Discussion post: how should this community work?

[fiercelydreamed]

 There'll probably be a couple more discussion posts coming up about the operational aspects (particularly the tagging system), but I wanted to get to the biggest question I've got:

How do you want this community to work?

First off, while I initially created queerlygen with a festival in mind, I'm hearing a lot of interest in having it provide a continuing resource. I've got no problems with that. Right now my intent is, at minimum, to have the community act as an ongoing noticeboard where people can post gen works (both fan and original) about sexual and gender minorities. But what should it be beyond that?

• Should we have some kind of periodic challenges? If so, what would you be interested in?
• Are there specific ways to encourage the posting of works beyond just fiction?
• Are there things that have worked well at other communities that you'd like to see replicated here?
• Most pressingly, how should we kick the community off? I'd originally talked about a festival: should I just throw open the doors for people to post any works? Should there be a structure of some kind? Maybe prizes for people who post the most works / in the widest range of 'verses / in the widest range of media? 

Of the discussion posts I've put up so far, this is probably where I have the least idea of how to proceed. So please, bring on any and all suggestions, as vague or as specific as you like.

Comments

[earlwyn]

I really like the idea of a flash-fiction model, as lomedet stated above. Some sort of prompt-based system that helps to generate new work as well as providing a place for older work to be advertised, maybe? That seems like it would be the best of both worlds to me. The only other thing I can think of is having some sort of rec day -- I'm thinking of how crack_van sets aside a specific day to do vid recs -- where people can rec their favourite queer gen works. Possibly theme-based?

Otherwise, I like the idea of kicking off with a fest. For me, it's good way to get excitement level up and actually have an excuse to dive into a new project. I'd prefer some structure to it, like picking up prompts or themes, just so there's some sort of idea-generation happening. Maybe there could be some sort of writer-artist match up to help generate more than just fic?