I can't sleep so this might force me to go to bed

An idea might be to remove the forums from the main page and just have them on the author's website? If this is possible, it would make the front forum page a little less of an eyesore for new people And then just have a list of links to the author's forum possibly?

Another idea might be to have the forums auto collapsed when the page opens so when newbies enter they just see the collapsed versions and then can look into each collapsed area if they should want to? Would make it easier on the reader i think

The blog system is incredibly useful for an author. For example, recently I started to use it as an update system and asking different authors questions. It would be nice to see each hosted author with their own 'author' blogs. I think it would also help the aspiring authors like the promising and the regular authors. It would take alot of work to transfer each of the forum topics over to the blogs though.

Its just a question of is it worth the effort having another situation like we had with the EFiction Transfer.

If you can be bothered with the hassle then it is a brilliant idea to have the hosted/promising using their blogs to communicate.

Also another suggestion, to reduce the number of forums, maybe you could have the promising authors using the blog system and keep the forums for the hosted authors?

There are my two cents on the topic Hopefully i didn't glomp too much of your screen

Well, the problem with blogs is that if they worked as a new blog entry, then the Blogs page will be flooded with new posts and the blog entries of people who actually blog would get lost. Of course, I can follow my favourite blogs (which BTW doesn't work since the new version of the system), but from time to time I check the Blogs page to have a look on what other people write. I'm not doing it when it's full of "another chapter" entries.

Moreover, usually there is a general discussion in the author thread (not just chapter-bound), how would that work? I'd have to blog about something and it would get attributed to the author's blog? I could blog in the author's blog? And what about the tens of pages long threads like those in Mark Arbour's forums (one thread for the current story, given the length of the stories it can stretch to hundreds of posts).

Then the last issue I have is that the GA web is only for Firefox and IE. I'm using Opera, which causes me problems everytime I want to comment under a blog like this. E.g. I have to go to Explorer to post it - log in again to GA, post the comment and I always receive a Error message that I can't perform this action or something like that. In my opinion, GA should be configured to be OK with Opera and Chrome at least, maybe some linux browsers if there are any problems?

Edit: This is what I get in IE:

[#1-global-comments-_add-2] Sorry, but you do not have permission to use this feature. If you are not logged in, you may do so using the form below if available.

I would suggest to

- rename "Up & Coming and Offsite Authors" to "Author & Story discussions"

- add two new sub-forums there for "Hosted Authors" and "Promising Authors"

- move all forums with no post in the last 6 months to inactive forums

- add a link on each author page to their sub-forum

- add a link on the GA.Stories site for each authors to their sub-forum

- move teen-spot and soap-box back to the community forum

That leaves only 4 main forums

Another idea:

- get rid of the authors forums completely and discuss the stories in the GA.Stories review sites instead

- the other stuff going on in the authors forums could move to the lounge, games&humour, ...

Personally, with the number of stories on this site, I can't imagine a way of organizing things that make the site accessible without reducing visibility or discussion.

It seems like a good problem to have though, when the community grows so much that navigating it becomes a learning-process for new users.

Maybe it's even desirable that new users have to take time to explore?

So far it looks nice! I mean the main page. THough I miss the list of status updates... but it's not a biggie.

(Opera still doesn't post, this one is from Firefox, without any problems)

My concerns about using blogs instead of forums are

1. It's not visible enough, when authors update the blogs and

2. The blogs would be lost among the general blogging activity

3. It would push out other bloggers