Malorndk:
I spend all day browsing old threads trying to get Word of Hashut back on track. Some simple thoughts from all that reading.
The Boss
Do do an E-zine, you need one tech savy person, with a lot of time on their hand and a lot of drive! So many people have underestimated the workload or to put bluntly: Out of all our talented, dedicated players, only Willmark in his CDO prime managed to reliably be this guy. We do not need someone who can do a bit of this and that. We need a Willmarkesque power house of a dedicated project manager. Collaboration is good and all, but after 5 hours fiddling with a margin that just won’t do what you want it to, no collaboration will save the project only extremely, frustrating, tech heavy, grunt work. Another old reflection from Willmark: This is workweeks worth of hours with very little reward. Surely the community loves the final product, but community love will not be worth the sacrifice required to project manage an E-zine.
The Timeline of CDO
Looking through this forums timeline it is clear that CDO has existed in different realities, closely bound to decisions made by Games-Workshop.
The old age (2007-2012): The forum focussed on the spreading the word of the forgotten race, focusing on the members converting entire armies out of suitable miniature and especially BFSP starter set. We grasped for mentionings in the GW fluff. We made our own art, army books, fluff and rules. The creativity at the time was a prerequisite to being an active member, unless you happened to buy a big hat army. Word of Hashut thrived in these days due to the grassroot nature of CDO. Spreading our lore, conversions, fluff and rules drew in new members that wanted to build their own armies.
Tamurkhan times (2012-late 2015): We got minis. We got rules. We got fluff. This was all dandy and good, and it sparked a lot of rivaling companies to sell Dawi Zharr minis, which we all profitted from. But it also took away some ingenuity and creativity. We still had great armyblogs, content creators, contest and rule writters, but it felt different, as we had a unified fundation that was now Tamurkhan, instead of a mixture between White Dwarf presents: Chaos Dwarfs, Ravening Hordes and old marauder fluff. We still flourished, but the need of Word of Hashut wasn’t as big, since Tamurkhans released forced CDs into most players consciousness all over the world.
After End Times: With WFB closed by GW, the community all over the world shattered into different gamesystems. CDO still provides a common ground to discuss “evil dwarfs in fantasy wargames” but we do not have a shared fundament quite as strong as previous. Old members are mostly silent and it feels like newer members are doing their own thing, but still sharing and caring. The community is still one of the best online, even though the forum and ESPECIALLY the main page has screamed for updates for years. The current code used for the forum predates the smartphones. Word of Hashut could help bind the community together and we surely has a lot to cover in terms of available miniatures, game systems and fluff.
Conclusion: The time is ripe for an E-zine, and lots of content is right in front of us. But the required know how to make an E-zine would probably be better put to used into securing CDO a place in the future. I’m not advocating change for the sake of change, but we need to solve the login problem, think about smartphone compatibility and figure out how to make this olden and golden forum competitive with the fast paced social media age. I can see many pros myself, but we need a steady flow of new members to secure longevity, and login troubles and ancient main site is a hard buy in. I’m not saying one thing stops the other. Word of Hashut can be made while stuff is getting done on the site, but both are big tasks that requires specific tech skills. If someone has the tools to make WoH a reality, but wouldn’t know the first thing about phb, then I’m all for.
The Contributions
Every former WoH organizer has said somewhat the same line about: People are all telling me they want to contribute, but very little actually shows up on time, or even at all, after multiple deadlines. People overestimates their productivity, and I can only cover about 10 pages myself but we need 20 more of varied and relevant content, centered about our love for Chaos Dwarfs.
Another thing is the type of content required. While I’m sure Admiral could cover some great fluff and even a sculpting tutorial, and we probably could get some artwork out of Forgefire and (fingers crossed) Baggronnor, we would still need so much more. Game system analysis, battlereports, terrain showcase, news and rumours, bloodbowl bits and so forth.
I know I’m repeating myself by now, so to summarize: I will not stop anyone trying, but so many have tried before you, and I expect the next WoH will require a dedicated member with all the necessary skills, to chestpump publicly on the forum, take responsibility, set a deadline and then work his ass off for weeks on end. Not impossible, but surely a lot to expect from anyone.