[TBCCrew]

Today, The Basilisk Cafe celebrates the seventh anniversary of it's founding, which - as a few of us will remember - began as a small, dedicated gathering of Tom Riddle fans at the erstwhile Gryffindor Tower's forums, back in the summer of 2002. Since then, we've grown from a single thread to an LJ Community, to our own forums and eventually to our own domain, and watched as the series that brought us all together has come to an end. An end that's now two years in the past, and ever since then the activity levels in the HP fandom have slowed to a trickle. So, in a fitting parallel with our favourite school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, it seems that after seven years, now would be a good time to bring this phase of our lives to an end, and to look to a new beginning.

After long discussions between the members of the TBC Crew, we've decided that over the course of the coming weeks, The Basilisk Cafe will cease operating as a dedicated Harry Potter fansite - and for anyone having flashbacks to our 2008 April Fools' joke, we are serious this time. Our plan is to become a more wide-reaching, multi-fandom site, while still focussing on those dark and brooding characters on the fringes of the fandom. In many ways, this seems to be a natural evolution of the site's original goals, as we will remain a place for fans with a taste for characters with a darker side to them - we'll just be adding characters like Heroes' Sylar or Star Wars' Anakin Skywalker, alongside the Slytherin ranks we've represented for so long.

As the first part of this new expansion, we've expanded the ranks of the TBC Crew with two new Moderators, so please give your congratulations to long-time members blackfaerie11 and Scheherazade - we may look to enlarge the Crew further as the process goes on. We've also upgraded our forum software, as the old forums were starting to creak slightly with age, and started the process of updating our site's content to reflect our new multi-fandom status, and will be rolling out modified versions of many site areas over the coming weeks while the forums and fanwork archives are reorganised. As you'd expect, we'll also be having one of our contests shortly after the transition to our new multi-fandom incarnation is complete, to celebrate our re-opening.

Now, for the part where we'd like your input - while we'll be opening our doors to all fandoms great and small, we're planning to select a few fandoms to examine in detail, rather than just throwing everything into a melting pot together. Obviously, Harry Potter will remain a focus for us, and we've already re-opened the 'Bookshelves & Broomsticks' forum as first of these 'featured fandoms' - you'll notice that all book and movie discussions are now held in the one forum, with a separate subforum, 'The House of Gaunt', for discussions of Tom Riddle and his Slytherin allies. We'll also be looking to have a similar setup for 3-4 other key fandoms when the relaunch is complete, each of which will have a dedicated forum and fanwork category of their own. There's also a general fandom category already in place, 'The Meltingpot', where discussions for any other fandoms will be kept.

You've probably already guessed what's coming next - we'd like to get the input of our members before we make a decision on which fandoms to select as our initial offering. Please make any suggestions - anything at all, no matter how out-of-the-box - either here in the forums, on this post's twin over on the LJ Community, or even by dropping the Crew an email. We'll be looking at everyone's suggestions, and selecting a few of the most popular to be our first main fandoms. If your favourite isn't selected as one of the initial few, don't be disheartened, as these 'featured' fandoms are not, and will never be, fixed - we'll add additional forums as time goes on for fandoms who generate enough discussion to warrant one of their own, so there's always a chance for new fandoms to come to prominence.

Any thoughts, reactions, or (hopefully) excited squealing regarding today's announcement can also be sent in the same way, and we'd love to hear what you think about the change in general, as well as your opinions on the fandoms you'd like to see selected. So, GTDEs one and all, it's over to you...

~ The TBC Crew ~

[bragg247]

So, to kick off the grand fandom debate, I'll offer some of the fandoms I'd like to see appear in the Fandom Discussions category... A couple of fandoms that are already reasonably well represented around here are Heroes and the Whoniverse (Doctor Who/Torchwood) - both of these have had active threads on the forums in the past, and I'm aware of at least a couple of existing members who watch them both... They've also got a range of interesting characters to discuss - both villains and otherwise - which is certainly something in their favour. Two others that aren't as well-followed here, but might be an option, would be Lost and the Marvel Universe - which would cover the likes of Spiderman, X-Men, etc...

