God! Haven't seen this much action on the FFML since 2002.
Saving myself the trouble and answering as I CAP them in.
Gary Kleppe Wrote:
[["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?]]
Very true. There's a lot of stuff that'll pop up on the FFML that I have
ABSOLUTELY no interrest in, especially way back when Ranma and Tenchi were the
big things to write on, sometimes together. Hell, Ranma was the new black back
then. It was like every other fanfic will crossover with Ranma to the point
that the series had whole new universes dedicated to it, I swear. As a result,
I think most people ignore things that aren't in line with that thinking. I
mean, how many Legend of Black Heaven fanfics do you see in a year? How many
people even know what Legend of Black Heaven is?
Lurker Wrote:
[[> >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?
It really is, isn't it? We still get some good, long-running fics posted
here--a couple multicrossovers that seem to be fairly popular, Nowack's
exceptional Naruto fic, Megane's MSTings, Lawson's recent return, and the
like--but the general amount of traffic IS down lately, and it's not because
of the moderation--it's because of McBurger Syndrome.]]
Excellent point. When I was playing Magic: The Gathering, THE place to be
for strategy and top decks was Frank Kusomoto's The Dojo webpage. Soon Frank
stopped running it and turned it over to pro-players like Mike Flores and David
Price, and things declined quickly. It wasn't the same as it used to be, but
the bigger reason was that there were a ton of other, better places like
MTGNews and Mindripper to check out, so The Dojo eventually folded; it could not
deal with the new blood. Besides, who wanted to listen to Mike whine about
monoblue again? :)
Aaron Nowack wrote:
[[Compounding these problems, it isn't terribly easy to find the FFML - we
aren't on the first page of Google results for anime fanfiction. A RAAC
archive at fanfic.net is, and some digging there will turn up a cryptic
reference and instructions to e-mail "ffml-request@fanfic.com" for more
info, which is both user-unfriendly and I believe now incorrect. Even
Googling for "FFML" isn't as good as it could be. A page with the FFML
FAQ is the first result, but it hasn't been updated since 2004 and
doesn't provide a on-site sign-up form.
To get to the FFML, I imagine that a new author would have to stumble
across a possibly cryptic reference in the author's notes of something
he'd read (which isn't likely), decide to Google it, and be determined
enough to dig through the FAQ, fire up his e-mail, and subscribe. If
there's an easier way, I don't know what it is.]]
Huge.
Just huge.
I've oftentime decided on dumping the FFML simply because I got tired of
getting fics I had no real interest in, but it turned out to be so damn
complicated and bizarre I chose to just live with it. I don't even remember HOW I
found the List or how I signed up for it, I wouldn't know how to transfer to
another email should I drop this one, and I can't figure out how to leave it,
aside from pulling an inflammatory stunt like that one guy did a couple of years
ago with Gary Kleppe just so he could be removed from the list. It's like
an implant some days, but on the plus side, it turned out for the better.
sesshou_maru wrote:
[[I've almost never said anything here, but I have to agree with this - it
was a real pain to find this mailing list, and I was very determined in my
searching. Of course, it didn't help that once I got here and posted a fic (One
that I wrote five years ago when I first started out, admittedly), I
discovered that this isn't as forgiving a place to a newcomer as other venues. So I
put my old fic back on hiatus instead of going ahead with the revamp and
rewrite I was planning - let's face it, I've got a following in a non-anime
fandom and a growing career as a comic book writer/artist, and I'd much rather
get positive reviews than someone picking apart something that I wrote before I
got to the level I'm at today.]]
I don't know... I find that negative reviews are only as bad as one thinks.
In my mind, negative reviews are better because it's easy to say something
that's good, but it's a real pain in the ass to find someone that'll chew your
ass out over minute details. That shows a level of caring about the work.
Unless it's some lunkhead that says "OMG U Suxxor!" negative reveiws are more
constructive, no matter how old the work is.
And it damn sure beats NO reviews. Don't forget that.
Kenko wrote:
[[> 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
Um... I'm still around, just distracted, never banned, and well...
After that flamewar that erupted after a test fic chapter, I ahve been leery
of posting and writing... I don' mind any insults to my own works... but I
got VERY upset at how everyone ELSE got so angry and upset at that piece.]]
