Resurrect this Guild!!!

[Feanorian]

Hello Everyone. I think its time we bring some life back into this guild...either that or we might as well break up seeing how no one has even posted in almost a month and it was probably another time of equal length before that. Is anyone with me?! Respond here if you want to join or are an exsisting member and want to get this guild back on the right track.

In hopes of bringing the Guild back to life,
Feanorian

[Beleg]

Checking in.

[Maedhros]

Sad really that the guild has come to such a state.

[Elfarmari]

I am very much interested in bringing our guild back to life. Unfortunately, my internet browser at home is not working properly and will not open this web site. This means that until that is fixed, I can only visit when I have time at school. When I can, though, I will try to be active!

[Inderjit S]

The guild really began to fall apart since about November though the seeds were sown with the departures of Nom and ithrynluin back in April-June time. Personally I see little point in posting a topic here when one can easily get more replies in various book sections.

GoT has several interesting 'sections' and 'projects'. GoT is far larger then this guild though, and can establish guildish hegemony over GoS. ;) Maybe you can become a sub-fora under GoT?

[Beleg]

In my poor opinion, dissolving the guild is a better option then becoming a sub-fora.

[Inderjit S]

But surely it would be better for you to exist then to not exist at all? Or would it be better for you to not exist then for you to exist merely as a sub-fora?

[Nóm]

For the most part there wasn't any real direction among most members.

Second, hardly anyone could even say what they want to 1) get out of the guild 2) give to the Guild 3) do as a group... either for the book forums as a whole or some project confined only to the guild forever.

Really... I wonder why people want to be in guilds that do nothing. You guys have a lot of talent and knowledge in this guild and could do some cool project, or do stuff for the book forums here at TTF... could do whatever you want.

I think one of the biggest problems with lazy guilds (see OiE for an example of this! They have been mostly inactive much longer than GoS has) is that very few people really take the initiative, and when they do they get little or no real replies of substance (versus "Hey I'm hear and willing" and "yes, lets get busy!") This can really put the person off, and make one wonder: Why are you even in this guild? In fact... why am I?

But my outsider opinion is that it wouldn't be a good idea to become part of GoT because 1) GoT and GoS are VERY different groups. 2) If you would become active as a subguild in GoT then why not just become active here?
And I'll say: This guild never had any real direction because most members didn't even say what they wanted with the place. I opened a thread myself, and got little reply.

This is how I see it: if the group of people don't have some project(s) they want to do together the guild is pointless. If a guild does nothing but make threads which are like your typical book forum discussions - the guild is of no use.

I'll toss out some ideas though, and perhaps some of you would find them interesting or would be inspired to think of something better after hearing it:

There is a lot of Middle-earth writings published which the avergae Tolkien reader does not know about. Many things which have probably scarcely if ever been posted at this forum. I don't pretend everyone views this forum and Tolkien the way I do, but this is how I see it: The more you interest others in reading more about Tolkien, the better. The more obscure but interesting information you get out there, both to bait the people and to inform them, the better.

Now GoS has some people know a lot of stuff than most Tolkien fans do not know... Inderjit for example. GoS also has some members who know significantly less, and because of this mixture of knowledge levels (which makes for different points of views regarding HoME), you guys could (in theory) put together things that give interesting but not well known information and tell people where to go get more of it.

I think a lot who start HoME don't finish it or find it overwhelming. But this is important here: Getting the right information before hand can make a world of difference. Heck, get together and write out a description of the contents of each HoME book, but don't write it out in some technical or dry way *such things must already exist) write this out the way someone who has only just read LotR, or maybe The Silmarillion too, would want it told to them... and toss in interesting bits related stuff they might have wondered abut after reading those books, and to this bearing in mind those frequently asked questions and topics. Write it like you'd casually chat with a friend, or even speak enthusiasticly to a child (but without dumbing it down of course) not like you'd turn in for ummm one of those PhD thesis things ;). People who know the stuff can write it with the valuable opinion of those less learned, and with their input and suggestions.

