----- Original Message -----
From: "Rann Aridorn" <rannaridorn1@gmail.com>
To: <ffml@anifics.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2006 2:56 AM
Subject: [FFML] Re: Why the FFML is really dying
ffml wrote:
Assuming that each person has the same likelihood of commenting, then
the
ratio of posts is squared, so for every 1 Ranma-oriented list post there
would be 1078 Harry Potter oriented posts. I'm pretty sure the Ranma
crew
will all just give up faced with that onslaught,
Yeah, but as has been pointed out, that's already happening here, just
in reverse. For every one Rurouni Kenshin fic (and I don't know why you
think there would be a sudden deluge of fics of series like it and
Yu-Gi-Oh and such, since they're -already- anime) there are a dozen
Ranma fics in their fifteenth part.
In fact, your whole message practically treats the FFML as if it were a
place solely for Ranma fanfiction, which is the very perception that's
killing it.
-Rann
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rann Aridorn" <rannaridorn1@gmail.com>
To: <ffml@anifics.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2006 2:56 AM
Subject: [FFML] Re: Why the FFML is really dying
ffml wrote:
Assuming that each person has the same likelihood of commenting, then
the
ratio of posts is squared, so for every 1 Ranma-oriented list post there
would be 1078 Harry Potter oriented posts. I'm pretty sure the Ranma
crew
will all just give up faced with that onslaught,
Yeah, but as has been pointed out, that's already happening here, just
in reverse. For every one Rurouni Kenshin fic (and I don't know why you
think there would be a sudden deluge of fics of series like it and
Yu-Gi-Oh and such, since they're -already- anime) there are a dozen
Ranma fics in their fifteenth part.
In fact, your whole message practically treats the FFML as if it were a
place solely for Ranma fanfiction, which is the very perception that's
killing it.
-Rann
My intial comment was ':Assuming that the move was succesful and the FFML
became the cool place for all fandoms to post'.
THIS is why I stated the deluge and those figures. The FFML currently has a
Ranma bias, which is why those figures are not true at present. It currently
has a Ranma bias because this mailing list was well known (and attracted
it's main fanbase) at a time when Ranma fanfiction was a large percentage of
all anime fanfiction everywhere. Because of that hegemony it built up a
large Ranma-based community and Ranma became entrenched.
If you wrote Ranma fanfiction, then you knew this place was a good place to
post to find like-minded people who would read your fic (and hopefully
comment). If you wrote DBZ fanfiction though, you knew this was not the
place and you posted in dbz fora. Then the list became hard to find and
web-boards took over the landscape (and fanfiction.net arrived). So not
even the new Ranma writers find this place now. This list being mostly Ranma
is precisely why it survived as long as it did!, that community sustained
it. Had it been thrown effectively open earlier this list would certainly be
different, but a cosmopolitan melting-pot is rather unlikely to be the
result, I'd suspect an earlier death is far more likely. Like it or not,
those that read fanfiction do so in large part because they like the series
and want to read more set in it.
Your average Ranma reader when presented with a Buffy fic is most likely to
simply skip it, unless that reader happened to also like Buffy, and the
reverse is also true. People don't generally discover new fandoms via
fanfiction set solely in that new series., they do so by reading a crossover
with a series they DO like, or hearing a recommendation from a friend(or
wherever) about a cool series to watch, do so and then go looking for
fanfiction for that new series.
A person that just cares about the stories and isn't worried about the
fandoms they are set in is more likely to go read/write original fiction
The basic problem here is that a mailinglist is jusat the wrong format to
handle widely disparate fandoms. How many people read fics from the 'new'
list at fanfiction.net, grabbing everything that's posted?. I don't imagine
many!, they go to the section for the fandoms they like and go check out the
new stories there. It's partitioned, and that's why it works.
Opening up to everyone/thing and actually succeeding would drop the signal
to noise ratio to levels where it's just not worth bothering with, except
for the most popular few fandoms. Even if somehow you could magically
eliminate the crapfics.
The FFML worked BECAUSE it was mostly the Ranma list. Ranma is a an old
fandom now and maybe it can no longer support a mailing list, so maybe it's
time to change the primary fandom of the FFML to something else, but at the
end of the day it will still be a few select fandoms at most that populate
the list.
It should be noted that the reverse is also true. The FFML (and RAAC) became
Ranma's home. Those fics dominated, and because it was their home there was
really no other major forum for them. The other FFML fandoms (like SM) were
posted, but the FFML was never the main place for them, and as a result they
had their own fora.
--Rakhal
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