It's interesting what gets posted elsewhere. But they do raise a few points worth addressing.
Do we have secret areas?
No. But also yes. It's all relative.
If you're a guest looking in the window, you're seeing about 35% of the forum. Why? Because author business is private, and only general chat is public.
What a guest sees is what Google sees. One of the biggest problems with KB was EVERYTHING ended up in Google. Including all our intellectual property discussed in craft threads, book ads, and helping threads. This is not a good thing, and I didn't even have to think about acting to protect us. So 65% of the forum is member only. But as long as your email address is real and isn't spam-blocked, you get immediate access when you register. What you share in your profile is up to you.
What a member sees is about 90% of the forum. The moderators have their own area. The small team working on how to do the feature requests have their own area. The rest are opt-in areas.
The purpose of the opt-in areas is remove from the unread posts list, and area lists, threads which a majority of people don't want to see. Such as erotica, arguments, scammer talk, moderated posts removed from the threads, and anything of a nature people dont like to see. But the opt-in process is easy, if you read the instructions in About the Forum. There is a reason for pointing people there in the forum graphic. Those who dont read there first, miss out on how to do things. And these are not new features. The forum is bog standard, with a few tweaks, much less modified than KB is, but KB never used a lot of the standard features. I am.
So to get into the Erotica area, the forum News area (where scammers and trademarks and stuff are discussed), the prison area for darker stuff, and the zombie posts area, you need to want to see them. The assumption is, you dont want to see them, and that's why it's called opt-in. You won't see them unless you choose to. The list and instructions are in About the Forum. The options are under Membergroups in your profile.
Who owns the forum?
I do. Personally. Like Harvey did on KB.
Why? Because people started asking for an alternative to KB, on KB, and I started a FB group to discuss how to do it. No-one stepped up to actually do it. I had the skill set to create it, I had somewhere it could be created, and so I created it. This is the result. I had to move the forum because it became so active so fast, my original host couldn't cope. I didn't see that coming.
There was a lot of talk on KB about the community taking ownership of what we had on KB, along the lines of creating a community run forum. Lots of talk, no action. This forum is NOT a result of any of that talk. No-one went out and formed a community management group, and then set up a forum which addressed the issues of ToS. No-one is stopping anyone from doing so, and anyone who wants this, is free to go do it. I cant see management by committee working, but prove me wrong.
Talking about ToS.... what you see on the registration page is it. It's not anywhere else. No obscure links to find something totally different. The ToS was discussed on FB and here at the beginning, and something acceptable to authors was adopted. Still don't like it? Talk to me.
The forum is about as GDPR compliant as the tools allow. You can download a copy of your posts. You can delete your username and leave, and the forum will rename your posts (Guest and a number by the look of it), and remove your IP information. You can delete your posts and threads, and lock your own threads.
The cost of running the forum is insignificant at this point. While moving to a better host and faster server tripled what I'm paying for hosting, it is still pocket change in relation to what I make from book sales at the moment. There is no need for sharing costs, or donations. No need for google ads, and there will never ever be google ads here. Service providers want a way to advertise here, and this might be possible. But not as a revenue making thing.
Don't like the idea of one person owning the forum? It's no different to KB, before the sale. Don't like me owning it? Feel free to start your own, or go to one of the others. It's not a popularity contest, its about a safe place to be an author on the net. Plenty of choices, and here is just one of them.
What are my expectations?
I dont really have any. I built WS because I could. It's here, use it or don't use it.
The moderation policy is mainly mine, but was also built from early discussion. I want a place where the moderation is so subtle, most people dont see it happening. To that end, opt-in areas where moderated stuff can go, where most people wont see it because they dont want to. We've had our first spammer bots, and seem to be keeping them outside at the moment. We've had our first drive by troll, and our first zombie posts. The mods are still learning to use the tools, but we're getting there. The mods are volunteers, and do not include anyone modding at KB. The philosophy is, mods shall be seen and not heard.
Where is the forum going? That's pretty much up to you.
If you have a problem, talk to me.
Want a change? Ask for it.
See something you dont like, report it.
See something in the wrong place, report it.
Nothing here is set in stone. The object was to separate out the craft and marketing from the chat, and allow genre groups to discuss things separately. The object was to protect our privacy, protect our intellectual property, and provide a safe place to post, without editing by mods, and without rules coming from a place of fear. By removing much of the discussion from the public arena, the KB rules become unnecessary.
While KB became the go to place for authors, it was built for kindle users and readers. Being an author there was always an add-on to the true purpose of KB, and none of the calls to expand the author area were ever adopted. I built this place for authors, out of what I saw as not working properly there.
Where WS goes in the future, we'll just have to see.
Bottom line is, if you have a problem, talk to me. I cant fix what I dont know about. Everyone is free to go somewhere else and winge, but if it could have been discussed and addressed, I see it as a lost opportunity to improve.
