On 5/16/97 1:47 PM, Damon Casale at damoo@carmelnet.com wrote:
On Fri, 16 May 1997, Gary Kleppe wrote:
On Fri, 16 May 1997 09:20:09 -0700 (PDT), Damon Casale wrote:
Everyone would be free to pick one (or two, or whatever) sublist to
subscribe to, and get to know people. Granted, this might tend to make
things a little cliqueish, but I think the benefits GREATLY outweigh the
pitfalls.
Comments?
*Very* bad idea, IMHO. Cliques are only the tip of the iceberg, IMHO.
What happens when you get people saying "I don't want to sub to this list
because <person x> is on it!"? Or "I wanna be on this list because
<person y> is on it!" Or even "This list has <person x> and <person y> on
it... how can I get one of them to switch?" The only possible way I could
see this sort-of working is if membership were assigned by lottery and
strictly enforced. Do we *really* want to go back to grade school? Yes, I
know I'm exaggerating, but I don't think by *that* much. <Sigh>
If you remember, this was sort of tried in March. There were, I think,
five different lists filling in for the FFML while it was down. I was on
three of them.
I was on two, and I unsubbed to one of them after a while. It wasn't
tried, really, since people weren't told, "Hey, we're trying to
subdivide the list to reduce incoming mail; don't crosspost unless
*absolutely* necessary."
Nope... but remember, people also weren't told 'if you want your 'fic to
reach everyone, crosspost' either. :( Point being, people *wanted* their
stuff to reach everyone, wanted it bad enough to do massive
cross-posting.
And there wasn't an archive for all of the
list generated fanfics back then, either. Not one like 100% Anime
Fanfiction.
So? And what happens if 100% Anime Fanfiction goes down? Not to mention,
how will you know what's posted there without going through the whole
thing... which would take up almost as much time as just reading them all
through the ML, particularly with a relatively clumsy web-based interface
vs. the interface on a good e-mail package. (I don't trust search engines
in this context -- no room for serendipity.)
The only way this is going to work, methinks, is if it is based on
content. Otherwise you'll either get people posting to *all* the lists,
or else many posts won't reach the people who would be interested in
them. Therefore, if you really want to do this, allow me to make a
counter-proposal. We could have five seperate lists as follows:
[snip content-based separation proposal]
No, no, absolutely not. You'd only subdivide the traffic on the FFML
into separate lists. That wouldn't do anything to benefit us unless we
weren't interested in one or another topic.
So? At least content would provide some guide to common interests. Isn't
your proposal also 'subdividing the traffic on the FFML into separate
lists?' Doing that without providing any halfway-reasonable criteria to
split the content is, to my mind, is a recipe for chaos. Not that I think
a split based on content is much better, but at least you won't have
personality wars getting in the way.
You'd still have way too
much colume of incoming mail, as you do now, and you'd still have *no*
practical way to socialize, like used to happen back in late '95, and
early '96. GO LOOK at Gopher's archives of this time period. Read the
bounty hunts. Read the poker game. We knew each other back then, and
we simply don't, now. There are just too many faces to keep track of.
Granted, and I miss that kind of intimacy as well. But let's face it:
this is exactly the same thing that *any* club goes through when it
grows, and there is no magic solution. Would artificially splitting the
group -- and let's not mince words, this would be an *artificial* split,
with (IMHO) all of the negative connotations that entails -- be a cure? I
certainly don't think so. Would artificially splitting WorldCon -- or
Anime Expo, or Minicon, or any other large convention -- be a Good Thing,
for example?
I know I'd probably end up subscribed to *all* of the split ML's, to make
sure I didn't miss anything -- just as I subbed to all the temp ML's I
knew about when the main ML was down. I suspect a lot of people would do
the same thing... and in that case, you're actually worse off than
before, because now you have the overhead of managing four ML's...
One possibility I can think of that might work better. Clubs deal with
large groups by forming SIGs -- so that while the general meeting is open
to all, sub-sets with shared interests can have their own get-togethers
in conjunction with the main meeting. In this case, we'd still have the
main ML, but people with a shared sub-interest could get together to
discuss it in a subsidiary ML. This'd be a good way to handle some of the
character debates that go on here, for example.
Now, cliques are not generally a good thing, but in this case, I think
we really should start subdividing. We can always switch lists if we
want to to see new faces, but we need respite from the volume of mail
that this list is generating. IMOHO.
<Sigh> You must have a better view of human nature than I do. I honestly
can't see this idea as doing anything but fragmenting the ML community,
without even the excuse of shared content to justify it. We might just as
well give up on the FFML and create the Kun-chan ML, the Kleppe ML, the
Palmer ML, the Lawson ML... No offense to any of these people intended,
of course -- my point being that instead of having one 'fanfic
community,' you'd be moving to lots of little communities based on 'who
likes who' or on the dominant personalities in those lists. Gaaah. No
thank you. Again, no offense intended to anyone mentioned, but I want
this community to be based on fanfic writing.
Travis Butler
(The Professor, formerly of Myth and Magick!, Lawrence, KS;
tbutler@tfs.net, now from the Wandering Powerbook;
<http://www.tfs.net/personal/tbutler/>;
Mac page <http://www.tfs.net/business/tbutler/>)
...Wait a minute! Strike that. Reverse it. Thank you.