Howdy folks. As most of you know, in the early-mid part of last year there was an attempt to bring back the old Multiverse Monitor; this was... moderately successful. Sure, the Monitor is established as a thing again, but as actual issues go we turned out two and then everybody dropped off the face of the earth. With a total dryup of available staff and content, the whole thing went kaput.
That was, as they say, rather a downer. So recently I've been talking to Lily Winterwood about options for getting that whole thing back on its feet, and well hey, there was quite a bit of Boarder enthusiasm for it in the past so we figured we should poll the community and see what they think for making HQ's newsletter more of a presence. The way I see it, we have at least three options:
First, we just get right back to putting out monthly issues like in April and May, same general format and idea. This is simple on the face of it, but comes with a number of problems that would need to be addressed: first, we need a reliably active base of staff to actually put together stories and content every month, as well as someone who knows photoshop and design stuff well enough to assemble the final version for those times Lily is unavailable. This isn't necessarily permanent staff, people can rotate in and out as they have time to contribute, but we need to have at least a few people who will be reliably active and involved. We also need to tackle the issue (heh!) of lack of content; most months, not a lot happens on the Board and not a lot new gets published very often, so if we stick just to meta news we're going to run dry again - to counteract this, I'm open to any suggestions on recurring features people might have, and also on uneventful months I'm considering making up stories that would be newsworthy in-setting and giving them an appropriately journalistic treatment. Would people be okay with this? This is the trickiest option because of the need for active staff on hand (not terribly many, but this isn't a two-person job) and a source of content, but I feel it'd be the most fun and do a lot for worldbuilding stuff.
The second option is that we only actually make a whole issue when some major event happens, be it an Emergency, a big RP or story, some kind of milestone... you get the gist. Like how the first 2013 issue was pretty much all about the Blackout. Content would go on and the assumption would be there that in-setting the Monitor is still putting out issues every month, but what we're seeing under this option are essentially highlights. We'd still need a core of staffers willing to put together content for the issues when we make them, but it's less of a sink than the first option.
Thirdly is the simplest option: we axe the actually-compiling-issues part of Monitor stuff and ramp up a focus on writing stories featuring the Monitor staff, make their presence felt more in RPs and such, etc. I've been planning to write Monitor stories anyway, and of course that stuff's pretty much fair game anyhow, so that part of the option can really combine with either of the other two, but if people feel the MM's just more trouble than it's worth then there's this to fall back on.
It's possible (probable?) I've left some possibilities out or failed to consider others, but these seem the most doable off the top of my head. Still, most of these choices won't work out without the community's involvement, so I thought I'd see what people thought worth pursuing and if anybody's still willing to help out. Look forwards to hearing from all of you. :P