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Admin Post: The New Site Section Has a Name and a State-of-the-Site Update
Jul. 21st, 2022 12:30 pm![[admin post]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/entry/admin_post.png){kind=small}
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dawn_felagund posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
silwritersguildI'm excited to announce that the new section of the Silmarillion Writers' Guild site for non-Silmarillion Tolkien fanworks will be called Beyond the Silmarillion!
It was a close race and I want to thank everyone who voted and especially those of you who suggested names. Since we didn't collect names when gathering suggestions, if you are the person who suggested "Beyond the Silmarillion" and want to let me know so I can credit you for your winning name, send me an ask or email! (If you prefer to remain anonymous, that is of course fine too.)
If you're thinking right now, "New site section? What??" you can find out more about our new Beyond the Silmarillion section here.
I've also been busy this summer working on adding new features to the site. To find out more about what's in the works for the remainder of the year, check below the jump.
Back at the end of 2021, we opened a survey for SWG members to let us know what new features they would like to see added to our archive. Basically everything on the list was highly desirable to at least several someones and of interest to many, so we decided to do them all.
So far this year, we have added several new fanwork types: art, playlists, and link collections. Today, I opened beta-testing on the final two fanwork types: video and multimedia.
Video is self-explanatory, but multimedia fanworks will serve those of you who create works in multiple media that you'd like to see displayed together. Say you do a painting to go with a story. Or you post a work of meta with a link collection of suggested reading. Or a podfic recording of a story with a playlist of the songs you used in your soundtrack. Multimedia fanworks will let you display all of those elements together as a single fanwork.
As noted, beta-testing opened today. We are always looking for beta testers, so if you'd like to take videos or multimedia fanworks for a spin, let me know. I hope they are available on the site for everyone to use by the first week of August at the latest.
That will bring me to the new Beyond the Silmarillion section.
This one will be a fairly easy build compared with the multimedia fanworks (which, to be honest, have been a pain in the neck--a worthy pain in the neck but still!) I hope we will have the new site section up and running by the end of August.
Part of why we built out all of the fanwork types first is because Beyond the Silmarillion will allow you to post fanworks of all of the types available elsewhere on the archive.
After that, the only item on the survey that we still have to complete will be the ability for members to use the SWG archive to host events. This will take some information-gathering from me to see what possible event hosts would need or like to see and will likely end up being a pretty big undertaking. I'd like to see it well underway (if not complete but I'm probably being ambitious there!) by the end of the year. I also have on my to-do list a way to identify related works on the archive, e.g., if you remix another author's story or make a work of art, playlist, etc for a fic, those works can be associated with each other.
As always, I love to hear what Tolkien creators would like to see on our archive. Comments are open here, or I can be reached at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org. The archive is for you and we serve the Tolkien fanworks community, so never hesitate to be in touch with suggestions or ideas.
It was a close race and I want to thank everyone who voted and especially those of you who suggested names. Since we didn't collect names when gathering suggestions, if you are the person who suggested "Beyond the Silmarillion" and want to let me know so I can credit you for your winning name, send me an ask or email! (If you prefer to remain anonymous, that is of course fine too.)
If you're thinking right now, "New site section? What??" you can find out more about our new Beyond the Silmarillion section here.
I've also been busy this summer working on adding new features to the site. To find out more about what's in the works for the remainder of the year, check below the jump.
State of the Site Update
Back at the end of 2021, we opened a survey for SWG members to let us know what new features they would like to see added to our archive. Basically everything on the list was highly desirable to at least several someones and of interest to many, so we decided to do them all.
So far this year, we have added several new fanwork types: art, playlists, and link collections. Today, I opened beta-testing on the final two fanwork types: video and multimedia.
Video is self-explanatory, but multimedia fanworks will serve those of you who create works in multiple media that you'd like to see displayed together. Say you do a painting to go with a story. Or you post a work of meta with a link collection of suggested reading. Or a podfic recording of a story with a playlist of the songs you used in your soundtrack. Multimedia fanworks will let you display all of those elements together as a single fanwork.
As noted, beta-testing opened today. We are always looking for beta testers, so if you'd like to take videos or multimedia fanworks for a spin, let me know. I hope they are available on the site for everyone to use by the first week of August at the latest.
That will bring me to the new Beyond the Silmarillion section.
This one will be a fairly easy build compared with the multimedia fanworks (which, to be honest, have been a pain in the neck--a worthy pain in the neck but still!) I hope we will have the new site section up and running by the end of August.
Part of why we built out all of the fanwork types first is because Beyond the Silmarillion will allow you to post fanworks of all of the types available elsewhere on the archive.
After that, the only item on the survey that we still have to complete will be the ability for members to use the SWG archive to host events. This will take some information-gathering from me to see what possible event hosts would need or like to see and will likely end up being a pretty big undertaking. I'd like to see it well underway (if not complete but I'm probably being ambitious there!) by the end of the year. I also have on my to-do list a way to identify related works on the archive, e.g., if you remix another author's story or make a work of art, playlist, etc for a fic, those works can be associated with each other.
As always, I love to hear what Tolkien creators would like to see on our archive. Comments are open here, or I can be reached at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org. The archive is for you and we serve the Tolkien fanworks community, so never hesitate to be in touch with suggestions or ideas.
