>Don said:

<Rant - Most online message boards suck, and the more public something
is, the more it sucks. The board I usually hang out, tOWS, got shut down
temporarily when it's free hosting expired, so I've been hunting around for
another message board. >

And so begins my "post-to-let-people-know-I'm-alive"...hehe.

Ironically enough, I've been shying from mailing lists more often these 
days and moving towards message boards. Probably part of the reason is that 
the sheer amount of mail I get these days is about 2/3rds more than I got 
when I was really active around 1996-98 or so. I'm kind of reluctant to put 
in a point here or there when there are about 100 or so other mails in my 
box. On a message board I'm less hesitant, just because I can come back to 
it at any time with no penalty to anything of mine but my own time. ^_-

Of course, some anime boards are still kind of weak on the discussion - 
IGN's generate a lot of traffic, but the meat of the anime discussion isn't 
so great. Animeboards.com generates enough discussion, but the sheer number 
of boards and topics on there is enough to make someone gag from wading 
through everything. It's definitely a tough balancing act - but I 
definitely still get my discussion in at various places.

Actually, a couple Ranma ML folks are in my relatively young message board, 
which has actually been around since the days of the Ranma 1/2 Library but 
was since changed to a better system with the creation of AnimeInfo.org. 
Not very much traffic, but it's getting there. Color scheme's a bit garish, 
but I think that's what we were shooting for for the board design ^_^ Feel 
free to stop by.

We're at http://www.animeinfo.org/aiforums

I think someone had asked where they could reach me at as well. These days, 
that message board is one of the easiest and best ways to get word to me 
about something.

Of course, if you think message boards about anime are bad, try the 
chatrooms, sans IRC. Good God those are horrid. I think 90% of the time 
people don't even talk about anime in there. Though most of them have heard 
a little bit about Ranma...


-Frank Sanchez (ryouga@animeinfo.org)
Director, Registration, Anime Central 2001 (http://www.acen.org)
Co-Web Master, Web Designer, AnimeInfo.org (http://www.animeinfo.org)
"We walk in the dark places no one will enter.
We stand on the bridge and no one may pass.
We Live for the One. We Die for the One!"