Jeanne Hedge wrote:

At 06:47 PM 8/28/97 +0800, demonsword@vasia.com wrote:

I can't really say if something's changed, since
I haven't been back long enough, but I can
only hope that what I will see now is a thriving
community, the Vanguard of Fanficdom, and not
a bunch of writers who have lost their purpose
as a community.

Albercrombie is gone, Bert is gone, Panda and Saffie are supposedly still
here (they maintain the FAQ) -- but they are almost never heard from any
more

<Panda looks up from his desk, where drafts of various chapters of his
fanfic lay in chaos... > I'm still here! (which is "why *I* am here<g>) :)

But you're right Jeanne. I, and others have been pretty quiet lately. I can
only speak for myself by saying that I haven't really seen any threads
lately that I know anything about or thought my .02 might be worth adding.
But things *have* changed, in my own PL  (lack of time), and on the list,
that have made the free exchange of ideas less free. I wish things were
different, but it seems that mailing lists are a catch 22; they're a great
way to exchange ideas, but as the list grows some sort of organization
seems necessary. All of this comes from living on the pioneering edge of
the Information Age ;)

Uncle Fester is no longer going to post his major fic to the FFML,
Kun-chan doesn't post much anymore...  have they all found more important,
RL things to do, or are they all just put off by this list?

Again, speaking for myself, it's a bit of both.

And now we have a slew of people, old and new, who claim that they, and only
they, know what should be written and how it should be written, a group of
writers who don't know how to take C+C in the spirit it is intended, a group
of writers who don't know how to give *constructive* criticism...   Of
course, none of that is new, but the list is so much more *serious* now, so
much less fun to be around (and "fun" does not necessarily = spam and other
off-topic posts)

True <sigh>

One day, someone no one had ever heard of before ("Tybalt" - who has the
same address after the @ as WW) suddenly appeared on the list and announced
that he was WW's appointed moderator.  And Tybalt is inconsistant in the
extreme about what does and doesn't, and WHO does and doesn't, get moderated
- and has even, on occassion dredged up posts that are weeks old and have
died natural deaths to threaten people to stop talking about those subjects
they've already stopped talking about, on pain of permanent unsubbing

And from the time Tybalt arrived, this list has died in all important ways,
save ceasing to exist (and it's tried to do that a few times too)

The catch 22 again :/ Unmoderated MLs can *sometimes* seem to possess a
certain atmosphere that subscribers are lucky enough to enjoy. But this
usually occurs with MLs with a small membership. I caught a post by WW
recently that suggested there were 600+ subscribers here! There's just no
way that a list of that size can maintain that *atmosphere* without
self-destructing, therefore an *active* moderator seems necessary, if the
basic goals of the ML are still requested by the membership. We all know
this of course, but I, like many others, recall when it was small enough to
be moderated in a mostly administrational fashion, and certain flamboyant
members raged onto the list leaving their exploits engraved in our memories
^^ I miss those days, but I can't be bitter about their loss. Things
change... and they will  *continue* to change, so we just have to hope that
at some point they'll change for the better.



Panda <still writing... >

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