"Sebastian Palm" <sebastian.palm@myrealbox.com> wrote:

I may be earning myself a temp ban with this, but I'm going to have to file 
a dissenting opinion. The main reason given against the "discouraging of 
spam", such as fic requests, is that there are thousands of subscribers and 
if everyone started posting this stuff, the legitimate traffic would be 
overrun. Frankly, I see little enough evidence of there being any legitimate 
traffic these days - I haven't counted properly, but I'd be very surprised 
if there are more than forty recurring posters to the list, defined as 
having posted more than twice in a 90 day period. That's not a lot of 
traffic. Allowing "spam", at least on topic stuff such as fic requests, 
raises the interest in posting to the list - including fics...

Speaking as a writer -- who will eventually get back to writing, really I will
-- myself, that's the complete opposite of my experience. Think about it: What
sort of message does it send to people who *do* post their own work on the list
that you not only ignore it, but actively and noisily seek out something
different? Do you think that encourages people to write?

The second reason for allowing the posting of fic requests, at least of the 
more specific kind, is that they are a great way for people to discover fics 
and authors they haven't read before. If no one ever asks about a fic with 
such-and-such premise which I might find interesting if I had ever imagined 
it existed, I'll never know, never read it, and never provide feedback for 
that fic.

I suppose that could happen, and that's probably the reason why fanfic requests
aren't banned outright. But I've been on the list for a long time, and the vast
majority of fanfic requests that I've seen have been for things I don't think
I'd *want* to find. Your mileage may vary.

I've been on this list for several years now, and I've seen the claims of 
massive membership several times. For some reason, though, the *active* part 
of the membership keeps dwindling - it's the same names over and over, with 
people dropping off every so often because they've gotten fed up with the 
sometimes blatantly biased moderation going on. I don't see Kenko posting 
here anymore. Nor Don Granberry, nor Togashi Gaijin - all of whom left 
rather dramatically for that exact reason.

I think you're engaging in revisionist history here, at least with respect to
Granberry. When I banned him he was quite clear in knowing that he had it
coming. Kenko, to my knowledge, was never banned nor threatened with banning, so
I'd be surprised if his leaving had anything to do with the list moderation. And
I don't remember who "Togashi Gaijin" is.

Any new authors that pop up usually aren't - they're very old hands who've 
been out of touch for a few years and finally show up with an update, not 
genuine fresh blood.

I remember this list two years ago, when I had to filter the posts into 
their own folder to keep up. I remember four years ago, when I could expect 
at least a couple of different, often long, chapters posted every day. 
Considering that the fandom has grown exponentially in that time, why is 
this list fading like it is?

Good question, and I don't know the answer, but I am reasonably sure that you
aren't helping.


Gary Kleppe
http://www.garykleppe.org/comics.html

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