Then there is some more basic stuff you guys could do... you could write your own essays like GoT does. Essays are great because they can be of ANy sort... scholarly, creative, serious, humorous... and on ANY topic. You could post them here, get feedback.. then move them to the book forum.

You can come up with threads that you want to start in the book forum. You can make a list of them, pick one, get a few different people willing to really reseach it, then neaten up the information all organized and start a thread in the book forum with it. "This thread was brought to you by the Guild of Scholars" and by the way, that's probably the best advertising you can do for the place.

You could also have an RP, if some of you are into that sort of thing. Or start the guild's own poetry and songs thread.

[Inderjit S]

I have written (and I believe you have too) some concise (well for us) reviews of HoME and what each book (more or less) contains, and though it may not exactly reach levels of comedic brilliance it still gives the basic facts to each HoME book, and if people are interested in a certain thing (i.e. Dwarves) then they would pick up say, HoME 12 for 'Of Dwarves and Men', though you make a good point in saying some posts need to be more fun or humorous, I try my best to put in as many poor, unfunny jokes into my fastidious posts, though unfortunately a lack of laughs (or anything in particular) made me come to the realisation that calling Glaurung a pervert who had a fetish for Elvish women is not funny, but stupid, or is so stupid that it is funny, but isn't funny because no one laughs. ;) Anyway....

The GoT (which I have joined) has several great projects going, but they have a hell of a lot more active members then we do a.t.m.

[Elfarmari]

I've been trying to think of something to bring this guild back to life and purpose, and I was actually thinking along the same lines as Nóm. Personally, I only have the first five volumes of HoME, but I would be willing to write something about at least a few of those. We could also go with Nóm's idea of coming up with topics for threads, doing some research, and then presenting them. If some of the topics we think of are somewhat obscure, we could provide the necessary quotes so that people who do not own the complete HoME can still knowledgably participate. I know we started discussing the Book of Lost Tales, which went nowhere, but I will start by going through those and finding some things worth further discussion.

[Beleg]

Ideas and topics are no problem. I have atleast six topics thought out, with their details maped out. The only problem is to find someone who is willing to undertake the task[s].

[Elfarmari]

Ideas and topics are no problem. I have atleast six topics thought out, with their details maped out. The only problem is to find someone who is willing to undertake the task[s].
I'm going to try to research at least one or two topics this week; I'll post what I have here, and see if anyone else has thoughts or info to contribute before posting in the HoME section.

[Ardamir the Blessed]

To be honest, I don't exactly know why I joined this guild in the first place (I was formerly Herendil). I am not very interested in the debates, but if you have any interesting projects I could see what I can do, though I am busy with a few projects of my own. I guess I joined in order to feel that I am more part of the Tolkien scholar community.

Beleg posted: Ideas and topics are no problem. I have atleast six topics thought out, with their details maped out. The only problem is to find someone who is willing to undertake the task[s]. I actually have more than 200 topics stored in a document :), most are not very good though, I think. I think I will post them so that anyone can start threads about them. Whoever does it doesn't matter to me, what is important is that they get started.

[baragund]

Hi Guys,

I haven't taken part in this discussion up until now for a reason. Unfortunately, career and family issues have pretty much cut out my involvement with the forum for any deeply involved projects, including debating (Oh, thanks Beleg for your kind consideration on the next round of debates :) ).

As far as finding a purpose for our guild, Nom has the right idea. We need to offer something distinct from the rest of the forum and we need a reason for being, a Mission Statement if you will. What drew me to the guild were a couple of things:

1. I trend toward the more serious side of exploring Tolkien's writing so I appreciated the more mature tone of the discussions here.
2. I was rather daunted by the size of this forum when I first joined and being a member of a small group-within-a-group helped me to 'find my feet' in the forum. I chose GoS over the Tolkienologists specifically for this reason.

Perhaps if all of us review what drew us to GoS in the first place we may find some common themes and, from them, develop (or reaffirm) the purpose of the guild's existence.

Meanwhile, I'm going to put my money where my mouth is and start a thread here on a topic that I don't believe is being discussed elsewhere in the forum (at least not recently).

[Beleg]

go on Baragund. :)