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Should the Writing forum be made public?

lerk

Well-known member
I don't see any reason why it shouldn't. It may get a lot more people to sign up, as they can now see TLs and may sign up to comment on TLs and be inspired to make their own. And besides, if you look at the other alternate history forums such as AH.com, the Sufficient Velocity AH forum, and the Alternate History proboards forum, they do not prevent you from seeing other people's TLs.
 
I don't see any reason why it shouldn't. It may get a lot more people to sign up, as they can now see TLs and may sign up to comment on TLs and be inspired to make their own. And besides, if you look at the other alternate history forums such as AH.com, the Sufficient Velocity AH forum, and the Alternate History proboards forum, they do not prevent you from seeing other people's TLs.

I thought it already was public?
 
I thought it already was public?
The Scenarios & PODs and Graphics forums are public, Writing Forum is not.

Personally, I prefer the Writing Forum to remain registered-viewers only. There's material in there where people may want to publish somewhere someday - and not just on SLP - and making it public can hurt their chances of doing so. I've heard mixed views on how much having it writing content behind a registration wall helps, but it certainly doesn't hurt, and can help in some cases.

I've got two pieces which started life in the writing forum here which are currently under consideration elsewhere, and at least one of them would not be under that consideration if it had been a public online forum first.
 
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The Scenarios & PODs and Graphics forums are public, Writing Forum is not.

Personally, I prefer the Writing Forum to remain registered-viewers only. There's material in there where people may want to publish somewhere someday - and not just on SLP - and making it public can hurt their chances of doing so. I've heard mixed views on how much having it writing content behind a registration wall helps, but it certainly doesn't hurt, and can help in some cases.

I've got two pieces which started life in the writing forum here which are currently under consideration elsewhere, and at least one of them would not be under that consideration if it had been a public online forum first.

It'd honestly never occurred to me that only members can read the writing on here.

I feel quite privileged now, and resolve to be a less lazy consumer and comment more often.
 
From my point of view, absolutely not.

I use the writing forum to get feedback on ideas and experiments. What I put up tends to be very much First Draft type stuff, which may or may not go anywhere. Some of it might be viable for consideration by SLP, but most isn't. I want to retain the option of publishing elsewhere, and having a version freely available to the public can make that very much harder.

That's why I take down work once it has fulfilled its function here.

OK, getting feedback is hard work. There's only a handful of people who regularly comment (and I value them greatly). But the point remains that making the forum open to the public would hurt publication prospects. If that happened, I'd simply stop using the forum.
This is the reasoning. And besides, if people would like to read content on our site and engage with it further but object to spending less than a minute signing up for an account, my position is that the site can survive without them. And, indeed, is doing so.
 
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