[FFML] Just a note on configuration

[Sean Connor]

On Sun, Jul 01, 2007 at 09:53:05PM -0700, John Campbell wrote:
> Personally I think the old policy, combined with the attitude of the 
> posts regarding off-topic posts, most noticeable in replies to such 
> things as "Fic search" posts was a great part of the reason the list was 
> dieing.  If you don't build a community the list will just die the way 
> rec.arts.anime.creative did.

Agreed, but how much does the list's Reply-to policy have to do with
that?  The list was largely isolated from the mainstream Internet for a
very long time, and little new blood was coming on board.  Newcomers to
the world of Internet fanfiction found it much easier to find places
like fanficion.net, and thus never found their way here.  Meanwhile the
old guard was subject to the attrition that naturally occurs with any
Internet forum.

If you want to know why the list is less active today, this is why.  The
Reply-to setting, in all likelihood, has little or nothing to do with
it.

Also, I encourage you to read:
http://www.unicom.com/pw/reply-to-harmful.html

> If you look back through the list's archives, back to its height, say 
> 2001 or so, you'll find there was MUCH more "chatty."  People brought up 
> off topic things all the time.  And even when you stripped out the dross 
> you still ended up with FAR more actual fic-related discussion than I 
> remember ever seeing last year, or the year before.  I don't know when 
> the change in policy was made...I could probably find it in the 
> archives, but I think it was a bad choice, and would rather put up with 
> people asking the name of a fic they barely remember...and reading the 
> replies...and replies to replies than see a fic a week greeted by dead 
> silence.

There is something to that, and I think that the list would benefit from
the admins becoming a bit more tolerant of offtopic chatter.  This seems
to forment creativity among the authors on the list.

Separate issue from the reply-to thingy, though.

-- 
  -Sean Connor  (sec at zre.ca)
             
	WARNING:  Do not look into laser beam with remaining eye!