On Fri, 16 May 1997, Damon Casale wrote:

<*>> Hmm... Sorry, Damon. *smiles* I don't think it would be a good idea to go
<*>> splitting lists. Main problem would be that people would fragment and the
<*>> unity would vanish. *smiles*
<*>
<*>We're too big to be unified.  Think about it.  Do you even know half of
<*>the people on this list?  I don't.  I don't even know a tenth, if that
<*>many.

I can't agree with that. Starting a small list would only alienate more people
and create clique's that seperate themselves from others instead of banning
together.

I don't agree.  That didn't happen when the list was small, to any 
great extent.  Why should it happen now?

Sure, I don't know ALL the names of people to the list and perhaps not many
know who I am. But that doesn't detract from how I see the list. If anyone
here on the list goes through a bad time, I would feel the same amount of
concern for them as I would for someone close to me who lived in my
neighborhood.

That's true.  But that wasn't my point at all.

Maybe I'm the only one who really misses the TRUE sense of community 
and familialness we once had.  *sigh*

We are a COMMUNITY. When CatWhumper bad mouthed manga and anime with his weird
page, we were one. A sense of being part of a whole is important. I can take
time to learn who everyone is, ONLY if there is a community to interact in.

I didn't contribute to that because I didn't want to get involved in 
a pointless flame war.  And remember, just because there's one big 
"community" now doesn't preclude the fact that we could do just as 
well with several smaller ones.

<*>EXACTLY!!  We WANT noise!  It's the glue of socialization that can bind
<*>us together MORE than we are now!  That's exactly the way it used to be!
<*>Don't you remember?  I know you were here early on.  THINK!

I WAS here earlier on. But the noise I'm talking about isn't the noise of the
golden past, Damon. I'm talking about cross-posting reptitious noise that
doesn't do anything but cause people to leave lists. The golden past involved
people. It didn't require them to join several lists and get noise in the form
of five copies of one email message.

That's why we need to discourage crossposting.  That was one of the 
things I considered when making the suggestion in the first place.

<*>1.  We didn't have an archive for ALL list traffic back then.  We do
<*>now.  100% Anime Fanfiction.

I'm interested in the list for the fanwork and writing. But I also care about
the people and I'm interested in the people. A fan-archive only accomplishes
one but has little to do with a list.

That's exactly why I said we could easily sub to more than one list.  
All five, if desired.

<*>2.  We didn't specifically ask everyone NOT to crosspost.  We will now.

Asking people to not crosspost is like asking people not to jaywalk. It will
also cause more seperation between lists. It will rip apart a community that
is starting to mesh.

Is it starting to mesh?  How so?  I haven't seen it.  And the example 
with Catwhumper doesn't say anything about how close we are to each 
other, just that we'll "help strangers", so to speak.

People seem to have been pretty good on this list (with some 
exceptions, but we won't go there...  :P  ) about spam in general, 
crossposting being merely one variety of spam.  We won't know until 
we try, I say.

<*>3.  We didn't subdivide the list *precisely* for the reason of lowering
<*>the mail volume.  That's what we're trying to do here.  And you know
<*>what?  While those two lists were up, it was quiet!

It was quiet not because it was organized. It was quiet because quite
honestly, people were lost and weren't well informed. During that period, I
recieved more duplicated emails in one week than I did in a year of the ffml.

It was disorganized, people were lost and not well informed, as you 
said.  They posted anywhere they could.  This doesn't have to be 
disorganized.

There is a distinct difference in silence because people are respectful, and
silence because there is nothing to be said.

True.  But then again, people talked.  There was still a lot to be 
said.

<*>  I enjoyed the
<*>breather, and I got a chance to know people and to keep up with things
<*>again.  I remembered that that was how it USED to be, AND I MISSED IT!
<*>I want it to be like that again, and this is the only way I can see of
<*>making it happen.

Yes, I'm glad that you got a chance to meet and get to know new people, Damon.
But realise that a list split will cause people who know each other to break
up. 

Any more than we are already now?
Damon Casale, damoo@carmelnet.com
Spam, spam!  WONDERFUL spam!  ^_^