What is NoLessDays.org?

So back a year or so ago there was talk of developing nolessdays more, and the focus seemed to be on "artists" and "art". I thought that sounded cool, but quickly concluded that I would simply be an observer, rather than a participant, as I am not particularly gifted in this area. After some more conversation we decided that people wouldn't have to be artists to be part of the community and that we could participate in discussion and sharing ideas, etc. as well as posting our music or art. I liked the feel of that better because everyone could be involved rather than it just being a showcase for our talents.

I have really enjoyed reading the missionary stories, hearing about books people are reading, having Bible studies, listening to audio from El Salvador, and yes, even the political discussions. I still play music from the site periodically (even though none has been added for a very long time). But if the discussion stops, I feel like I would stop checking the site every day (sometimes more than once) and go back to once every week or two to see if anything new has been added for me to view/listen to.

That being said, I totally understand the concern about people coming to our site to listen to music and seeing a heated political discussion going on between family members. I think that moving the discussions to their respective forums and off the main page will take care of that. Then if someone wants to talk about politics, they can, but everyone else doesn't have to see it unless they specifically choose to go there.

So I guess part of me isn't sure I want nolessdays to just be a site about creatively spreading the gospel, but maybe have a broader purpose.  I think we really need to discuss more what each of us would like to see it become and how we can get there.

First of all I want to thank you Christopher for all the work you've put into NLD, the site has been a blessing. 
I like the idea to put political and other discusions into a forum, instead of comments being seen right on the front page.  One idea to further elaborate on yours, would be to post on the front page next to each forum topic how many new postings there are.  For example:
  Community Forum Topics:
  Parenting-  1 New Post
  Bible Study-3 New Posts
Along with that you could have a "Blogs" heading that lists how many new blog posts there are or maybe even who has posted.
My other comment is, I wonder if maybe the NLD mission statement needs to be revised to focus more on us being a supportive Christian Community and less on limiting it to artists or art.  It seems that the website has become a place where people can share whatever is on their mind or going on in their lives...for most of us this doesn't often include an artistic expression such as poetry or music.  (We can never listen to the music b/c of our slow dial-up connection which has often saddened me).  One of my favorite parts of the site is when people post pictures and blog about what is happening in their lives. 
I think No Less Days has the potential to grow and I believe God will continue to lead.

I've been wanting to post my thoughts about NLD for a while, now I am finally getting around to it. I was thinking along the same lines as Jade.  I think we need to change our mission statement.  Our (or at least my) original idea was more music focused - a repository for music.  I hadn't even thought of the community aspect so much.  I am glad that Christopher had this idea when putting things together.  I really think we need to make this site to focus on the community aspect - Forums, Blogs, Discussion etc.   That is what is seems to do best.  I recently have been thinking about creating my own site to share my music - more of a static type thing.  I think that can definitely be a part of NLD - I dont think we need to get rid of the music.  I say lets make this a community for sharing ideas and stories, for discussion and questions - and if someone wants to share songs that cool to.

I also feel like things need to be easier to navigate.  Im not sure how that should be done.  I know with blogger you can put "tags" on posts and organize them that way.  I definitly think we need to have recent comments show up - otherwise you would never know when someone posted a comment.  One think that would be helpful for me is if when a new "recent comment" shows up it would say what the name of the original post is.  Or maybe instead of showing the comment just showing that "Blox XX has 1 new comment". I donno.

So basically we I think we should "officially" shift our focus from arts and music and focus on usability for our comunity and try to grow that side of things.

Let's keep talking about this.

 I hate to see recent posts leave the main page. I agree with somer that I may check the page as often or take the time to keep up with it if it is too dificult.  Maybe the artist page would be a fix for this.  If I wanted to point someone to my music i could tell them to go to adam.nolessdays.org (like christopher mentioned) and they would bypass the main page.  If they took time to look around they will find everything else. But at least they wont have to wade through everything else in order to find  the music. 

For me personally, I much prefer having the recent comments/posts on the front page because it's just easier that way. But there seems to be concern that if a lot of the conversation is political, that people may think we're a political site or be turned off. So my thought was, I would rather move that somewhere else, rather than say we can't talk about certain things. (Although I agree with your other post where you said we need to be careful about how we express ourselves).