Pony request: books on watercooler and fanfare front page

March 14, 2019 3:11 PM

So on the side bar of fanfare when you scroll down you have recently added movies and recently added tv shows but no recently added books, could books be added? Also- fanfare watercooler shows the most active discussions in TV, Movies, podcasts, classic tv and classic movies but no books? could that be added? If there's some sort of reason why not that's fair, but It would be nice to have an easier way of finding the latest book discussions.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis to Feature Requests at 3:11 PM (8 comments total)

This is in the works! We're trying to finish up a polish pass on a new FanFare front page right now, and that includes among other things incorporating Books into the standard set of media shown on the front page.

We're not actively working on changes to the Watercooler at the moment because the new front page is built around the same content and concepts and may essentially be supplanting it entirely. But in the long run if we find it's useful to keep it around as its own thing we'd definitely get the whole media spectrum incorporated.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:13 PM on March 14, 2019 [4 favorites]

Oh good to know!
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 3:14 PM on March 14, 2019 [1 favorite]

We're trying to finish up a polish pass on a new FanFare front page right now

hey mister, you got room that boat for this pony?
posted by fleacircus at 3:29 PM on March 14, 2019

Handling episode ranges more flexibly like that is an interesting idea but my gut feeling is also a fiddly addition to work out in what is already a kinda fiddly workflow. I'll keep it in mind as something to chew on but in the short term at least I think it's a lot more likely to work to just make a full-season post and then get specific in the text of the post that this one's focusing on a given subset of the season, etc.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:35 PM on March 14, 2019

Is there more information about FanFare somewhere that I'm missing? I've looked in the FAQs and the Wiki, but the Wiki doesn't mention books, except as optionally being included with movies or TV. I'm confused about clubs, whether there needs to be any kind of structure, if a proposed club could be very open-ended, or if members are somehow notified about new posts. I think I've joined some clubs, but am not sure, and don't know how to find out. It looks like a book post needs a specific title, but I think I've seen a post or two about a book series. I'd actually like to start a FanFare discussion of some kind (post or club) about various series of a specific author, think I'd probably be breaking rules, but don't really know.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 4:58 PM on March 14, 2019

oooh, is that a video game pony I hear trotting this way?
posted by exogenous at 4:59 PM on March 14, 2019 [1 favorite]

If there's a post for a club you're in, it'll show up in My Fanfare. There isn't any notification. It can be nice to have some structure for reading books, to give people time to aquire and read them on their on schedule, but be ready to talk on a certain day.
posted by Margalo Epps at 9:08 PM on March 14, 2019 [1 favorite]

I'd actually like to start a FanFare discussion of some kind (post or club) about various series of a specific author, think I'd probably be breaking rules, but don't really know.

I talked to the mods about something similar because Star Trek discussions naturally cross show lines sometimes. Here's what cortex told me, in his own words:

Thu, Feb 8, 2018, 10:53 AM

to admin, me
Heya! Interesting question. I think the two best answers from among those proposals (and I don't have an alternate better suggestion) are:

3. FanFare Talk. There's a visibility issue there, but if you have folks already interested in a topic and/or looking at FanFare a lot, there'll be some takers. Mentioning it in a comment in a couple relevant existing threads would also help there.

4. In a show-specific thread, with clear description of what the threads about. This is okay to do; we designed in the possibility for intentional duplication on things like episodes, seasons, etc so folks can choose when it makes sense to spin up another thread on the same nominal categorical scope.

Obviously its okay if it happens on the blue by chance, but that's chance.

I don't see a "cross-show" flag thing happening because that's adding systemic complexity for a pretty niche issue; hacking around it manually through description seems like a better fit over all.

So, either way, by all means have at it.

So, there you have it: as long as you are very clear in your initial post about what properties may be discussed (and therefore what spoilers are fair game), you can use either Fanfare or Fanfare Talk for this kind of thing. I generally opt for Fanfare Talk, but that's an arbitrary choice on my part.

Please, join us. :)
posted by mordax at 12:57 PM on March 15, 2019 [2 favorites]