) "product" -- I know what I'm shooting for, I've got a few angles to explore, but I'm not sure what direction is best, and what alternatives I might be missing. Just having a few people look at it and go "sucks"/"doesn't suck"/"Is it all in Swedish?"/"make the title smaller"/"can I get the swedish women's volleyball team as models in my book on elves too?" would be a great help.

Admitting people to the private forum is another issue; if this is meant to admit "up-and-comers", it makes sense to admit people who haven't yet released a product (myself). So, I'd have to vote for c: "public website", but maybe with a time limit. 3 months, no product, hasta la vista.

Cheers
Nell.

Who needs to update his public website.

 

[Morrus]

Any other thoughts? Should we see if Morrus is willing to set up a private forum for us?

Happy to help as long as somebody works out the logistics. Let me know how it's to work etc.

 

[mroberon1972]

Heck, I have about a half-ton of bandwidth over at ancient-awakenings doing nothing.

I'll donate a private and public forum if you like.

Then again, the public forums here get way more traffic. But I'll still donate a private forum.

www.ancient-awakenings.com


Mr. Oberon

 

[mroberon1972]

As an exercise, (I have not edited the boards at my site in a while...) I added a hidden forum for e-publishers, created a private group for it. and just need someone to moderate it.

As it is, all you have to do is create a login, click on the "Usergroups" option near the top, choose "e-publisher" from the list and ask to join.

Yea, I know it's complex. But you guys said you wanted it private...


Mr. Oberon
"Click here... And here... And here... And here... And here... And here..."

 

[Dimwhit]

Thanks Morrus and mroberon1972. I'm inclined to think we'd get better usage if we set up a private forum here at EN World, rather than giving people an additional site to visit. Anyone else have a thought on the matter?

So my next question is: what is the best way to determine who gets access to the forum? I'd be willing to help moderate. I think having a couple people would be ideal. I would say the way to do it would be to have a user PM the moderators for permission to join the group. They just need to give a name and company (maybe a website or something to confirm that the person is a publisher?), and when it's confirmed, send Morrus a note to give them permission (unless the mods can do it).

How does that sound?

 

[Cergorach]

If vbullitin works anywhere close to phpbb2 then the mods would be able to add users to a group that has access to the forum...