What do pages need to join? 1) First and foremost, your page must have an online discussion board that is, at least, minimally active. By "minimally active" we mean that the board must have at least a few members who will visit on a weekly basis. ARWZ Editors will visit your board at least once a week, and so we expect to have at least some response to our postings during that week's time. The ARWZ Associates program is based on interactive discussion, so a message board is a must. If you run a page that does not have a message board, and you would like to set up some sort of affliation with ARWZ, please contact our webmaster, but the Associates program is for interactive forums only. 2) Your message board must also have some sort of General or Off-Topic forum. We will visit this forum to post our weekly topics. This forum can be a general book forum, a general chat forum, a genre-specific discussion forum, etc. You must indicate to ARWZ Editors on your application which forum they should visit. You MAY NOT submit an "advertising" forum for this purpose. It must be a forum where visitors come to discuss topics about books, film, etc. ARWZ Editors generally post topics on books and film/tv. If you have one general forum where you discuss books and a second where you discuss film, ARWZ Editors will visit both, and you may indicate both in your application. But otherwise, you must submit ONE forum where general discussion is most active and welcome. ARWZ Editors will visit the forum indicated. We unfortunately do not have the time to visit more than one or two forums on your board. So please pick the one where most people will visit so that we can do your board the most good. 3) Your message board must be related, in a general sense, to the themes of ARWZ Magazine. Boards related to alternative reality genres (science fiction, fantasy, horror, historical, etc.) are the most obvious candidates for our program, whether your board is generally about one of these genres, or specifically about a particular film, author, tv show, etc. RPG forums are welcome, as long as there is an Off-Topic or Out-of-Character forum. We're also very happy to accept boards on general book discussion (i.e. not specific to alternative reality fiction genres) or general chat, as long as there is a forum where our topics will find a good reception. Most of our topics are not specific to alternative reality fiction. What are the obligations of the webmaster and Associate page? 1) All Associate pages MUST participate in the ARWZ Magazine Top Ten Projects. This is the only ARWZ project in which Associate participation is mandatory. The impetus, on the part of ARWZ Editors, for starting the Associates program was to widen the pool of voters for the Top Ten Projects, so to get a more accurate result in our Top Ten lists. By joining our Associate program, you agree to let ARWZ Editors visit your indicated General Discussion forum to invite your members to participate in our Top Ten Projects. We run a new top ten project three times a year. We will come to your page when it opens to post a topic inviting your members to vote on ARWZ (all official votes must be placed through our Top 10 Page whether using the email form, or our online forums), to discuss the list topic on your forum, and to cross-post their lists onto YOUR forum. While the list project does require us to provide links back to ARWZ within these topics, we will make every effort to use the lists to promote discussion on YOUR page. We will also ask your board members for input on what list topics to do in the future, we will ask them to vote (at a centralized poll on ARWZ) for our immediately successive list projects, and we will post reminders of voting deadlines. We will also post a topic with the final 10, once the list is tabulated, on your board so that your members can read it and discuss it in your forums. Your obligation as a webmaster is simply to allow us to post these topics about the Top Ten Lists. Though, of course, you are certainly welcome to participate in the lists, yourself, by voting or encouraging your members to vote. Your board and members will be credited with helping to compile the list. 2) Webmasters of Associate pages must provide ARWZ Editors with an active email address for contact. ARWZ Editors, in turn, promise never to add your email address to a mailing list. All contact from ARWZ Editors will be in the form of individual emails sent specifically to you. ARWZ Editors will use this email address to contact you about Associate issues - such as your featured profile - and new projects or upcoming events on ARWZ. The Top Ten Project is the ONLY project that Associates pages are required to participate in. However, you may find that other projects and events will be of interest to your members. When we start a new project or schedule an upcoming event (e.g. Author Q&A; sessions, etc.), we will send an email to you, personally, to tell you about the project or event, and to ask if your members would be interested in participating. We will only sign your board up for a new project, or post an announcement about an upcoming event, if you give permission. If we don't hear from you, or if you don't want your board to participate in a particular project or event, that's perfectly fine. We'll continue to alert you about new events your members might find interesting, and you will be free to accept or decline on a case-by-case basis. 