I just want to start off by finding out what direction creators want the front to take. I think that GenCon was an unqualified success and the idea seems to be well embraced, so what needs to be done to make the front stay in peoples minds.
I was trying to think of a way to bring new ashcans in during the year and build new communities. I don't know how best to put people in touch with creators outside of the con structure. Is there any desire to have others be little Ash Can Front groups at other cons? Do we want to create a way for people to buy ash cans online? Does it help us any to not be on the forge with reguard to having people find out about the games? Keeping the voices here from becoming too insulated should be a priority as well.
I want to help, but I want to know what sort of help y'all want.
These are some great questions, and honestly I just started giving them some thought.
We (the Sons of Kryos) did a interview with Mat and Paul at the end of GenCon and the questions I asked them lead me in this direction. I'd love to see the Ashcan Front at other Conventions.
I've already started selling people my Ashcan on-line, although it's via a personal arrangement made over e-mail. Part of me likes it this way because it's very personal. When the book is "fully baked" thats a different story.
As for the Forge, I am not sure about that. I'll think on it and post some time later.
Thanks for posting that Thor, we need these kind of questions.
What I want for the front-end of ashcanfront.net is a blog that would be used to promote ashcans throughout the year as designers make them available, working much the way the "Guest Artist" section of Partyka does to promote indie comics:
http://partykausa.com/2007/082407.shtml
That's why I initially chose Drupal for ashcanfront.net, because it can be a blog with forums. Unfortunately, the forums functionality leaves much to be desired. So now we're using the Vanilla forums, and I'm trying to figure out configuring them to front a category view, which I think is better suited to playtesting and feedback on the various games than an "all discussions" view. And then I'll ditch Drupal for some other blog software for the main page.
I was at the booth at Gen Con thanks to Malcolm Craig from the forge. I saw a few different games there that I was extremely interested in getting my hands on. The only problem and reason I didn't grab them right then was because they didn't take credit card, so my question now is, how can we get our hands on these really interesting and intriguing games? The two in particular I was interested in obtaining are Acts of Evil and You Brought this on yourself. Thanks for the help guys