We've been brainstorming behind the scenes to lay out 2017 in events, to refine and expand existing features and to set new goals for this year. The following is a general overview so you know what we'd like to work towards as well as what you can expect in the future.
Events
- Next Challenge & Banner Trade
We're taking the month of January to lay down more foundations around the community, which also pertains to events. You can expect the next Challenge sometime around February! In the meantime, why not check out Banner Trade and the currently active member marathons?
- One Page, One Month
After last year's spring survey, we had intended to start running two 1P1Ms per year. Things came up, and we ended up only running one; we also realize it may not have been in an ideal time slot. We aim to run two this year so as to give people more than one opportunity to join in case they miss out on the first round!
- Icebreakers
We know it's intimidating and overwhelming to jump into a long-standing community where everyone else seems to know each other, as such, we're continuously working on ways to try and make Amassment feel more open and welcoming. Starting this year, we are planning some organized icebreaker Activities to help facilitate some fun conversations between new and regular members. Of course, interactions are not just limited to these Activities, but we will hope that you will participate!
- Little Bits
This Activity is going on hiatus for revision due to organizational reasons, and will most likely reappear with rounds more spread out!
- Construction Zone
The CZ Challenge has just wrapped up - and was a big success! We're happy to see how many shrines were started for this event, shrines that may have otherwise not been started at all, whether due to their intended size or due to lack of confidence. Encouraging more in-progress shrines while giving members a platform to get feedback and public reactions to them is beneficial to the community as a whole, so we're happy to announce that Construction Zone as a feature is going to stay! We'll be setting up a new main forum for it under "Personal Web Projects" sometime soon.
If you want your CZ event topic to be moved to the new forum when the time comes so you can continue posting updates there, please post in this topic or poke Camy, dubiousdisc, or Robin.
A shadow topic will be left behind in the event subforum. We've chosen the opt-in approach as there are a few finished event shrines, while some membersmay not want to continue a particular project of theirs at the moment.Edit: It's up!
Additionally, the new Construction Zone will contain the less active Shrine Betas as a subforum, another feature we've been offering for shrine building. You can make use of Shrine Betas without making an "in-progress shrine", of course!
- Member Initiatives
Shrine events run by Amassment typically have a broad theme for the sake of inclusivity, but we all know that more narrow themes make for exciting and interesting events too, whether it's the interpretation of a prompt, an effort to get more shrines pumped out for a certain fandom, or something entirely different!
Amassment's team does not have the capacity for that, and here's where member-run marathons come in! Though spontaneous conversations of such marathons come up every now and then, it might be difficult to get one going if you don't know whether there's a lot of interest and what time slot would be optimal. To give member-run marathons and conversations around them more exposure, we've decided to give them their own forum under the new Member Initiatives section. We expect 1-2 more posts to follow to help get member marathons more organized.
The "Joint Projects" forum has been moved to that new section and renamed to the broader "Collaborations". Aside from initiatives such as The Herald Eight and Those Who Fight (webrings intended to encourage more shrines to a specific subject), it is open for any project where people work together towards a common goal - which doesn't have to be "joint projects" in a strict sense.
Additionally, if you have an idea for a big project or feature that would thrive by having its own space at Amassment's forums and would like to run it, get in touch with our new Events Lead Robin or an admin and we can give you a forum or subforum under "Member Initiatives" for it! Naturally, it should be somewhat related to what we're doing here. To give you an idea of what such projects could be, here are some examples: community magazine, organizing Shrine Pageant, periodic graphic or fandom challenges, etc.
- Shrine Spotlight
Shrine Spotlight as a feature keeps seeing improvements thanks to your continuous feedback! As the community and its activity levels change, adjustments are necessary. We are looking into ways to make Spotlight (even more) appealing based on the feedback we've received.
- Forums and Directory
Masao will put her effort into giving our forums and directory an overhaul that should hopefully happen sometime this year!
