And to add, I completely understand what you're saying about accessibility but for some people, chat is not accessible. They can't lurk well -- their name shows up on the side. And while, sure, they can make up some random handle, that defeats the purpose of lurking if the people who are actively chatting see that there's some random person there not saying anything. It makes them uncomfortable. For some people, it's less anxiety-inducing to go to a forum, lurk a few days and read the posts, get a feel for the posters, etc and then start participating without the pressure, real or not, to post.
The point about the expiration dates of posts on a DW/LJ comm is a very important one. They drop off your reading page, people forget about them. They drop off the front page of the main community page, no one will ever know it was ever brought up. It takes a certain kind of person to click previous entries and some people will never do that because if they don't see something of interest of them on the front page, they'll assume it's not there even if it was brought up 40 entries ago.
With a forum, that barrier is gone. I know it doesn't seem like it to people used to chat transcripts/archives or DW/LJ communities but the fan communities who cluster (or at least regularly use) a forum model, will know the lay of the land. They will search for old threads. If old threads are updated, people will know that because the timestamp of the last reply will say so. Or they can just click the "new posts" button and it will pull up all the threads that have been updated since their last visit and they will go through and read the ones most pertinent to them. If there are posts that are important, they can be pinned/stickied.
And for something like a forum, I understand that people-power may be an issue... but I can't see that a Fanlore forum would start out with a lot of people and it probably wouldn't expand at that fast a rate. TBH, you would probably only need 1, maybe 2, (experienced) mods to start with, who'd do the regular maintenance of moving threads, merging them, splitting, etc. with the understanding that if disputes come up within the content of the forum, they could then bring it to the attention of the committee who could send someone to mediate.
(I say "experienced" because that would make it easier on y'all in terms of hitting the ground running but enthusiasm trumps all. Someone with no forum modding experience who'd be interested in doing so because they love Fanlore and want to see it bring new people in? That will carry them through the time it takes to learn the software -- which might not even take that long depending on the volunteer -- and would make them a better candidate than someone who has tons of modding experience but would only check up on the forums once a month. That's no good either.)
(sorry for the late comment!)
And to add, I completely understand what you're saying about accessibility but for some people, chat is not accessible. They can't lurk well -- their name shows up on the side. And while, sure, they can make up some random handle, that defeats the purpose of lurking if the people who are actively chatting see that there's some random person there not saying anything. It makes them uncomfortable. For some people, it's less anxiety-inducing to go to a forum, lurk a few days and read the posts, get a feel for the posters, etc and then start participating without the pressure, real or not, to post.
The point about the expiration dates of posts on a DW/LJ comm is a very important one. They drop off your reading page, people forget about them. They drop off the front page of the main community page, no one will ever know it was ever brought up. It takes a certain kind of person to click previous entries and some people will never do that because if they don't see something of interest of them on the front page, they'll assume it's not there even if it was brought up 40 entries ago.
With a forum, that barrier is gone. I know it doesn't seem like it to people used to chat transcripts/archives or DW/LJ communities but the fan communities who cluster (or at least regularly use) a forum model, will know the lay of the land. They will search for old threads. If old threads are updated, people will know that because the timestamp of the last reply will say so. Or they can just click the "new posts" button and it will pull up all the threads that have been updated since their last visit and they will go through and read the ones most pertinent to them. If there are posts that are important, they can be pinned/stickied.
And for something like a forum, I understand that people-power may be an issue... but I can't see that a Fanlore forum would start out with a lot of people and it probably wouldn't expand at that fast a rate. TBH, you would probably only need 1, maybe 2, (experienced) mods to start with, who'd do the regular maintenance of moving threads, merging them, splitting, etc. with the understanding that if disputes come up within the content of the forum, they could then bring it to the attention of the committee who could send someone to mediate.
(I say "experienced" because that would make it easier on y'all in terms of hitting the ground running but enthusiasm trumps all. Someone with no forum modding experience who'd be interested in doing so because they love Fanlore and want to see it bring new people in? That will carry them through the time it takes to learn the software -- which might not even take that long depending on the volunteer -- and would make them a better candidate than someone who has tons of modding experience but would only check up on the forums once a month. That's no good either.)