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introduction suggestion

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User avatar
MLE (Emily Cotton)
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 3566
Joined: August 2008
Interest in HF: started in childhood with the classics, which, IMHO are HF even if they were contemporary when written.
Favourite HF book: Prince of Foxes, by Samuel Shellabarger
Preferred HF: Currently prefer 1600 and earlier, but I'll read anything that keeps me turning the page.
Location: California Bay Area

introduction suggestion

Post by MLE (Emily Cotton) » Mon August 10th, 2009, 4:37 am

So I had this (maybe) brilliant idea. We have the introduction section, where new members start threads telling all about themselves. And then the active members jump in and greet them. Unfortunately, those member's own introductions, which give the same info about the greeter as the greetee (is that a word?) has just divulged, are buried far down the posts of the forum. But what if, when we post in the intro section, a link to our own introduction posts comes up?

Just a thought.

Ash
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 2475
Joined: August 2008
Location: Arizona, USA

Post by Ash » Mon August 10th, 2009, 4:49 am

Sounds like a heck of a lot of work. Wonder if instead we had a 'reintroduce yourself' thread. Or on another forum we had 'geting to know you' where a question would be asked like: name your favorite job, your worst job, your first job. Turns into a bunch of fun for both old and new alike (or at least it was in that forum!)

User avatar
MLE (Emily Cotton)
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 3566
Joined: August 2008
Interest in HF: started in childhood with the classics, which, IMHO are HF even if they were contemporary when written.
Favourite HF book: Prince of Foxes, by Samuel Shellabarger
Preferred HF: Currently prefer 1600 and earlier, but I'll read anything that keeps me turning the page.
Location: California Bay Area

Post by MLE (Emily Cotton) » Mon August 10th, 2009, 4:51 am

I was sort of hoping that somewhere in the bells and whistles they have on vbulletin, there was a way to do it automatically. Though the reintroduce yourself idea sounds like fun, too.
Heck, all of this internet 2.0 stuff still feels like magic to me.

User avatar
MLE (Emily Cotton)
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 3566
Joined: August 2008
Interest in HF: started in childhood with the classics, which, IMHO are HF even if they were contemporary when written.
Favourite HF book: Prince of Foxes, by Samuel Shellabarger
Preferred HF: Currently prefer 1600 and earlier, but I'll read anything that keeps me turning the page.
Location: California Bay Area

Post by MLE (Emily Cotton) » Mon August 10th, 2009, 4:56 am

Okay, how about a 'locked' thread that consists of everybody's first posts in the 'introduce yourself' section? the Mods would only have to add each new member's intro once, and maybe clean the list up now and then by sending inactive members to the back of the thread if they disappear for a long time.

Not to make more work, but I'm interested in people, and I like conversations with personal context. Except the aging brain loses track, and if I click on the name of the poster to remind myself who is in the conversation, there's often far less there than what they put in their intro and I remain baffled. Is this the guy from Wales who liked Cornwell? Or the teacher from Des Moines who's into historical fantasy?

Maybe if their intro post was linked to their statistics?
Last edited by MLE (Emily Cotton) on Mon August 10th, 2009, 5:00 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Margaret
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 2440
Joined: August 2008
Interest in HF: I can't answer this in 100 characters. Sorry.
Favourite HF book: Checkmate, the final novel in the Lymond series
Preferred HF: Literary novels. Late medieval and Renaissance.
Location: Catskill, New York, USA
Contact:

Post by Margaret » Mon August 10th, 2009, 6:29 am

You can click on any member's tag (next to the icon/avatar picture), click "Public Profile" on the menu that comes up, and from there go to the "About Me" section for that member, if the person has chosen to fill it out. It's pretty easy, and already set up!
Browse over 5000 historical novel listings (probably well over 5000 by now, but I haven't re-counted lately) and over 700 reviews at www.HistoricalNovels.info

Ash
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 2475
Joined: August 2008
Location: Arizona, USA

Post by Ash » Mon August 10th, 2009, 9:23 am

Not to make more work, but I'm interested in people, and I like conversations with personal context.

I agree totally. I really never paid much attention to the profile page; that might not be a bad idea, just encouraging folks to fill it out. And thinking about it - many of us wrote our intro post on the old forum. Maybe we should just do an new intro thread (tho it seems vaguely familiar that we did that when we first started up....)

User avatar
Veronica
Avid Reader
Posts: 344
Joined: July 2009
Location: NT, Australia

Post by Veronica » Mon August 10th, 2009, 9:56 am

[quote=""Margaret""]You can click on any member's tag (next to the icon/avatar picture), click "Public Profile" on the menu that comes up, and from there go to the "About Me" section for that member, if the person has chosen to fill it out. It's pretty easy, and already set up![/quote]

True but quite a few don't write anything or hardly nothing. Which is fare enough cause some want to keep the privacy.
On the other hand I would really like to "know" you guys cause I'm starting to feel at home here. :)
"Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted"

Carla
Compulsive Reader
Posts: 965
Joined: August 2008
Contact:

Post by Carla » Mon August 10th, 2009, 7:24 pm

Filling in the profile section might work well. What would people want to know? Tastes in historical fiction, favourite authors, favourite historical eras, that sort of thing? I think I just filled in my website and blog addresses, on the grounds that there was plenty of information there if anyone was interested, but I wouldn't mind filling in some more of the profile if it would help.
Last edited by Carla on Mon August 10th, 2009, 7:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
PATHS OF EXILE - love, war, honour and betrayal in Anglo-Saxon Northumbria
Editor's Choice, Historical Novels Review, August 2009
Now available as e-book on Amazon Kindleand in Kindle, Epub (Nook, Sony Reader), Palm and other formats on Smashwords
Website: http://www.carlanayland.org
Blog: http://carlanayland.blogspot.com

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boswellbaxter
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 3066
Joined: August 2008
Location: North Carolina
Contact:

Post by boswellbaxter » Mon August 10th, 2009, 7:50 pm

I'd encourage anyone who wants to add to his or her profile page to do so, but those who prefer not to shouldn't feel pressured to. Same with the introductions--some people make them straightaway, others like to lurk on the forum a while before they do so, others never make them.

When the forum started up about a year ago, people did get a chance to reintroduce themselves.

For the profile page, I think the type of things Carla suggested would probably be most helpful.
Susan Higginbotham
Coming in October: The Woodvilles


http://www.susanhigginbotham.com/
http://www.susanhigginbotham.com/blog/

User avatar
Margaret
Bibliomaniac
Posts: 2440
Joined: August 2008
Interest in HF: I can't answer this in 100 characters. Sorry.
Favourite HF book: Checkmate, the final novel in the Lymond series
Preferred HF: Literary novels. Late medieval and Renaissance.
Location: Catskill, New York, USA
Contact:

Post by Margaret » Mon August 10th, 2009, 9:05 pm

If our moderators had a lot of spare time they needed to fill :D the profile pages could be expanded with some additional categories. For example, favorite author(s), favorite time period(s) to read about, historical sites visited, etc.
Browse over 5000 historical novel listings (probably well over 5000 by now, but I haven't re-counted lately) and over 700 reviews at www.HistoricalNovels.info

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