Another country heard from... (was: Thoughts on exclusion and culture) LONG

[gwendolyngrace]

--- In HPFGU-Feedback at yahoogroups.com, "Haggridd" 
<jkusalavagemd at y...> wrote:
> 
> Thanks for a brilliant post.  

Well, thank you. But it was pointed out to me offlist that I 
attributed something incorrectly: I said Richard said it was bad for 
the list. Actually, that was Shaun (message 149). Sorry, Richard, if 
I offended you through that unintentional misrepresentation. I read 
about 150 messages in one night, and I tried to take careful note of 
the posts I wanted to return to, but I guess accidents still happen.

 
> But, having pretty much accepted your conclusions as to the 
> vialbility of TBAY and of FILKing,  I wonder if banning TBAY will 
> improv the list.  As you pointed out, the TBAYers and the FILKers 
> turned to thes forms either out of boredome with the then current 
> essays only format, or that they realized-- as you have admitted-- 
> that there are things much more elegantly conveyed through an 
> alternative form.  Would either of these populations return to 
> posting those boring-- to them-- essays if TBAY was banned, even 
> begging the question of their natural reaction to said banning: 
> resentment at best, anger and retaliation at worst.
> 

Well, I think people turned to TBAY out of boredom, for the most 
part, that's true. Filk has always been around, though, and as I 
said, filk is a strange thing. It is by its nature somewhat 
reactionary, while with TBAY it appears that the pressure on the 
participant is to further discussion - or to spin the web further. 
The other thing about filk is, well, I don't know about you, but for 
me filk grabs me. My analogy to an attack is accurate for me. 
Sometimes you get the major flash of a filk and it just wants to be 
written. 

Anyway, rambling.

As to your other point about the difficulty of ousting TBAY after all 
this time, of course it would cause problems. I acknowledge that, 
just as I acknowledged that the moderators tell us they aren't 
considering it at this time. But recall that fanfic discussion was 
allowed for a long time, too, and the list adjusted when it was 
decided to ban fanfic discussion.

Gwen