DaD - Now what?

[Lukos]

Sounds good, Kousu! But I have another idea, since we're on a roll with the whole teamwork thing.

Two "techies" can work together to keep the site up. Something fairly easy, don't you think?

[Sonimon]

Yeah...... well.......... it's not a nice thing to say, but I speak from personal experience when I say that having two people doing the updates complicates things more than it helps unless they're a REAL team who work closely with one another. Part of the reason I left this site was because of problems with my uploading "partner." The authors began getting way more attention and the artists got their artwork posted once every other week or so. If there's going to be more than one person updating the site, they'll need to be able to work very well with each other to avoid problems further down the line.
Soni

[Lukos]

Well, you're absolutely right about that, Sonimon.

lol where's my giant eraser....

[Lukos]

Here's something I can do to help us get organized. I'll type up a list of those running for an admin job on this site. And then I'll give it to ChibiRenamon and let him decide.

I assume we all agree on this group thing? (Someone said it was my idea before.... maybe I promoted it more, but ChibiRenamon was actually the one who first mentioned the idea, I believe.) Not just for funding, but for running this site.

I'll make the list. Just let me know who you are and what you want to do and I'll put you on it. A reason you want to and how you'd be able to help the site would be nice. I won't send the list to him for a while, at least until we can all agree on a basic plan for the site.

[Lukos]

Okay, I have a setup for the list. Here's how you can let me know what to put on it.

E-mail: SonicHowler42@cfl.rr.com
or: Da_WOLFE2@yahoo.com

IM - AIM: DarkWolf2041
Yahoo: - Da_WOLFE2

Or, you can just post it here. But it's less organized here and I'd be only a little less likely to get it than if you just e-mailed it or IMed it.

[Blue Rover]

sonimon: I speak from personal experience when I say that having two people doing the updates complicates things more than it helps unless they're a REAL team who work closely with one another.

would it help if one did the stories, another did the art, and another did manga and other stuff or would it still complicate things?

[Sonimon]

Blue, that's a slightly more complex version of the idea that worked badly for me. In my experience, that would be even worse. Again, though, if there's REAL teamwork and communication, that could work.
Soni

[Lukos]

Yeah, Soni's right. We'd want all the work sent in to come in the nearest update. If the other guy, for some reason, can't do it, then complications could come up.

[Blue Rover]

ahhh. i had no clue it actully made it harder rather than easier. thanks for showing me that.

[Chibi Renamon]

Mh... Soni's got a good point there. Okay, he has a ton of good points, and it's nice that he's chipping in his experience. Thanks! ^^

A few thoughts and rough ideas about maybe splitting the work without messing up the "Not two people doing updates" rule (which is very true and should be followed), based on my personal experience:

1) Somebody to play Admin. That'd be the guy communicating with the Hosting Dude, among others. There are a few questions about the site itself, like Link Exchange, Art Theft, Donations, etc. Plus watching the Forum, maybe. None of those tasks is overwhelming, but when you combine them, it's a bit. Especially if you want to do more than just keep everything from collapsing ^^;;;

2) Somebody to take care of the comments. The Comment Form has been a bigger success than I had anticipated, so somebody could maybe just filter out the flames and spam and convert the content of the comment-mail to textfiles (one per artist, for example) that could be edited into the actual HTML quickly. It looks harmless at first, but this stuff piles up at a ridiculous rate. Take a week off and you're looking at a few dozen mails or so. (And if you THEN also have to do all the other update stuff, you WILL curse.)

3) Update guy. That's basically the job I had applied for in the beginning. Some basic knowledge of HTML is required, but in the end, it grinds down to knowing which parts to Copy, Paste and Edit. I kept the HTML fairly clean, and whoever is interested can take a look at the source of an author page to get a first impression. Work on the Lemon side requires converting the lemons, bopping people for not including couple info and editing/creating the author pages. The Art side is similar; you have to create thumbnails and bop people for sending BMP files or blatant rips. And you have to edit the pages, of course.

If you have dedication and lots of free time, you can do updating and Admin-ing at once, but especially in times of site-crisis or real-life exams, it might be better to only have to focus on one of these tasks.

The comment guy should really be another guy. The comments don't have to be in perfect synch with the other updates. In fact, it might be easier to just have a comment-update (since you'll have to edit and upload dozens of pages) between two regular ones. Still, these two people should stay in touch. Communication is damn important. Nothing is more unnerving than a communications blackout when you're waiting for stuff or feedback.

On the other hand, the Admin job is more or less independent from the other two positions. He should of course stay in touch, but his main job is to provide stability, as opposed to content and updates.

That's a fairly idealistic view, of course. But it should give you an overview of a few things. Most of this is self-explaining (if you read my update texts or just thought a bit about the work needed to go from submission to update), but things like the work connected with the comments might be news.

The funding group is a cool idea, actually. If three or so people banded together, things would be neat and bearable for the individuals. :)