3) All Associate pages must permit ARWZ Editors to post our weekly topic. This weekly topic is posted, largely, for the benefit of your online community, to promote discussion and activity. However, it is also an important part of our editors' "on the ground" research. More details on the weekly topic below... What are the benefits for Associate pages? 1) As mentioned above, ARWZ Editors will add new content to your page, without your having to lift a finger. We take care of all the details of organizing large-scale projects, such as the Top Ten lists, and events, such as Author Q&A; sessions. You and your members get to participate without having to go to any of the trouble of organizing projects and events. 2) ARWZ Editors take a personal interest in your message board community. As we mentioned above, the Associates program is a mutually beneficial professional relationship. The voters for our Top Ten Projects come from YOUR pages, and so we want to promote active, thoughtful discussion among your members. We want to attract new visitors and regulars to your page. The richer your online community, the more valuable discussions will be for our research, the better our pool of Top Ten voters, the more useful a resource your page will be to ARWZ readers. It's in our best interest to help your page grow. We will personally visit your page at least once a week to promote activity and discussion on your page. Here's what we'll do, specifically, on your page: a) We will post a New Topic weekly on your page. This weekly topic is written by our editors specifically for the Associate boards. Topics are typically either about literature or about film media. We will post a different topic every week in effort to get your members thinking and discussing, and posting more actively on your board. Please be advised that due to the limitations of time, space and human creativity, we cannot post a different topic on every Associate page. Sometimes weekly topics will differ from page-to-page based on specific Associate page themes, but most of the time, we will post the same topic at every Associate. However, your page will also receive individualized attention on a weekly basis...3) Associate pages also receive free advertising on ARWZ Magazine. All Associate pages receive a fixed link for the duration of their participation as Associates on our main Associates Page. Furthermore, actively participating Associate pages also receive regular advertising on our front page (https://www.arwz.com) in the form of a profile. ARWZ Editors invite active Associates to help put together a profile of their board to be featured on ARWZ. These profiles are not, however, a one-time article, but rather a regularly featured promotion. Profiles are showcased through a link from our front page announcement box for one week at a time in regular rotation. Profiles will continue to be featured regularly as long as the Associate remains affiliated with ARWZ through the Associate program. Profiles provide regular, predictable, continued advertising for your page to ARWZ readers - all for free. How long does the Associateship last? Once your page becomes an Associate of ARWZ magazine, your Associateship will last indefinitely - for as long as your page and ARWZ are still up and running. If, at any time after becoming an Associate, you wish to decline membership in this program, please write to our webmaster and inform us that you would like to decline from the program. No problem. We'll simply remove you from our list and stop visiting your page. You are free to rejoin again at any time. On the other hand, if your page ever becomes inactive for an extended period of time, that is, if we find that no one responds to our posted topics week after week, we reserve the right to terminate any Associate at our discretion. If your page becomes active again, you are welcome to resubmit. We will keep your profile (if one was compiled) on file and reactivate it upon reapplication. Want to become an Associate? If after reading through the details of our Associate program, you would like to join, please fill out the following application. When we receive your application, we will presume that you have read all the details of the program and agree to participate on these terms. We would recommend you discuss this decision with co-administrators and/or inform moderators of your decision of apply for membership in the program. Once we receive your application - if approved - we will sign you up for the program and begin visiting your page the next week. We will post an introduction and an announcement about our current Top Ten list (so it is best if your moderators know we're coming), as well as our current weekly topic. Again, there's nothing else for you to do, just fill out the application. We'll take care of all the details if you're approved. If you have any questions before applying, please send them to [email protected]. If you're ready, please proceed to fill out the application:
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