The Plan for YWS Domination

For some background, check out my blog:
blog/Nate/so_let%CA%B9s_try_this_again_b-56545.html

Summary of blog: Let's get things rolling again.

Stage 0: Lots of talk.

Stage 1: Updates to literary area and revamping homepage. This stage is dependent on Nate only.

Stage 2: Begin increasing reviews. This stage is dependent on the userbase. The goal for now is just 150 reviews per day by mid-December, building up to 250 per day by the new year. While this stage doesn't technically begin until stage 1 is complete, progress can start happening now.

Stage 3: Bring back gifts. Nate-dependent.

Stage 4: Gift-weekend! Doing this from December 21 to December 23 is probably the best time. Can do it as an end of the world type thing while still tying it into the holidays. The last time we did this was in August 2011, and it was a smashing success.

Stage 5: Improvements to profiles and blogs. This may end up coming before stage 4 depending on how things work out.

Stage 6: Clubs return. This will probably happen after Christmas but before the new year. Could happen before then, but it's unlikely. In fact, it's likely that this may not happen until next year.

Stage 7: The big kahuna!

Stage 7 for Nate
HUGE email campaign. YWS has a mailing list of 25,000 people, and I'll be dissecting this list into multiple groups. For example, one group will be people who are currently very active. Another group will be people who used to be very active but aren't anymore. Each group will receive 3 emails over the course of one week.

Stage 7 for userbase
I can do the macro stuff, but the micro stuff is up to y'all. During stage 7, try to bring back old YWSers, or bring in new ones. Be active on the site by reviewing, participate on the Facebook page, or retweet our tweets on Twitter. Could also write a letter to the editor of your local paper, post flyers at school/library (pdf will be made available at this time), and anything else that gets the word out.

Stage 7 objective
The objective of stage 7 is to get to 1,000 posts per day in the forums; 100 literary topics per day; and 300 reviews per day. We want crazy activity across the board.

Stage 8:
Review Day on January 27! This will be the culmination of everything above, and it'll probably come a couple weeks after stage 7 is complete. The goal is 2,000 reviews over a single 24 hour period. That's one review every 43 seconds, which is going to be tough. But we can do it.

Endgame: Is this plan ambitious? Yes. Extremely difficult? Quite. Impossible? No.

YWS has a huge userbase. Not only that, but the site has a dedicated userbase. We can bring this site back to life.

Feel free to use the comments area to strategize, comments, and otherwise chat.

Stage 9:
Begin planning to take over the world.

Alright, I think I understand the plan boss but can I just ask one thing?

When do we invade London>>

I knew I misplaced the YWS HQ. Was looking for it on Mars.

Woo!

I was actually thinking of challenging myself to decrease the number of works with no reviews by a page yesterday. I suppose this is the best time to start then!

That's awesome Nate!
I only have one question, what about portfolios and stuff? Don't worry about it, I'm just a little curious!


I'll totally have to work on reviews... I haven't been a very good example.

SparkOfDoubt wrote:That's awesome Nate!
I only have one question, what about portfolios and stuff? Don't worry about it, I'm just a little curious!

Sorry I didn't mention it! Portfolios will be coming back.

By December 21, the profiles should be basically what you remember from the old YWS. You'll have the wall as now, the info section, the portfolio, and gifts. But, two things will be different.

For one, profiles and blogs will be rolled together. This way, your profile becomes a one-stop shop. Additionally, profiles will be customizable so that you can use the same theme as your blog right now.

Secondly, and I am still thinking about this, profiles will have forums. Basically, if you want, you could create a forum on your profile to be used pretty much however you like. Thus, every profile would become a mini-site. You'd have your wall, your blog, your portfolio, and a little forum.

This could be helpful for when someone is writing a novel. So say you get a couple people to be your beta readers. You could have them leave you comments in your forum, and you could have one place to easily share everything about your novel.

Or, it could be used for something silly. I imagine that at least a few personal forums would become completely ridiculous things.

I am definitely looking forward to all this. I also now have a way to donate. So as soon as that system's back, I'm sending in my share. YWS is just awesome.

that sounds so cool! Can't wait!

Stage 3: Bring back gifts. Nate-dependent.

All it takes is faith and trust, and a little bit of pixie dust!

Question here! Will there be points awarded for people who review Art and Photography as well? It was discouraging when the new version of YWS didn't count art reviews the same as the other literary works.

Are we going to see the return of Advanced Critiques? I could just not have found it, but it seems to have completely disappeared with the advent of Apollo, and while it wasn't the most active forum, I felt it served an important niche.

Aet Lindling wrote:Are we going to see the return of Advanced Critiques?

We saved it and revamped it. And then it got hidden away.

Also, putting my weight behind Sheep's want for A&P reviews to be legit reviews again.

I'm on board. This was I can bandwagon my return alongside the reactivation of Nate.

Welcome back, Jack!