This entire thread has been skirting, if not outright crossing over a couple 
of rules right from the get go, but I feel what I have to say is topical, and 
relevant enough to the running of the list at large that it should be entered 
into the public forumn.

Do you know what the problem with the FFML is?  It has a lot of members, and 
although I've been on higher traffic lists, it still generates its fair 
share.  When you tend to recieve several fics in a day, do you immediately 
dig in and read every word, or do you skim and only stop on something that 
catches your eye?

Well, I know what I do. For example, I'm not all that big on the Ranma 
fandom, so for the most part, Ranma fics get deleted offhand.  Unless 
something else specifically attracts my attention, I don't give them a second 
thought.

I'm assuming that this rant was prompted by the flood of 'Youma attack 
America' related posts, which illustrates my point perfectly.  I originally 
didn't give it a second glance. I'm not that big on Sailormoon fandom 
either.  Then I noticed a couple of followups.  Then a lot more followups. In 
a pattern that was repeated across the list, I went back and read what had 
caused such a furor (more list traffic about a single topic than I can recall 
in a long while).

And it certainly wasn't because it was a good story (I don't mean that as an 
insult, but Y.A.A certainly wasn`t something I'd forward to my friends 
because I liked it so much), but rather because it got itself noticed.

That`s really the problem with the list today, is that the traffic is high 
enough that if you want people to read your work, you have to draw notice to 
yourself, to show that you're different from the rest, but when all you've 
got to go with is a subject line, you don't have much to work with.  You 
might have written the best fanfic ever, but since you can't fill their inbox 
with bells and whistles to get them to read this story, right now, you're 
just as likely to be overlooked as anyone else.

Unfortuntaely, it's not a problem with a sure fire solution (at least, none 
that I am aware of).  It`s something inherent whenever you have a large group 
of people, all talking at the same time.  There are precious few directions 
in which attention can be divided.

Thank you for your time,
Douglass Weeks

================================================
Those who claim to be misunderstood genius are usually only half right.



             .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'