Good news! We are in the process of implementing a full set of forums for TeleRead and, if the programming gods allow, are targeting to have them up and running this month.
In that regard, I’d like your comments on what topics you’d like to see. We’re currently planning to have all the categories we currently have on TeleRead (they appear towards the top of very page), plus some others. Our current thinking is:
Around the World
Copyright
Libraries
Publishing
Ebooks
The Ereaders category will be broken into:
Ereaders – general
Apple devices
Android devices
Kindle
Kobo
Nook
Sony
Anything else you want to see? We want to keep it fairly simple at first and can easily add more topics later. The forums will require you to register and log in if you want to post.
On a related topic, we will need moderators. The moderators’ main duty will be to delete spam and to keep an eye out for trolls and improper behavior. This will be a volunteer position, but in return for your efforts you’ll be entitled to use the title “TeleRead Forum Moderator” if you want to go to press events or request review material and TeleRead will confirm you as a press representative.
Your comments would be appreciated. If you want to become a moderator please email me.
Very cool!
I would gladly volunteer to be a moderator if I hadn’t just found this website about…one week ago and didn’t feel woefully underqualified for that. But let me know if you need a volunteer monkey for getting set up or anything – I’ve got free time.
Maybe another topic would be collaborative or multi-media or cross-media ebooks? What I mean by that is, a focus on ebooks that make use of other electronic media or art forms, whether visual or musical or video or whatever. I don’t know if that makes sense, or if regulars here are interested in that. I’m just scratching the surface on this stuff and I imagine you and your regulars know what’s out there a lot more than I do.
I’d suggest either more e-reader categories (at least one for “other,” because “general” doesn’t imply “discussion about specific devices that don’t have a category”), or less… Apple, Android, Kindle, Other e-Ink, Other LCD. (Kindle is probably big enough to need its own forum.) The stated list of Kindle-Kobo-Nook-Sony is a list of devices tied to stores; it implies that devices not tied to stores are not worth discussing.
You could just rename the “copyright” forum “flamewars and pedantry.” (Okay, occasionally there would be copyright news. But most of the copyright discussions I’ve seen that relate to ebooks quickly devolve into piracy-vs-DRM debates.)
Possibly a forum for “Ebook Stores/Websites,” which is different from publishing. (If Project Gutenberg or Feedbooks gets an upgrade, where does that discussion go?)
MobileRead has “authors” and “self-promotion” sections, which seem to work quite well. A self-promotion ghetto is something you could add later, if it becomes a problem in the other sections :-). But “authors” might be something you want to encourage from the start.
I believe it’s also common to have a “Feedback” forum (possibly including “help, how do I do X on the forum?”).
Personally I would avoid balkanizing the different E-reader brands into different sub-forums. Unless you think there’s going to be enough posts straight away that it’s a problem – but I’m not sure that’s a real danger. If nothing else, this would encourage people to use properly descriptive thread titles :). [On MobileRead, there are several _much_ less popular e-readers, and it makes sense to shelter these from the general flood, but you’re not including those].
I really like Elfwreck’s “stores and sites”. I can’t say whether it would work as well I imagine, for the presumed majority who don’t make a conscious distinction between their dedicated e-reader and the associated default store. But at least it’d catch the independent stores and sites in a single place.
“Copyright” alone does seem like a bad word. It might be slanted wrong… you don’t necessarily want a lot of discussions about what it would take to make copyright law sane. It’s insane in so many ways, but flamewars aren’t going to fix it. And you’ll get shoehorned in, like Amazon’s lending program, or comparisons of DRM, which aren’t actually related to the forum name.
Can anyone think of a more specific title than “copyright”?.
As a first approximation, it’s going to end up being about “piracy” and “DRM”…
“Copyright enforcement”?
That might usefully shift the emphasis away from the state of the law itself, and towards how the issue is handled in practice. I’m probably dreaming, but it might put a damper on people extolling the virtues of sharing files without permission, and the inevitable reaction.
Probably don’t need to worry too much about discouraging discussions in reaction to news about changes in law (or rulings about the law). They _will_ be discussed, regardless of the exact forum names chosen :).
Offtopic: I may prefer RECAPTCHA – but I _do_ like that this comment form preserves the comment text even if you use the _browser_ “refresh” button to try and resolve captcha problems. Maybe it’s a Firefox 4 thing, but I really appreciate it.
I like what’s there so far.
Possibilities to add:
– eBook Reviews
– Promote Your eBook
– Technical Help (People could post questions on ebooks problems???)
We have a small group of people discussing the topics of the various news and opinion columns already so yet more discussion forums seem counterintuitive as well as redundant.
I, for one, don’t have time to check out both the news articles as well as the forums. Does anyone who has a life?
Instead of discussion forums, how about specialist forums where questions and answers can be shared. Having a place where newbies can ask and experienced owners can answer questions would be perfect for the different ereaders, for example.
If you promote the experts sections, you’d also bring in new members instead of recycling the same arguments over and over which tends to drive people away.
I would advise heavily against having so may different separate forum categories. It will fragment the group and each separate forum will be sparsely attended. Start with a small group and break out if the usage demands.
Paul am I right in thinking that all articles will start as they are now, on the main page ? and comments will then enter the forums ?
Because comments will spin off to individual forums it will be important for registered users to know about posts that have been made to comments and threads they have commented on. Also can you ensure that registered members can review their previous posts ? I find these thing are really important in other forums I have joined.
I think it’s great that you want to provide more room for participation, but why create separate forums when we have Mobileread? Why not form a cooperative effort with Mobileread, where threads from topics there link here and vice versa (with a navbar Mobileread link here and a Teleread link there)?
You already share the same user group and deal with the same topics. Why split the audience? Already, we talk about a lot of the same stuff here and there. It would be great to have closer linkage.
What about ereader fleamarket ?