The State of the List Questionaire - Oct 2007

[or.phan_ann]

I've only been a member since about Easter, so I'm afraid this may not
be very useful or reliable, but here goes, anyway:

> 1. What has been your general impression of the list since the
> release of DH?

Well, now that speculation is dead, people are turning more to
analysis (eg how JKR treats the Slytherins), and this seems to me to
be bringing RL opinions in with it, and a general lack of detachment
from the text. If you identify as a Slytherin, and think JKR's treated
them badly, you're going to take that personally. In my opinion the
list has got markedly less civil since DH, and this is one reason why.
The fact that canon is now "closed" means that there's also less space
for people to argue that Peter loved Lily, or whatever - there's no
point in arguing about definitely anti-canonical subjects. (It can be
fun, though.)

> 2. Have you been posting since the release? Less than, as much as, 
> or more than you did before the release? If there is a change, what
> has caused you to change? If you haven't been posting at all, or   
> been posting rarely, why do you think that is?

I stopped posting, and pretty much stopped reading, after DH because
there were too many posts for me. Since then I've only said a few
things, but I find myself much less interested in the series now that
it's over. (I confess myself somewhat disappointed with DH.)  

> 3. Are you happy with the way the list is handled and/or the way  
> things are going at present? If you feel some action should be taken 
> by the elves, what would you suggest? What suggestions would you   
> give members in general to improve the list? What, if anything, have
> you tried to improve the list?

I'm perfectly happy with the list handling per se. Thank you, Elves.
In general, I think the list lives up to its "for Grown Ups" tag. I
would like some listies to be a bit politer, and perhaps to realise
when they're involved in "ping-pong" opinion-based arguments that
aren't going anywhere. But we all do things we regret, so I've nothing
harsh to say.

> 4. Now that we have all seven books and the speculation is over,
> what do you see as the purpose of this list? What would you
> imagine/want to see happening on the list a year from now?

Since you ask... something that's been exercising me pretty much since
I joined the list (in the runup to DH, remember) is what would happen
when DH came out. The list does seem to be dwindling in volume fairly
quickly: there were 3,000 posts in July, 2,445 in August, 1,083 in
September, and 644 so far this month, bidding fair for just under a
thousand at the end of the month. This has been somewhat inflated
because of the gay!Dumbledore reveal, and even so it looks like we're
in the quietest month since May 2002 (909 messages.) So what will
become of HPfGU? Well, unless JKR reveals the Giant Squid to be gay,
it's going to fade away, which is a shame because even if we've
nothing much to say about HP, we still have interesting things to say
about other stuff on OTC.

So here's a modest proposal (no, seriously): the History of HPfGU
recounts the creation of daughter lists like OTC over the years.
Perhaps when main-list postings become too low they could be folded
back in? We'd need a few more prefixes, but it might help keep posting
at a critical mass.

Ann, realising that that's going to be pretty controversial, and just
asking what everyone thinks of it.