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

[sophinisba]

I like the idea of starting off with a rec fest to get us all in the mood and then a fic writing fest with prompts and a specific time frame. After that the comm could be opened up for posting or linking other fic. Monthly themes or prompts would be nice as a way of inspiring new fic but the comm would also be open for whatever.

If there's a fic fest I'd really prefer that each fic get its own post rather than go in comments. I find reading fics in pages where comments have collapsed to be a pain, and I like that with separate posts we can tag everything by fandom and that will make fics easier to find later.

[brewsternorth]

*nods* That works.