Yes, I know this responce is a tad late. I've had a backlog of posts to
yell at people about, and have been slacking a bit.

On Sun, 13 Jul 1997, Gary Kleppe wrote:

On Sat, 12 Jul 1997 19:15:13 -0500, jhedge@wwa.com (Jeanne Hedge) wrote:

It's sort of hard to ask the author when you don't know who the author is
and no one on the list will tell you who the author is.  I should know.  I
asked the list in general this question (who is the author) and NO ONE REPLIED.

There are ways to find out without posting to the list.

1) Check Mark Doherty's synopses lists -- I'm quite sure this story was
on the latest one.

Yup. And Mr. Doherty himself can probably give you the address of the
author.

2) Use the archiver. Simple and easy, and can be used by anyone.

Again, spot on.

3) Ask around. I for one will *gladly* send anyone any story that I have
if asked by private E-mail; and if I don't have it, I might know who the
author is (as in this case I obviously did). If someone comments on a
fic, it's likely that you can get the fic and/or the author from
him/her. I include the author's name and address in my comment posts.

Excellent, yes. If you requested a recently posted fic because of some C&C
you read, it's likely that the author of the C&C knows the author of the
fic's email address.

Until you started yelling about it.

I apologize for raising my (electronic) voice; but 99% of these"fic
request" posts do not need to be on the list IMO. They contribute
nothing to meaningful discussion of fics, and both WW and Tybalt have
said they don't want this kind of post on the list.

Damn straight. I tolerate a good deal of discussion-type spam because A) I
don't have the energy to deal with it all and B) Because it often leads to
fic ideas. But useless spam... things which will never produce a fic and
which could have just as easily been sent private mail... I try to crack
down on.

Asking for a fic on the FFML is either an act of ignorance - you didn't
know it was a no-no - or laziness - you want the fic, and are too
inconsiderate to expend the extra effort needed to get it without spamming
the list. If you don't know the author, use any of the methods given above
by Mr. Kleppe. If you request on the FFML, I'll yell at you.

The single exception to this rule is if you're looking for something that
_you_ wrote, and have lost due to hard drive failure or some such.

Gary Kleppe
kleppe@execpc.com, Home page http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe
My fanfics and the FFML map are on my comics/manga page,
       http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics