[FFML] [ANNOUNCEMENT] The end of the FFML

Wed Apr 7 19:40:34 PDT 2021

I could have sworn that was already posted.

________________________________
From: ffml <ffml-bounces+dragonbard=hotmail.com at chez-vrolet.net> on behalf of lawrence at sandwich.net <lawrence at sandwich.net>
Sent: Wednesday, April 7, 2021 12:14 AM
To: 'The Fanfiction Mailing List' <ffml at chez-vrolet.net>
Subject: Re: [FFML] [ANNOUNCEMENT] The end of the FFML

I motion that the FFML not be officially ended until we get the Hearts of Ice finale.

-----Original Message-----
From: ffml <ffml-bounces+lawrence=sandwich.net at chez-vrolet.net> On Behalf Of Dennis Carr
Sent: Saturday, April 3, 2021 5:02 PM
To: ffml at chez-vrolet.net
Subject: [FFML] [ADMIN] [ANNOUNCEMENT] The end of the FFML

I suppose there's no easy way of putting it.

After some discussion with the moderators and quite a bit of thought over the past few months, I have elected to close the FFML.

There are several reasons for this, but I suppose it can be distilled down to two: one is personal, and the other is that time and technology march on.

The personal end boils down to no longer having the spoons and having to rearrange my life to better serve me.  This is, no doubt, a rather small thing to deal with - but as I examine my life in middle age and make changes in how I live my life, I'm realizing I have an awful lot of such rather small things in my life - and I can either continue on how I've been doing, or I can sum up what is needed to continue for
(hopefully) another 40+ years.  And to be honest, as much as I came to love this list in the 24 years since I joined, sometimes one just has to let go of that which they love.

To this same end, I honestly haven't been terribly active in anime fandom in quite some time.  The last time I did anything, in fact, was a "ghost shoot" at Sakura Con in Seattle maybe 13 years ago.  I haven't been back since, and would like to go again.  Hell, even a story that I started and co-wrote with another author has been sitting on my disk and taking up space - I might continue it.  It's called Unfinished Business and is a Tenchi Muyo exchange-student story set where I once lived in north Orange County, California.  But I digress.

The other reason, though, seems bigger.  It's like I said - time and technology march on.

This list was created in the early years of the public internet.  I don't know exactly when, as I found the list myself in 1997 when White Wolf was still hosting and the pseudo-user Tybalt was used by the mods of the time.  In that time since, though, much has changed on the network.  Usenet, for instance, is not nearly as widely used as it once was, with much of alt.* alone being riddled with spam.  Mailing lists came in to fill in the blanks where Usenet would otherwise not serve, and while many such lists still exist most have simply fallen off.  Even twenty years ago, we started seeing dedicated websites and web forums for specific purposes including fanfiction as a whole, and in some cases those sites gave way to social media sites such as Livejournal and Myspace - which themselves basically gave way to the likes of Reddit and Facebook.  Even Yahoogroups - our old standby that we used as backup when Phillip Mak passed on 14 years ago and during some other server issues over the years - has pretty much been closed up.  And all that is just a mere sliver of the progression out here.
Where I don't deny there is an aspect of not wanting to continue owing to these changes in how we work on the internet, this evolution unto itself is indeed a large part of what's driving this decision.

To be perfectly clear, this is not at all about the simple fact that the traffic on this list has dwindled since even before I took the list onto my own server.  The dwindle is just a side effect of the evolution.  Long time subscribers will remember that, back when I even discovered this list in 1997 or thenabouts, we would regularly see upwards of 20 messages per day (and that was a quiet day!) and in some cases expect to wait at least an hour before our message got fully posted by the fanfic.com server(s).  We were super active back then!
There was indeed a shift when Phillip took it on, things just slowed down.  And yeah, I openly admit that I had some optimism that we would see list traffic get to the volume that once was - but that was not meant to be, despite the "hello world" flurry of posts in July of 2007 as the boxes were notionally unpacked here.  Either way, to reinforce
- the lack of traffic in and of itself is not a driver in this decision.  That lack of traffic is just a side effect of what has come to be.

It's not an easy decision for me to make.  But as much as I have come to love this list, it's time to call it a day.  This email list, by and large, has served its purpose and served it well.

As of the time I am sending this email, I have changed list settings to simply reject posts from anyone who is not a member (previous settings were to hold email for moderator intervention).  ffml-admins will retain its current settings and will remain live for the duration, so if you need to ping us off list then please don't hesitate to do so.

In keeping with the 14th anniversary of opening the list on chez-vrolet.net, I will close this list completely on the evening of July 1, 2021.  The archive will be packed up as it exists, and I will have it available for download as a zip file until January 1, 2022.
The mirrors, as linked in the FAQ, will remain online at the prerogative of their respective hosts.  I don't run those, and I don't get to tell 'em what to do. =)

The usual rules will still apply in the meantime, of course.  The moderator team will remain in place for the duration of the closure period, and you are welcome to continue to use the list as it has been used since time(t) = minus infinity - but going forward we are now officially allowing the posting of links to "plug" yourself and how to make contact aside from email once the list goes dark.  So that we may keep in contact, I encourage you to share this information.  Mine, as such, is below.

Oh.  One last note, because since getting this domain in 2003 I've seen three people who pronounce it correctly aside from my ex wife and I (and I gotta spell it every bloody time!) - and I don't know who here has figured it out.

It's pronounced "SHAY vro-LAY". =D

Thank you, everyone, for being here.

-Dennis Carr
(soon to be former list op)
PO Box 6
Bothell, WA 98041
dennisthetiger at chez-vrolet.net
http://chez-vrolet.net/~dennisthetiger
https://www.facebook.com/dennisthetiger/
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