You, too? :)
God, that actually reminded me of the "Doomed" fanfic I posted here. Twelve
hours later, I'm flooded with 32 private and public comments with most
calling me a racist bigoted moron who should burn in hell. O_O
I've never been so damn popular in my life. :D
Serious, it was one of those fics that I wrote poking at several myths
concerning Japanese traditions and my own ethnicity, and some people took it WAAAY
too personally. I'm pretty sure there are still some people that have me
blocked on their email accounts. :D
Oh well, after a round of explaining and some emailing me apologies, I wrote
another fic that was similar, but used a mythical race. Only two responses.
Both of them public...
Shouldn't went the Eminen route, I tell you...
Lurker wrote (again! :D):
[[I resist and reject getting an FF.net account because I have the FFML, I
have my own website, and frankly, I have a HELL of a lot of issues with
FF.net and some of its policies (like, for instance, its apparent dislike of
the common asterisk, which is a character I use quite frequently...)]]
I only joined fanfic.net because I REALLY wanted to piss my sister off.
She's on it doing Count Cain fanfics, and no matter what I tell her, she won't
really listen. So I got an account on it so I can show her up.
Interestingly enough, FF.net's no asterisk "policy" has actually encouraged
me to write better transitions instead of skipping out on them. Besides,
asterisk breaks make me feel like I should be posting more like 20 chapters to
For Better or For Worst-Case Scenario, instead of the six I do have up (the last
two are being rewritten because I got too pushy with the last chapter; I'll
post them shortly).
darksoar wrote:
[[Apparently, my request was the last straw that broke
the camel's back.]]
Bound to happen sometime. Stagnation inevitably leads to atrophy which leads
to death. Sometimes, you need that one last butterfly to get the hurricane
rolling.
Course, that one butterfly could have pointed its ass towards Cuba or
something instead of NC, but that's just me...
Sebastian Palm wrote:
[[Personally, I like the idea of opening the list up to all fandoms. It's
presently stuck in a Ranma rut - nearly everything posted has Ranma involved
somewhere, sometimes to the detriment of the fic. In fact, sometimes it
seems Ranma is involved in a fic solely to qualify it as anime fanfiction,
and thus postable here or in other anime-specific venues. (The Ranma
category at FF.net counts, seeing as it has a much higher signal to noise
ratio than most of the rest of FF.net IMHO - at least of the categories I'm
actively investing time in).]]
I'll drink to that. This is a fanfiction mailing list. It was originally
devoted to anime and manga stuff as far as I've been on here, but it's really
high time to open the shutters and throw back the curtains to whole other worlds
out there. I've a friend who's trying to do a planeswalking story involving
Harry Potter, Final Fantasy VII and others, and if I can sucker him into
posting it anywhere, this would be the place to post it.
Despite what some people say -- and I said this earlier -- you can learn a
lot from a guy that has read the story and busts your balls on it as opposed to
someone that reads it and just says, "Good stuff. Write more." The thing
about building anything is that you have to destroy somnethng to get started.
Otherwise you'd have a structure that feels more like Shirow Masamune
constructed it with adobe bricks, pine straw, and used tissues.
lsmcgillis wrote:
[[This list is dying because of apathy. No one cares. No-one comments,
no-one communicates.]]
I'll admit to some of that. It is hard to get a response sometimes because
of lack of interest in something, and fanfiction I've felt, has been declining
because it's no long new or innovating like it used to be. I swear, people
that got into fanfics bigtime were also the fans that took the crash of the 90s
comic book craze hard (or helped bring it about by ditching domestic stuff
and started watching anime).
The lack of communication, that's a bothering point. When I first posted the
first chapter of FBOFWCS, for two days I was not aware that it had somehow
got turned into gibberish, just because I CAP it from a Microsoft Word
document. Some people made jokes about it, but no one had bothered to actually say
anything directly to me. Which brings about another point I have about the
List, but that'll wait. I had to figure out what exactly went down by tracking
through the posts made (no easy task as the thread title changed a couple of
times, none actually pointing to the original thread I made), and then ask the
person that made said joke what was he talking about, then I had to ask
people to tell me if the post came through again. Took four days to get a clear
posting, which got raped by my mailing program.
Related note, that's another thing the FFML should find some way to deal
with. For some reason, it strips all the story posts I make when writing with
Microsoft. Even when I just CAP it, it still throws a damn hissy fit, and
cutting out the Smart Quotes function did nothing but anger the great Listar for
some unknown reason.
Well, maybe I should've paid it back the $20 it lent me three years ago...
.......
Whew! That's a mouthful.
Adrian Moten
"Falling in love is something that happens to you, like getting run over by
a truck."
-Amy Alkon, the Advice Goddess
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