Dead Forum

[Kayuni]

For such a large communtiy with so many writers, it's kind of sad to see this forum gettings maybe 50 visits a day, tops. Maybe some monthly events would be good, such as a themed story competition focusing on the street life, starting one day and all submissions would be due 3 days later. I figure it'd be a good way to get some more people involved and liven the forum a bit. Comments, anyone?

[MsNobody]

Maybe some monthly events would be good, such as a themed story competition focusing on the street life, starting one day and all submissions would be due 3 days later.

 

Most of the stories in this forum are about street life or they're based on Grand Theft Auto. It would be better if there was more of a variety instead of the same type of stories through out this forum.

[Chalkstar]

I will soon be starting a sort of "soap opera" () that is based around my experiances of the last few months. I've been posting short parts in my gang's (LLO) chat thread, under the name "Chalk's Life", but I am concidering changing the name, or course, to protect their real identity from at least a few people and posting the story in here.

I will soon post an introduction into the characters, and then followed by the first episode or chapter. Which one sounds more catchy?

[gta phil gta]

Stop hijacking the thread, Chalk.

 

Monthly events would be good, but we tried something like it once, it eventually failed. It all depends on the amount of interest, and the willingness of the person running the event to complete it.

 

Thing is, just making events and such won't guarantee that this place will become more active. They will have to be continued regularly, and on top of that, other things need to be put in place to keep people interested.

 

I honestly have tons of ideas on things that could be done, but it's just a matter of implementing them, getting interest and being able to run them.

[Le Machin]

Good to know SOMEONE is concerned by the apalling lack of activity on this forum, despite the amount of new stories coming up all the time. It's not only a matter of bringing new blood into the forum, but also of increasing readership from existing members. I wonder how many people from GTAF regularly check the Writer's Discussion.

 

Speaking of "Writer's Discussion" that is one thing that doesn't often happen here. The vast majority of topics are about people posting their stories- there isn't much about method, technique, style, etc.

 

Monthly events would be good, or maybe "cooperative" stories which people could sign up for, like an RPG of sorts, and each write from the perspective of their character to eventually complete an interactive story. Maybe another idea could be quarterly writers' awards, the winners of which would be nominated for a yearly competition?

[gta phil gta]

We had a writers awards in 2003 through 2004 or somewhere along those lines. It wasn't really that good, it kinda ended up being more a popularity contest. There's not really a fair way to do it, I don't think.

 

The yearly writers awards is just done in the annual awards by the staff, everyone votes and whatnot.

 

As for co-op stories and such, that's just a matter of talking to a writer and asking them to do one with you. If you mean one where you make a topic and people just add a new part to the story in their reply, that will suck majorly, and be completely pointless.

 

As for an RPG, that's also been tried, and it's once again down to the activity of the person(s) running it. I ran the RE RPG successfully over a year ago or so, and brought it back a short while ago after it had been gone for ages, but shortly thereafter I became too busy to carry on doing it. There was a lot of interest, though. If someone can do something like that and have a working system where it shouldn't be too hard to maintain, it can be done, but most of the time it demands a lot of attention from the person running it, and both the writing and organisation of the RPG can make them too busy, thus resulting in it being stopped/becoming inactive.

 

Regarding "Writer's Discussion", it never even used to be called that, to be honest. It used to just be the "General Writers Forum". I don't exactly know why it was changed, but meh. As for discussion of writing and such, if there's none of it going on, nobody is interested in it. You can't just say "this is what we need to talk about" and expect people to make topics pertaining to that. People will either discuss it or they won't, you can't expect them to change or whatnot just because there isn't enough of it going on.

 

Overall, it's about making the place fun, but not too draining for whoever is running events and whatnot. It's also a matter of making the events reasonable, and interesting. The one thing that we can't really do is try to make more people read or make their comments longer and more detailed.. you can't force someone to change what they post. Generally, GTAF doesn't have a large writers community, and there's nothing we can do to change that.

[Le Machin]

How, pray tell, are you going to "make" more people read?

[gta phil gta]

 

 

The one thing that we can't really do is try to make more people read or make their comments longer and more detailed.. you can't force someone to change what they post. Generally, GTAF doesn't have a large writers community, and there's nothing we can do to change that.

[SWEETSAPRIK]

I'd like to see more activity in here too, some of the stuff submitted is pretty good and I'd like to see more. I have to admit that this is one of the five or so sections that I visit the least, and I this is one of my first few posts in this section, but I still think that it's a shame that more people don't submit work.

 

Maybe you should have a contest where people submit part 1 of a two part story, then anyone who's entered/made a submission gets to vote on which part one they think is best. Then everyone has to write a part 2 to that story and people vote on which is best. Although I would suggest getting proofreaders or something, so the people that have trouble with spelling, grammar, and punctuation can still make submissions. There are lots of people with the imagination, and inclination to write, but a lot of them aren't up to par with some of the better writers here.

 

I think that more submissions would bring in more readers. I personally don't care to read most of the GTA based stories, but that doesn't mean that the writing isn't good, it just doesn't interest me. Maybe you could have a weekly, or bi-weekly periodical in this section posting some of the better works. Or maybe talk to howardsternisgod about posting the Gang Weekly in here. Anything that brought people into this forum for even a few minutes might make them find something interesting and stick around.

