[HPFGU-Feedback] Re: Welcome to HPFGU-Feedback

[Heidi Tandy]

On Fri, 21 Nov 2003 12:51pm, a_reader2003 wrote:


> In following through the recent admin row on OTC, one of the most
> upsetting things for me was to see confirmed that there was a small
> group of long-term/original members who had formed their own inner
> sanctum to discuss ideas. I had heard this rumoured before, but
> thought it was just one of the usual conspiracy theories. Mainly I
> found it upsetting because I would just like to read what they were
> thinking. Personally I wouldn't dare try to join in such rarified
> discussions unless I had done a lot of thinking and research.
>

I know I'm jumping in here without answering the questions, which I do 
pledge to do, but I need to post about this.

I am on The Old Crowd. I've been on it since mid-june.

We're not discussing the books. We barely have discussed the books. It's 
more a way for real-oldbies (those of us who still consider, say, 
Elkins, to be a newbie) to keep in touch and chat about hp topics, yes, 
but also off topic and general fandomy things.

There is no rarefied discussion, and anyone who claims there is is 
lying.

The existence of the list has been used as an excuse, a justification, 
if you will, but only by people who are not on that list.  and this is 
certainly not the first list that people who were actively involved with 
hpfgu (including hpfgu administration) have set up. Steve has discussion 
boards at the lexicon, I'm an admin on fictionalley along with other 
current and former hpfgu-team people. Nobody ever complained about those 
things, so why on earth should the creators of TOC have thought that 
some disgruntled person would show up and start blaming the existence of 
that list for, well, anything.

Many of the fandom oldbies who are still discussing the books outside of 
hpfgu do so on livejournals (mine is heidi8.livejournal.com), through 
writing fanfic or by participation in message boards in places like the 
lexicon, fictionalley.org's fictionalley park, sugarquill, etc., and 
there's  a different reason for every person who's moved away from the 
main list.

A lot, though, were shocked, saddened or otherwise thrown off balance by 
ootp. I probably wouldve left the fandom entirely were it not for nimbus 
and fictionalley, because of my responsibilities, not to actually, you 
know, discuss anything.

But in the four months since, I've realised that I actually like the 
bloody tome after all. Whew and yay. But for someone like me, who read 
at least a few lines of every post for two and a half years, it's hard 
to jump back onto hpfgu's main list discussion, and so I've stuck to FA, 
where I'm more familiar with the territory, just from having modded 
there nonstop.

Now...


Back to TOC.

Everyone is free to discuss whatever they want to here, but if someone 
again blames the fifty or so canon discussion posts on toc for anything, 
I reserve the right to laugh.

And here's why: there's no brilliant discussion there because (a) we 
don't really need there to be, but also because (b) you need newbies to 
keep discussion going! Newbies are the ones who force old discussion 
topics back into strong relief. They sometimes ask really silly 
questions, and honestly, there's little to add on some sibjects, but 
theuyre the ones who ask, and force the oldbies to flesh out a concept 
more, or explain something a different way, or even reexamine a take on 
someone.