Through more than two decades of sharing fanworks online, groups and sites have used various governance structures with differing degrees of success. Fandom history is littered with purges, changes of ownership, site closures, and an overall lack of transparency from site leadership that have resulted in the loss of fanworks, dissolution of communities, and distress for fans. It is our intention to avoid the SWG joining that list by providing transparency around how the SWG is governed and financed and how its long-term survival is ensured.
The SWG is an independent group, unaffiliated with any for- or non-profit organizations, and was founded in 2005 by Dawn Felagund. She continues to lead the group and reserves final say in decision-making.
That being said, the SWG has and continues to value input from its members as much as possible. Dawn is assisted in governing the group by a moderator team, listed on our About page. Whenever possible, decisions are made by a majority of the active moderators and support the SWG's mission. In urgent or emergency situations, moderators are empowered to act independently but consult with each other to the extent possible during the emergency and report what happened and what actions were taken after the fact to the rest of the moderator team to ensure consistency and fairness. Moderators are expected to be able to point to specific SWG policies to justify their decisions.
Moderators are invited to their role due to sustained volunteer work that shows commitment to the SWG's values and a willingness to consider questions and issues of policy related to our mission. Moderators do not have a set term of service. You can learn more about becoming involved as a volunteer for the SWG on our Volunteer page.
When issues arise that are important to our members, we seek member input whenever we can. Issues open for comment are announced on our site in the News section, on our active social media accounts, and in the #town-hall channel on our Discord server. There are reasons both practical (e.g., due to cost or technical feasibility) or philosophical (e.g., violates key group values, as expressed in our mission) why we may not implement all member requests, but we are committed to soliciting member input on issues of concern to our members and in situations where member input would improve the end result and our ability to serve our community.
Members and guests of the SWG are welcome to raise issues for consideration and discussion, either privately to the moderator team or to the SWG as a whole. Our moderators can be reached through the moderator contact form on our site or via email at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org. If you do not hear from us within twenty-four hours, please query, as your message likely didn't make it to us. The #town-hall channel is set aside on our Discord server for discussing questions or matters related to the SWG in a semi-public forum, and members are encouraged to use it to raise questions and issues for discussion with moderators and other members. Contact our moderators for an invite to the Discord server.
The SWG is a small site and not expensive to run. Operating costs come in under $300 per year for domain registration, web hosting, a daily site backup service, and other small incidentals associated with running the site. The site is paid for by Dawn; donations are not and have never been solicited from members.
Unfortunately, the Tolkien fandom has numerous examples of fanworks archives that closed without warning. No website is guaranteed to exist in the short- or long-term, but we have put policies and practices into place to ensure that the SWG continues to operate well into the future and is not dependent upon a single person for its existence.
- Multiple moderators have access to the hosting account, which includes both the web server and billing system.
- We pay for a backup service that backs up our database daily and will restore the site in the event of a problem. Backups are accessible to multiple moderators. We back up the site files weekly.
- In the event that Dawn is unexpectedly unable to continue running the site, she has designated relatives who are willing to continue funding the site under current moderator oversight or working with current moderators to transition the site to a new owner. All moderators have access to this information.
- The SWG is powered by Drupal, an open-source content management system that is under active development and includes a robust support community, reducing the likelihood that "spaghetti code" or lack of development will imperil the site's continued existence.
Again, we welcome questions or discussions about the governance of the SWG and how we can best serve our community through the moderator contact or in the #town-hall channel on our Discord.
