[FFML] A thought on the future of the FFML

[Larry F]

     It's long, long past the point where the list should have had a web 
site, or at least a BBS. Keeping it email only instead of growing with 
the times probably contributed to its decline. Heaven knows my site, the 
Lost Library, still gets visitors even 8 years after I lost the time and 
the motivation to work on it that I had back in the early years.

     That said, though, it was the loss of White Wolf that sent the list 
into a death spiral. Before his passing, lots of members. After, very 
few members, partly because no one knew where the list's successors 
were, or which of the competing successors was the "official" one.

     I'm also not at all certain that the decline was really a bad 
thing, necessarily. When the list was young, it was a writers' forum 
where people came to get advice and critiques from their peers. Then it 
grew, and grew, and eventually the majority of its "members" were people 
who just signed up to get fics delivered to them on the proverbial 
silver platter, not to write fiction or provide critiques. When that 
happened, it lost something very important, and it may be impossible to 
get it back.

     Still, I believe there's still a market for a place where an 
amateur writer can post with the assurance of getting a response that is 
helpful, instead of the infamous "good fic, write more!" There was once 
a voluntary panel on this list that you could flag down to get 
guaranteed feedback. Would it be possible to gather up enough people to 
revive that service for a web site?

     Larry F