Wearing my Admin hat, I think Lost is probably an unlikely one to get the nod - I'm not aware of anyone else that's still watching it, and with the show ending within the next year it's hardly a long-term choice - but I figured there's no harm in raising the idea. ;)

~bragg247

[Sapphire]

Well, I'd put up Supernatural as a choice. It has a good size fandom following and while there has been mention in the past of season 5 being the last, a good portion of the cast has said they'd love to do more seasons.

I also second the Heroes and Whoverse votes. XD

[Scheherazade]

I second Supernatural!

[TBCCrew]

Since the better part of a week has seen no response from anyone outside the Crew, we've decided to proceed with opening forums for a few of our early choices, which you'll now be able to view on the main forum list... To begin with, we've gone with three new fandoms in addition to HP - Heroes, Supernatural, and the Doctor Who Universe, which were three fandoms we know have a small following here already, which hopefully we can open up to a wider membership. As we said before, this selection isn't fixed, so if you're still hoping to see your favourite fandom promoted to a forum of their own, the best way forward is to make sure it's active and visible here on the forums. But for now, the new forum list for the Fandom category is below:

Quote

Bookshelves & Broomsticks - Our new, merged HP forum, containing discussion of the books, movies, merchandise and more.
> The House of Gaunt - For discussion of Tom Riddle and his Slytherin allies.
Activating Evolution - Dedicated to NBC's Heroes, this forum can be used to discuss the show and
> Screw the Cheerleader, Screw the World! - A tongue-in-cheek name for a forum dedicated to those who aren't interested in saving anybody...
The Roadhouse - Named after the popular meeting place, all discussion of The CW's Supernatural should be brought here.
> The 66 Seals - Unlock the seals, to unleash the demons within.
From Tardis to Torchwood - The realm of the BBC's Doctor Who universe, comprising both the parent show and it's two spinoffs, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures.
> Cybermen, Sontarans & Daleks... oh, my! - With this many enemies, how does the Doctor dare get out of bed in the morning?
The Melting Pot - A forum for all fandoms, so bring any discussion you like here - from comics and cartoons to movies and literary fodder.
> Into the Fire - Finally, a place to chat about the villains found in the other fandoms and fictions discussed in The Melting Pot.

We've also started the process of updating our site content to reflect the new multi-fandom era - our homepage has already been changed, to both add a new description of the site and to add a widget showing our brand-new Twitter feed, and our FAQ and Links pages have received similar enhancements. Supplications has been converted into a letters page for all your favourite Dark Lords, and has a new address as a result - supplications@thebasiliskcafe.net, which can be used to send letters in anytime you like. In the coming days and weeks, look for more updated pages, and also some new icons and other features to be added. All in all, keep an eye out - changes are very much afoot...

~ The TBC Crew ~

[bragg247]

Well, now that the new forums are available, I wonder which of them will hit 100 posts first? (It's a small milestone, but there you go...) The Whoniverse has the edge so far, but that's mainly because they started with a bigger thread anyway... :lol:

~bragg247

[TBCCrew]

The conversion program continues it's relentless march, as we've now updated the Fanwork Archive to reflect our multi-fandom status... We've added new categories for each of our four featured fandoms in both fanart and fanfic flavours, as well as categories for Other Fandoms and Crossovers. All the old HP-based fanwork is still available in the new Harry Potter category, which is reorganised slightly - the old Tom Riddle-centric categories have been merged into more general ones, based on when your fanwork is set - while all the old GTDE-related fics remain in the 'GTDE Universe' categories. Now, of course, we're just looking for someone to help fill them! Look for a new multi-fandom contest in the near future, and of course the return of the Monthly Challenge is due in... oh, a few hours?

~ The TBC Crew ~