Did We Still Want A Main Site?

I can't find the thread, but I remember saying that since our site people have vanished that I could try making the site. This was quite awhile ago, and I feel bad that I put it aside, but since I have a lot more free time now and the necessary tools (and more knowledge), I would really like to try my hand at making the site. The only problem of course is the content, which would take all (or at least some) of us (more than just me, in other words - I'm really not sure what all I'd contribute content-wise really). This also brings the issue of whether or not people still want the site. Personally I think it would be cool, and I know there are some people out there who still want to read Harry Potter-related articles, new ones of which have all but disappeared from Mugglenet, and the like, and that people here would have valuable things to contribute.

So what does everyone think?

It is brilliant that some of the buttons etc still work. On the whole, much as we really should have a main site the answer is no as of this moment. Because even big sites like Mugglenet or Leaky Cauldron have experienced a downturn in Harry Potter interest. At Thinkpotter it is purely comradeship which keeps us functioning at all, rather than any interest in the Harry Potter books. Do you see any comment on this site of late about the prequel JKR wrote for charity? It wasn't a bad 800 word snippet to digest. But it is real life which is the dominant interest on this site.

Take essays for example. Mugglenet, who started the whole idea of editorials, has hardly offered any new essays in the last few months. Those works that are offered are all in the fan fic/experimental writing genre. In 2006 Leaky Cauldron started Scribbulus, an essay-writing program, which led to a flood of speculation, opinion and theory which at one time would have been ideal for here. Of late, since the beginning of 2008, not only have these sorts of entries been less forthcoming, but also the editorial team who supervises quality, style and correct procedure, have been somewhat missing in action.

I hope I am wrong, and you are free to disagree, also. But these are my observations of late.

I have no idea how people would feel about this, but I thought I would put it out there: what if we had a site, but it wasn't exclusively HP related?

I think Jem makes a good point that there really isn't that much in the way of interest in HP discussion anymore, especially if we wanted to create an actual website based on it. Also, the HP boards here haven't really been used in months. On a HP site we would have, what, other than the message board? Essays and artwork? We could easily do that with more than just HP. Or maybe, if we don't want to maintain a whole site (I am assuming Sak will be a little busy when she is in Japan?) we could have a message board that is a little more relevant to what we discuss as a group today. I belonged to a general message board group once, and it was really quite fun. We wouldn't have to lose out identity as the Thinkpotterers, our site could just branch out a bit. Call it the TP Treehouse or something. It may be away to attract old members who haven't been around lately, or even possibly a few new members.

Another option would be to scale down and go permanently to an MSN or Yahoo group type format.

On reason I bring this up is because I noticed we are at 70-something% of our site capacity for this board now. (It is the pictures. But I think we like the pictures. Also, without removing entire threads, we have no current way to delete pictures.) We also seem to be having some technical problems that I am not sure any of us can fix because the people who did the actual setting up aren't really around. It might be good to find a new direction before stuff falls completely apart.

Just thoughts.