Forum News Letter?

[Gadget]

Originally Posted by DavidY

snipped from Re: Modern Jive Dancers Association - Viva La Diva!
... give information useful to dancers who don't spend their lives on forums like this one. ..but there would be other useful information that would hopefully be seen as a good thing.

For example something like Lory's post here (on why you should never wear the same top twice without washing it) should be printed by the thousand and left out at every MJ venue in the country.

It strikes me that there is a fair bit of noteworthy information dispensed on this forum - enough to compile a "monthly news letter" that could work as an excelent promotion tool... I know it's a Ceroc thing, but it could be put into a double sided PDF file on a new thread for download and printing.
Option to have it as an e-mailing list

Stat's section - most read post, most talked about thread, number of new members, birthdays...
Results section - latest competion results
Poss include an "Artical"? {}
Joke/funny picture
In breif recent topics
Summary of recent "interesting" posts
...

Good idea?
{I know that franck did something similar on a flyer a while ago}

[Lynn]

Originally Posted by Gadget

It strikes me that there is a fair bit of noteworthy information dispensed on this forum - enough to compile a "monthly news letter" ...
Good idea?

Great idea! Gadget for editor!

[Graham]

I trust that was a joke?

[Bangers & Mash]

could be quite interesting. I know a lot of people in Edinburgh who do not read the forum but who would be interested in knowing what is going on around Scotland and elsewhere.

A venue and party list would be useful but other topics could include things like dance style, dance techniques, dance gripes, inappropriate touching - all the things that have been really useful for us forumites but that don't get to the general populous.

[under par]

Would this not involve a lot of work and actually ..

a.discourage new members because they would have a synopsis to read like a magazine/journal instead having a good root around the forum themselves,

b. and lead to forumites just checking out the mentioned threads and possibly make mentioned threads into "celebrity" threads, therefore plunging others into
the depths of darkness.

Okay a little over exaggeration but half the fun of the forum is searching out the threads and info for yourself or becoming a forum community member and asking fellow forumites for help to find it.

I am against newsletter.

[Dreadful Scathe]

Originally Posted by under par

a.discourage new members because they would have a synopsis to read like a magazine/journal instead having a good root around the forum themselves

Quite the opposite. If it ends with "more on the forum" people will be encouraged. Thats like saying the synopsis on the back of novels encourages people NOT to buy the book To quote Mr.T "I pity the fool" who thinks like this

b. and lead to forumites just checking out the mentioned threads and possibly make mentioned threads into "celebrity" threads, therefore plunging others into the depths of darkness.

That happens already and a newsletter idea would help,. The forum is ever changing and the articles/threads mentioned may already be relegated by the time the newsletter readers log on to check them out. They would then resurrect them.

Okay a little over exaggeration but half the fun of the forum is searching out the threads and info for yourself or becoming a forum community member and asking fellow forumites for help to find it.

What better way to get people to do this than a newsletter, seems like a good idea to me. Your heads in the clouds mate ...snigger

And I agree with Graham...Gadget for editor ? eh ? Well he'd be fine with content and layout, just not grammar or spelling

[Lynn]

I'm on the forum pretty often (almost every day, depending on how often I am working and therefore at a computer) and even so I find that its impossible to read everything going on. Something that draws attention to interesting threads, important information that someone has posted, comp results etc - if everything in it is drawn more or less from threads on the forum and directs people to those threads, then they could also read the other posts on the same thread if they wanted to. And you could still hunt about and find interesting 'forgotten' threads then draw them to the attention of the person doing the 'newsletter' who could highlight them.

And I wasn't joking about Gadget for editor, I think he would be excellent. Whoever does it, it would need to be someone on the forum pretty often but it would involve some work, so it would also need someone with time!

[Lindsay]

I know a bloke who does this very thing for Salsa....
Huge amount of work by the look of it (not sure if it's worth the hassle).