What's going on here?

YWP folks,

Some of you may have noticed a few changes around here lately. Hope you like some of the things we've done. We are, slowly, shifting the way this site works to place more emphasis on writing and improving writing. We look forward to engaging you more in discussion of the changes, but here's what we've done so far:

• Creation of Groups. We have four new, active groups, where you can join and create a specific type of content (Click on YWP Groups here or in the left sidebar.) The groups:
  • YWP Book Club, open to all, a place to write about, converse about books, books and more books through a content type called "bookblog";
  • Narrative Writing Group, open to all, a place to specifically focus on narrative writing and a place where, on a limited basis, we will bring in professionals to workshop writing through a content type called "narrative";
  • The Grads' Space, open only to high schoolers, a place where only YWP grads and mentors can share their writing. High schoolers are welcome to read and comment. Sorry, younger students will not be permitted as some content may not be appropriate.
  • The News Room, open to everyone, a place to create news stories -- projects, reviews, opinion pieces, experiential pieces -- or to react to the news around you. GG will be spending time in this and will bring in some of his journalistic type friends to help with projects and workshops.
  • First Night, is a read- and comment-only space where we had a special performance project. This may be revived if we decide to do another performance of the work.
  • More groups are being considered by genre, special project and age group. Let us know your ideas.
• Private Messaging. Some of you have already caught on to this. You now can send messages to other users that only they can see. While this has only been in place a couple of weeks, we've already seen a difference in the commenting on the posts -- less chatting. THANKS! Because the point of this site is to provide each other feedback on the writing. Share that in public!
• Subscriptions to content. You can see that you can now subscribe to specific posts, authors, content type and comment threads. You can have the subscriptions sent to your email or private message system. Edit your subscriptions in "My Account."
• Genre tagging. We're asking you to choose a genre when you create content. This should help you in finding other material by genre. We continue to look for ways for you to get out the amazing amount of great material being posted here.
• Tags for prompts. YWP is receiving thousands of submissions this year. Here's an easy way to read some of them.

We will be undertaking more changes. We also plan to hold a Saturday Pizza session soon to talk over the site, show you some things and generally gab. Stay tuned.