So if you were looking for a furry webzine...

[chipotle]

...what would you be looking for?

Purely theoretically, of course.

(If anyone you know might be interested in answering this, please send them over. As with all polls, the more data points the better.)

[Poll #320673]

Comments

[aureth.livejournal.com]

I did something like this a few years ago with Fuzzy Logic. It was fun, although getting content was a bit difficult.

Something like Strange Horizons' format with a bit of a furry slant would be pretty cool, I think.

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

It's also be nice if comments could be posted on artwork/stories, much like Elfwood does.

User rating of offsite content has the danger of turning into a Something Awful hit-team.

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

Well, for the "rated list" I was imagining something where people could submit links and then vote on a 1-5 (or whatever) scale, without the ability to leave comments on those links. And, for that to happen, the site would have to have user accounts, and people could only rate a given link once.

I think the idea of such a list has some value -- sort of a more active, community-maintained equivalent to Miavir's story index. But, I suspect to really avoid the problem you're talking about, submitted links would have to be vetted by an editor before they appeared, so links whose only value would be mockability would never get on the page.

As for comments on stories, yes, it'd be quite possible -- I'd be expecting to start with weblog software like Textpattern (http://www.textpattern.com) and twist it to my own ends, but it's designed with the assumption of each post being a weblog entry with comments. On the flip side, I don't know if it's better to have the comments right there at the ends of stories (or pictures) or to have a more traditional web forum. (Of course, the two aren't mutually exclusive.)

I have to admit...

[dbcooper.livejournal.com]

A very good part of the reason I would like to see something like this is that I would deeply enjoy the chance to contribute. Not all of my stories read like "Laserwolf Goes for the Gold," after all. ;)

And that's also part of the reason I favor payment for contributors, naturally. Call it moderately enlightened self-interest.

If there's anything I can do to help, let me know. I'm not really hurting for time right now.