--- yoru@mindspring.com wrote:
>  It's only natural for an ML, and a series' fanbase,
> to eventually reach the 
> twilight of its lifecycle. With little new material
> entering the arena, all 
> our pertinent topics have been debated, discussed,
> argued, beaten, kicked and 
> otherwise flogged to death over the course of...
> what do we have now, 10 
> years of running? There is nothing left to say.
>  
> 
>  I believe many of the regulars have either moved
> their primary interests 
> elsewhere (as is with me), lost access to the e-mail
> accounts signed up here, 
> or otherwise become disconnected with the community
> the ML represents. The ML 
> has moved into the final phase of a fandom's
> lifecycle. We have a few 
> die-hards clinging to the last shards of community,
> some old timers who 
> occasionally peek in out of nostalgia or curiosity,
> and the rare fresh-faced 
> newbie who has recently discovered the series and
> has yet to absorb all the 
> material and information we've sifted over time and
> again during the ML's 
> course.
> 
It seems to be that way - and not only on this ML.  I
am a member of 5 ML's.  When I first joined back in
early 2001, I was getting *a lot* of messages - up to
400K worth.  Now, I am lucky to get 5 messages a day.
 
> 
>  Mailing lists are also a rather archaic means of
> electronic communications - 
> the modernized equivalent being the web-board
> bulletin board, and the ML's 
> antiquated predecessor being USENET. Web boards are
> far more accessible to 
> the majority of the internet population; you might
> have some success 
> revivifying some segment of the ML population if
> someone set up a forum or 
> three on a reliable server and announced it here.
> 
 
> 
> -- Yoru
> 
...and even some of the web boards are dying
out...either the members move on or the boards get
viruses or get hacked.

I believe that ML's go in cycles;  right now, we are
in a low ebb.

Nyssia