Admin Post: What would you like to see in the future on our Discord?

[dawn_felagund]

If you missed it, the SWG now has a server on Discord. We had a great time drabbling for our 13th birthday and have been busily chatting about Tolkien and writing and everything else under the sun ever since. It will continue to be available for open chat, asking canon questions, seeking betas, et cetera, but when we set up on Discord, we were hoping to use it for community projects as well.

Which is where we need your help! We need to know what the Silmarillion fandom would like to see happening in this space.

I have some ideas (shocking, I know!) but cannot say enough that I don’t have a monopoly on ideas, and if you think of something that would be just awesome to do on our Discord, please let us on the mod team know! You can leave a comment here, send a PM, or we can be reached at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org. Likewise, our Discord belongs to the SWG, which means that it belongs to you all because you all are the SWG. So if you want to run a Tolkien-related event on Discord, we’re happy to provide the space for that to happen, as well as any help with planning, promotion, and logistics that you may need.

Here are the ideas being discussed so far. If you’d be interested in participating in one of these (or want to suggest something not listed), comment on this post, drop us an ask or an email, or hop over to the #town-hall channel on our Discord. In a week or so, I will collect the feedback I’ve received so far to make a little poll to help determine where we’ll be going first.

• Writers workshop. A group that provides in-depth feedback and discussion on each other's stories. (Workshops for other types of fanworks, such as art, would be welcome too; I'm just probably not the best person to run these.)



• Fanfic book club. This group regularly reads a completed, published fanfic and discusses it.



• Reading group. A couple years ago, Lyra and Indy ran a Silmarillion reread on our LiveJournal. This group would choose a book or other text, read a bit each week, and discuss what they've read. Possibilities could be Tolkien's other works or texts that influenced him (such as the Kalevala--which I'm reading now--the Eddas, Beowulf, etc).



• Readings. A voice channel where we gather from time to time to read fanworks aloud. We could either plan a program ahead, have an open mic, or a bit of both.



• Meta presentations. Like the readings but an author/researcher presents a work of meta, takes questions from the audience, etc. Likewise, this could be entirely planned ahead with a program (like an online Tolkien conference! :D) or could be an informal rap session, or a bit of both.



• What else??

Comments

[dawn_felagund]

That would be ideal, I agree! :) We'd just have to make sure we have the people-power, but if we do, then I agree that this would be the way to go. I will definitely keep this in mind as we move forward--thank you! :D

[oloriel]

I don't know enough about Discord so I'm basing this purely on the olden AIM days, but maybe the platform has a sort of "save conversation" function as well? In that case, there'd be an automatic "script". Someone would still have to make it accessible for others (post under cut?), but that would be relatively quick and easy (as opposed to making screenshots and editing them, or typing everything up ourselves). Depending on whether we have the people-power it could then be edited for easier reading (bolding user names, taking out off-topic remarks, etc.), but it could also stand on its own. Not sure whether you'd have to ask people whether they agree to being "recorded" though? Perhaps it's fine as long as everyone uses nicknames (and those who use their real names can either agree to have their names out there or ask to have them changed)?