Community Journal!

So, this is something that I've had on a lot of my sites that's worked beautifully and added something great for members to have fun with when there's nothing else to do. They can develop their characters, pursue storylines that do not work in the collaborative sphere, and give unique background for their characters they wouldn't normally be able to fit in anywhere.

The basic idea is to have an area on the board where people can start and maintain solo threads. A perfect example of what could be posted here is that my character, Kano, has a series of journals written by his grandfather. They are extensive, so I don't wanna go off on tangents about them in the middle of collaborative threads and they aren't exactly something he'd share with just anyone who came along, so having a situation where he goes over the information with someone is unlikely. Nevertheless, it's important information about his family's history and him as a character, so it bears posting.

A community journal would be an idea place for something like this, allowing such background information to be shared with anyone who cares to know a bit more about the characters. Generally speaking, community journals are not restricted to site storylines. Often, they are also open to original works that the writer in question just wants to share, like portions from the novels people are working on or simple short stories. For organization's sake, I usually make a sub-board for these as it gets a little hairy if they're just mixed in with all the in-character threads from characters on the site.

So, thoughts?