The Future of Shur'tugal Options

[Mike]

Please note that at this point, nothing is set in stone.  Ideas and goals discussed in this post are subject to change going forward.

A major problem with single purpose fan driven websites is in their name - single purpose.  In order for a website to be entertaining, captivating and successful, it needs to be a continual source of knowledge and updates.  For the past five years, Shur'tugal has fit into the stereotypical fan site mold - endless pages of static content and the occasional news (whenever we get it).  This leads to a boring, stale website that offers little incentive to its visitors to come back more than once every week or two.

So how can this be changed?  Over the next month, Shur'tugal will be shifting in an entirely new direction.  Below, our new design philosophy and structure has been spread out for you guys - our visitors - to pick through, understand, and think about.  At this point, no idea is entirely set in stone.  Feedback as well as constructive criticism from all of our visitors and staff is more than welcome.

Static Content - Problem
Shur'tugal's amazing team of content staffers has worked tirelessly over the past few months to update Shur'tugal's old, stale content into relevant, interesting-to-read entries to inform our curious visitors.  Unfortunately, once a content page is updated, it receives little to no attention until the next book is released.  Additionally, few visitors find reason to read a content page more than once or twice, making them less of an ideal focus for the website.

Static Content - Solution
Many Shur'tugal visitors are unaware that we have our own Inheritance Wikipedia, dubbed the Inheritance Encyclopedia or PIE (Project Inheritance Encyclopedia).  We're going to shift all of our current content over to our Inheritance Wiki which will do a number of things for the site: our Wiki, a great tool for sharing a collective and extensive amount of Inheritance knowledge, will receive the deserved attention; our old content will not go wasted - by porting it over to the Wiki, it will still get the same or more views than before; visitors to Shur'tugal will now be able to help shape and contribute to our informative section, filling gaps we may have left or pushing our content in a better direction.

Inheritance News - Problem
Shur'tugal has always been the leading source for Inheritance news.  We have provided the news on our main page for five years now in the same typical fashion as every fan site has in the past: we post it when we get it and leave it at that.  While we post news whenever we can and provide it as accurate as possible, it sometimes is not enough.  We're often left with weeks at a time of no news which leaves us with unhappy visitors and little to do behind the scenes.

Inheritance News - Solution
Shur'tugal will continue to be the leading source for Inheritance news and information, however, we will be shifting our focus away from static content entries and monthly news articles more toward a friendly, interactive 'blog' website featuring news, columns, commentary and more.  The front page content we will provide is as follows:

• News - we will continue to provide the best Inheritance news on the internet, however, we will be faster at posting it and offer more insight into the news
• Columns - we will be bringing on a wide staff of writers to offer opinions, commentary, speculation and theorycrafting in the form of daily, weekly and monthly columns and editorials, all featured on the front page of Shur'tugal.
  
  • Our current columns include the following: - News: Insight, Opinions and Commentary
    - Book Reviews and Recommendations: more on this below*
    - FAQ Column: visitors submit questions to be answered by our staff
    - Theories: multiple authors will come together to explore and analyze a wide range of popular (and lesser-known) theories to engage visitors
    - Fan Submissions: this column will highlight fan work, including fan art, fan poems and fan fiction
    - Inheritance Forum Happenings: Insight into what's going on at our official forums, including the latest popular threads
    - Visitor-written Columns and Editorials: Shur'tugal visitors will be offered the unique opportunity of writing their own editorials to be featured on the main page of Shur'tugal

Other New Features

• Shurtycast - Though we've said it many times now, we mean it this time - Shurtycast will be coming back in a new form.  Our goal is to produce shorter episodes that are more time and work efficient.  Our focus will be on Brisingr and news discussion as well as a bit of our goofing off, reminiscent of how the show was way-back-when.
• Newsletter - We're bringing on a dedicated team to head our monthly newsletter.  The newsletter will offer recaps on the biggest stories and columns of the month as well as work as a news alert feature for big announcements, such as book title and release date announcements.
• Comments - Our comments system will be undergoing an entire overhaul.  Users will likely be required to register in order to comment, however, registration will be free, fast and easy and require no personal information other than an email address.

New Sister Site - Name TBD
We will be launching a sister website to Shur'tugal, part of our new network of blogs incorporating Shur'tugal and the new website.  The new website will provide the latest and biggest fantasy series news for both books and movies, including popular as well as lesser-known and new stories and series.  The site will also feature a wide range of book and movie reviews including the latest and greatest as well as book recommendations for those looking for new books to read (or avoid).

A weekly column on Shur'tugal will sum up the best book reviews of the week from the new website for Shur'tugal viewers to check out.

We invite everyone to stop by to let us know their thoughts and any feedback, constructive criticism or ideas of your own that you may have to contribute. Remember, nothing is set in stone - you can still help us shape the future of Shur'tugal.

[Guest_Guest_Faolin_*_*]

Thanks Mike the site improvements sound really good and should really help with the change of style site of Shurtugal

[erag0n23]

Would it help if you changed the address of the Wiki? I can't remember what it's at.

[Lawrie]

http://www.shurtugal.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Main_Page
Thats the wiki. We may need a more memorable name...
Anyway. This should be fun and should help with the future of Shurtugal as a site.

[Vincent]

Would it help if you changed the address of the Wiki? I can't remember what it's at.

There is a link on the main page or Shurtugal.

[erag0n23]

It's easier to go straight to it though, instead of remembering a long address or going through Shur'tugal.

[Vincent]

Just put this http://shurtugal.com/encyclopedia as the URL, its much faster.

[Ceylon Orange Pe...]

I personally propose you kill shurtugal and focus on the sister site when it is released. Along with that you should change IF to coincide with the new site along with it's name to move it to it's third itteration.

[Mike]

I personally propose you kill shurtugal and focus on the sister site when it is released. Along with that you should change IF to coincide with the new site along with it's name to move it to it's third itteration.

This is not an idea I'm interested in exploring. I've been with the Inheritance Cycle far too long to call it quits just because I'm interested in starting up another potentially popular website. While this new website will carry Inheritance Cycle news, it will only carry the most important news of it all - release dates, book titles, and release coverage. Shur'tugal will provide what it always has - a personal and in-depth look as well as coverage for the Inheritance Cycle. Closing down the site which means a lot to many people would just be awful.

As far as the forums go, I wasn't intending on having any forums for this new website. I don't really see a need for forums on a blog/news/media source website. Any and all discussion that will/should be happening would take place in our news comments, which is exactly where we would want it because they would be comments directly related to our reviews, editorials and news. Some people disagree with me on this view so it is obviously still an idea I'm exploring.

Thanks for your feedback though.

[tom1]

I tried putting this as a comment on the blog, but I kept getting an error, so here is my idea.

Why not do a weekly or monthly 'Featured Fan Fic'?
I.E. on the front page, have a link to a fan fic, and a breif description of it. And, if a fan fic has been featured, it could get a badge by its name on the forums to show this.

[Mike]

We are, it's listed under the columns as: "- Fan Submissions: this column will highlight fan work, including fan art, fan poems and fan fiction"

[Tom.]

Good ideas...

[Guest_Guest_Argetlam_*_*]

Mike I have a question . The idea of Log-ins is very good but what if we forgot our password , we would have no way of contacting you because we would then be locked out ? Do you have a way of stopping that ?

[Mike]

It'll function just like any website. There will be a "forget your password?" option which will email your password to you.

[i2enegade]

A forums would be good, but only if the Website is as popular as Shurty.