[FFML] A thought on the future of the FFML

[Steven Scott]

My thoughts as a lurker with no business in this conversation? Revamp the 
FFML or don't. Create something new that works how you want it to, or don't. 
But don't bother with half measures that try to preserve the FFML as a plain 
text only, e-mail based mailing list with a web frontend. At worst these 
e-mail focused considerations will impose limitations on your new system 
that keep it from being as successful as it should be. At best it WILL be a 
big success, but the e-mail stuff you're all agonising over will be an 
appendix useful only to 1% of its users. (you) That audience you're chasing 
does not use e-mail for this sort of thing any more than they use 
newsgroups.

IF there is a huge audience out there for e-mailed fanfiction critique, you 
need to find them and bring them here because the existing FFML is already 
fit for that purpose. You can find people crying out for helpful pre-readers 
on any decent fanfic site.
If there is not, you have to adapt to their expectations if you want to 
attract them. That means a system designed for the modern internet at the 
least. Then you can start getting imaginative about how quoting and 
commenting works if you do not like currently popular systems.

IMO, attempting to find a messy compromise between the two will please 
nobody and solve nothing. People say the FFML needs to change, but the FFML 
is its members as much as it is the technology that drives it, and if its 
members cannot change there is no point in changing the technology. You are 
a community and need to decide whether you want to remain a small community 
or challenge yourselves to adapt and grow. (as part of communities that did 
both, I can say they're both fine choices so long as you like the people 
you're with)

With best intentions...

Steven