The question is posed again.

What happenned to the good old days?

Why are newbies so stupid?

Why are big-name's so snobby?

It's some kinda vicious cycle, and every time the question gets asked, a
little bit of thread is generated, mostly belaboring the obvious, then
things settled down and resume as they were. Then 200+ members later, it
gets asked again.

Fandom. Yeesh.

SO what are the results? What do most people feel?
--------

Some, much like Lurker, feel betrayed by the new, leech-like fandom
people. Apparently these poor souls have been attacked for doing nothing
but trying to glorify one of their favourite series with writing a story
about it. Some feel the new fandom has no sense of tradition or respect,
and long for a little bit ago when discussion wasn't drowing in spam, or
in obsessive readers.

quoth lurker

"Write more of this. Write more of that. You need to update 
your website. When's the next part of ... coming out? When? 
When? Huh? When? You don't know? Well FUCK YOU!"

This is hopefully a worse-case scenario. And anyone who has sent
messages like this to -anyone- clearly doesn't get it. They should be
ignored by fandom.
I have yet to see this kind of reaction to my work and I've been around
since. . .96. Prolly cause my writing doesn't provoke this kind of
interest.
--------

Some, mostly 'old timers' i've spoken with utter almost the exact same
words. "What Golden Age?" And Some of the evidence would agree with
them. They still enjoy the writing, and reading fandom here, yet are
confused by some of us who see something they don't. Some even think
we're bitching about nothing new. Same story in a different setting.
--------
Some think Lurker is out of his mind, and it's always been trecherous
ground here on the FFML, full of flames, where you're lucky to get
anything of redeeming value.
-------
Alot of newbies saw this post and wondered 'what the hell he's bawling
about?' Other newbies wondered, 'is this why no-on read my story?'
-------
Most hit the delete key cause it was less than 5k and couldn't have been
a fic.

--------
The majority seem to agree that there was no 'golden age' to begin with.
I seem to agree, but for a different reason. Not because of the people
involved. The same people, for the most part, continue to perpetuate the
list with their presence.

I thinks its the sheer volume of voices trying to be heard.
Noise.
I think it was easier to point out comments vs spam post back in the day
because of the lower list population. Easier to sift through the
commotion. Many growing clubs must face that problem.


quothe mr kleppe:

But it's only a select minority of people who are doing the work here. I
can count the people on this list who post regular, thoughtful
commentary on fics -- if not on my fingers, then on fingers and toes.

He has a point here, as far as public stuff goes. If you have a
complaint, then complain less; do more. Japanese business idea tend to
circle around 'stop bitching and fix it, -now-.' even if this is free
time we're spending, squandering it seems. . well, redundant.
----------

Also agreed by most is the lack of faq reading. This one is just common
sense here, but hey, look at it this way. I bet alot of those who get
tempbaned for testing think, 'hell I dont wanna be here, they're mean.'
I don't think anyone who isn't willing to at least GLANCE at some
conduct rules laid out before them would be terribly productive, and end
up not bothering to subscribe until they wise up. in theory, saving us
time.
-------
And the other topic agreed by pretty much everyone is that when you ARE
gracious enough to expend some of your time to present C&C to an author,
good or bad, make sure its PERTINENT to the story at least, rather than
a waste of your's and the author's bandwidth.
-----------

SOLUTIONS!?

We could all stand to dish out a little more C&C, myself included. I try
my best to spurn others to write as much as possible.
A little re-reading of the Faq's never hurt anyone. Maybe help brush up
on your nettiquete.
Stoping and thinking, 'Is this worth sending to them or is this just
another 'ME TOO!' post?' would help spammage alot.

Simple answer. There are none. Fandom and any hobbyists field face this
conundrum all the time, and have to come up with new ways to treat- or
skirt the problem, unless they become true eleetists and reject all
other comers. I'm finding this out the hard way with FFIRC.

Can we blame anyone for being eleestist? Yes. Anywhere fandom is
concerned. 

I got mad cause I saw some little skater kids wearing 'dragon ball z'
parphenalia, and they didn't know what 'anime' was. How stupid can they
be? They have no right to wear that stuff. Then I thought, what a
jackass I am. Who am I to deny anyone's enjoyment in anything? That is
the last stone in the 'fanboy-scum' wall.

This is everyone's fandom. It doesn't work when only a handful of people
are 'allowed' to think this is cool.

It just doesn't.

"it just won't work."
         --washuu

-TJ
-CSY head
-FFIRC head

Anything else to add? DO IT PRIVATELY and help kill spam! most of these
are my ideas and don't need to be bothered further to the list!