 

Eh, whatever, just some stupid suggestions.

Edited May 16, 2005 by SWEETSAPRIK

[Kayuni]

I'd like to see more activity in here too, some of the stuff submitted is pretty good and I'd like to see more. I have to admit that this is one of the five or so sections that I visit the least, and I this is one of my first few posts in this section, but I still think that it's a shame that more people don't submit work.

 

Maybe you should have a contest where people submit part 1 of a two part story, then anyone who's entered/made a submission gets to vote on which part one they think is best. Then everyone has to write a part 2 to that story and people vote on which is best. Although I would suggest getting proofreaders or something, so the people that have trouble with spelling, grammar, and punctuation can still make submissions. There are lots of people with the imagination, and inclination to write, but a lot of them aren't up to par with some of the better writers here.

 

I think that more submissions would bring in more readers. I personally don't care to read most of the GTA based stories, but that doesn't mean that the writing isn't good, it just doesn't interest me. Maybe you could have a weekly, or bi-weekly periodical in this section posting some of the better works. Or maybe talk to howardsternisgod about posting the Gang Weekly in here. Anything that brought people into this forum for even a few minutes might make them find something interesting and stick around.

 

Eh, whatever, just some stupid suggestions.

Not stupid at all. If some people wore links in their sigs with a line like, "Writers' Discussion, read up." or something just slightly less corny , that could attract a few more people, and maybe a small group of reviewers, to give criticism and spur on others to reply.

[gta phil gta]

I did a paper here for a few weeks some time last year. They got pretty much no feedback at all, and the issues posted got only like one or two replies. It didn't work out, in short.

 

Why would we need hsig to run the GW in here, btw? If one was wanted/needed, I or someone else could run it, it wouldn't have to be the GW. After all, I did create the gang weekly in the first place, you know.

[Luke2004]

I'd love to be able to help you guys out.. monthly events would be cool.

 

 

I've just thought of an idea:

gta phil gta can make a pinned topic, where someone can make like a monthly news letter for instance...

It would start at the beginning of the month.

For arguments sake, let's just say we're starting now on Sunday 1st May.

 

Upcoming Events	Upcoming Stories.
Wednesday 1st June	ChalkStar2188 - A soap opera.

I think this is a good idea, and if it happens I wouldn't mind running this little feature.. you probably haven't seen me post in here much before. I read alot of people's work but don't put mine on. Anyway, yeah I'd like something like this happen, and I hope it does. - Luke.

[Davo the Assassin]

I remeber the days when these forums used to be fairly active. But now most decent story ideas are used up (OK, Overstatement), most people are just doing the same over and over.

 

I miss the massive stories like GTA Saga.

[Luke2004]

I'm in the middle of writing my first ever story for GTAF at the minute. - Luke.

[gta phil gta]

I'm not following your idea, Luke. List upcoming stories?

 

Pointless...

[Luke2004]

I'm not following your idea, Luke. List upcoming stories?

 

Pointless...

I was thinking newsletter/newspaper type thing.. about the whole forums maybe? I couldn't really think about what to put into it, but maybe if it's forum news or something like that it could become successful. - Luke.

[SWEETSAPRIK]

I did a paper here for a few weeks some time last year. They got pretty much no feedback at all, and the issues posted got only like one or two replies. It didn't work out, in short.

 

Why would we need hsig to run the GW in here, btw? If one was wanted/needed, I or someone else could run it, it wouldn't have to be the GW. After all, I did create the gang weekly in the first place, you know.

I wasn't aware that it had been tried before, sorry.

I didn't know that you'd started the GW either, sorry again.

But I wasn't trying to say that you, BrassKnuckles, Wingman, or other people who frequent this forum couldn't handle it. Quite the opposite, I realize that you guys are very talented. I really only used it as an example of a topic that gets views and replies. I only meant that it would get those views/replies regardless of where you put it. If people had to come into this section to read it, they might see something else that interests them and stick around. I thought the point was to bring in people who didn't already come in here. Most of the people reading this (Like me.) would read your paper, but we already come here, so that doesn't mean that the views/replies for this section would go up.

 

Example: You own/run two stores, one does constant business, and the other doesn't. You have a product that you know will sell quickly, you could put it in the busy store and sell out in minutes, or put it in the other and actually draw business to it.

 

I was just thinking that we would need to place things in this forum that interest the people who don't come in here as of now. I don't think that this section is missing anything, but for some reason it doesn't interest some other people.

 

I don't know, I was just throwing stuff out there in an attempt to be helpful, sorry again.

Edited May 19, 2005 by SWEETSAPRIK

[gta phil gta]

Ah, no, my mistake actually. I misunderstood what you actually meant by saying that. I was under the assumption you meant hsig would run a paper like the gang weekly in here, not actually post the gang weekly in here.

 

It would be good for this forum, but I don't believe hsig would definitely agree with it, nor would the public. I think people wouldn't realise it had been moved into here, and wouldn't always look for it here, therefore it still wouldn't get viewed as much. Plus, I think people would prefer it to stay in the gang forums, where it is more relevant.

 

It would be a nice idea, but I doubt people would all want it.