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Hi Dagny. Wow!  200 is impressive.

That kind of information is very helpful. Who knows? Maybe there's something Sol can do to automate a transfer of works like yours. Do you have an offline backup? Please say yes.

By the way, Sol's been on vacation, which is probably why he hasn't commented.

Your don't have to worry about banking information. There are too few of us left to make an automated account transfer worth doing. It would take much longer to code and test than it would for the rest of us to simply go to Booksie, open an account, and repost our work. Yours appears to be one of the exceptions because 200 is a lot.

Have you ever been able to back up your poems en masse onto a thumb drive? Just curious.

As noted in my original post, Sol hasn't made a decision as to an end date for TNBW, but he doesn't have the time to keep running both indefinitely. Unfortunately, we're not converting enough (any?) new users to replace the folks who've left, and as a result, the site is at a virtual standstill, at least as far as book chapters is concerned.

Are new poems still being posted in any significant numbers by others besides yourself?

I'll be taking over some of the admin and maintenance tasks from him in the coming weeks, but I have neither the full skills nor time to take care of the whole system. And as you may have noticed, we're not getting bug fixes or minor enhancements, to say nothing of the implementation of new features like those he's built/building for Booksie.

Right now, this is fact gathering mode. Given how similar the two systems are, the obvious place for us to go is Booksie, but there are issues that need to be addressed as discussed in this thread. Hopefully, it's just a matter of getting questions answered re how best to do things on Booksie (eg how to prevent exposure of our work to the internet since that would be a show stopper).

There is a TNBW group on Booksie that we should all join so we can find each other over there (user ids may be different). Sol's most recent post on this site (the reminder about the free year on Booksie) includes a link at the top of the thread to that group on Booksie. Be sure to add yourself as a member, otherwise you'll never find it again (it's private).

The most obvious workflow for us on Booksie is an Advanced Writers group of our own as discussed in this thread. I'm trying to work out the details of how and whether that will work, and a list of issues/questions I can take to Sol.

Please keep your feedback coming.

Yikes! I have a note in to Sol about this.

I messaged him this morning. No answer yet. I have his email address, so I'll try that next.

Can anyone tell me if it's possible to create a group/house in Booksie that is essentially public but with a requirement for a moderator's permission to join? According to the on-screen instructions for setting the Access field (where you make a house either public or private), public access means you don't need a moderator's permission to join, so I chose private. Once I clicked the button to actually create the house, it took me to my own home page (no confirmation screen), but I'm neither a member of the new house (assuming it even got created), nor can I find/access it in any way. I named it "Under Construction". It's just not visible.

Thanks
Dirk

My old English teacher always had a cup of "coffee" too. So much became clear once we realized what else was in it. Apparently he liked to mix in a little sauce. Must have had a large supply left over from Thanksgiving dinner. :-)

I'll talk to Sol; see if I can get some clarity on Facebook integration. The member agreement is very clear that they do not share anyone's writing, except for things like title and, if I remember correctly, snippets to promote our work. Common sense says he's not going to grab working titles and random text from incomplete novels. If he did, just put a curse word in the working title.

Booksie has a number of ways to promote our work; even so, no AI (or person) is going to be smart enough to grab the right snippet from our work without us in the loop. There has to be a step in there where we declare something ready to be advertised and what to advertise. If we never complete that step, then Booksie wouldn't be able to grab anything.

Jack, MJ,

I got the same impression as both of you, but an Advanced Writers group on Booksie with a little bit of gatekeeping would give us continued access to each other and (one hopes) to other experienced writers who can replace all the folks we lost here.

Send a PM to Sol. I don't know if he expected requests to go to this thread.

To avoid having to deal with elitism complaints, I suggest the Advanced Writers group be open to anyone to join but that we document expectations of group members in the group's description and forum. We may get people who join without regard for the expectations, but we can always remind them on a case-by-case basis. That's a lot easier than having to review applications and applicants' writings. The honor system.

Bill, what do you think?

By the way, I just discovered that Booksie has a lot more groups/houses already in existence than I realized. I was looking in the wrong place. To see all of them, click Houses at the top right and then click on the All Houses tab. I didn't see the TNBW group there, probably because it's private.

I just went through the existing groups. Looks like it could use a cleanup/purge here too.

Thanks Bill. Good point re elitism. I'm not sure how to set up an advanced writers group without at least someone weeding out unqualified writers/reviewers, though. Of course, the criteria would inevitably be part "art", which is hard to quantify.

That being said, my writing improved on TNBW because I had access to experienced writers to trade reviews with, even though my reviewing and writing skills sucked at the beginning.

A good bio seems reasonable. Samples would probably be easy (we go check their account for their writings, or they can tell us which piece(s) of writing to consider).

I joined a Facebook writer's group in Calgary recently, where I had to give reasons why I wanted to be part of that group. I rattled off a list of 8-10 reasons why I'd be a good fit/contributor and how I hope to benefit. I don't know how many people reviewed it, but I got in. Clearly they have low standards.

One thing about the TNBW group in Booksie is that we are down to a small number of active users who might join that group. Over time, as members of the TNBW group fall away through natural attrition, we would need to add new members to that group in order for the group to remain useable to us.

Booksie, as far as I remember, only allows you to post your writing to one group. If we decide to post to the TNBW group, then that's the only place we can post our work unless we duplicate the written work in two places (i.e., as if we were writing two distinct books). Technically doable, but it stinks as a workflow.

In order to find/encourage advanced writers to join a group with us, it probably makes more sense to create another group for advanced writers (who do quality reviews, or at least try). Call it Advanced Writers and perhaps require permission to join. I suspect every TNBW member would also become a member of an Advanced Writers group and then we post our writing to Advanced Writers only. Keeps out the younglings until they can handle a lightsaber. :-) The TNBW group then becomes a place to find each other on Booksie, not a place where you would post writing. Advanced Writers is more aptly named than TNBW in order to attract other serious writers to us.

Bill, please let me know if my understanding of Booksie as described above correct. Is an Advanced Writers group with a need to request permission to join a good way to go? Thanks

Got him. Thanks, Bill.