Reading the archives, was What kind of list do you want?

[nicholas dean]

Karen said:-

>  I still believe there was a
>lot of furor over something meant as frivolous and light, which you
>also apparently took offense to.


I wasn't offended; others were. I said that, in my opinion, the 
discussion was inappropriate for the list, and I gave my reasons why.


>Karen again:-
>As to rehashing topics, I really do not see how you can avoid it. As
>you point out,


Not me, it was Joj

>it takes a substantial amount of time to go back and
>read years worth of posts.

Does it? I noticed that Joj also said that the archives were 
difficult to access, so I took the last 20 minutes of my lunch hour 
on Friday to go back to the very beginning. They're not difficult at 
all. I read the first 50 posts on the list; all of them, every word 
except the reposts, and was interrupted twice by the phone; but I 
still finished the 50 posts within the 20 minutes. There are over 
12000 posts in the archives, some of them one-liners, and some of 
them on threads that you won't be interested in (casting predictions 
for movies that have now been released, etc); but if you wanted to 
read them all, it wouldn't be an impossible task.  In fact, I found a 
treasure in my trawl through the archives; someone had posted an 
interview with Alan Rickman (Alan Rickman! who never gives 
interviews!) about his take on Snape. Just imagine what other hidden 
treasures are lurking in the files!  Last week I read through 1750 
posts from the main list (I have fallen a bit behind on that one 
since the middle of last month). It took me a little over an hour, 
because in that case I don't read every post, just the threads which 
are of interest (and I was watching 'University Challenge' for part 
of the time).

>  I somehow feel we are being hand slapped
>again. I, indeed, *would* like more in depth discussion but light
>heartedness is never out of line IMO. In fact, there were some bits of
>camera work I was thinking about talking about in PoA and some other
>technical details, but it seems, if I tread on toes, as others seem to
>have done, by bringing up something 2 years ago when PoA was released,
>I might just be boring you and stepping out of what you want from the
>list. I believe what is bothering me most is that you wish a closed
>list with people who have been here all along so as not to bother you
>with repetition.

I see where you are going with this, but I'm not playing, sorry.

>  I am rather late to the Potter world. Just never had
>been exposed until, really, this last year when a friend really pushed
>me to read the books and see the movies.


Then  I *really* don't understand why you are so averse to reading 
the archives. If it were me in the early stages of a new interest, I 
would want to read everything I could get hold of on the subject, and 
to have such a rich resource at one's fingertips (literally!) is 
invaluable.

Anyway, Val reminds us that we are being boring. She also bravely says:-

>No one's forcing anyone to be bound to this group. If you
>enjoy it, stay. If you don't, there is about 1,000 other HP sites you
can access.

But  I'm sure she wrote this tongue-in-cheek to make us laugh after 
what I said in my previous post about whoever would make this point.

Well, it was a week ago that I asked what kind of list everyone 
wanted. Of the thousands of members, only three posted to say that 
they were interested in a discussion of the technical aspects of the 
movies. I have to conclude therefore that it's not a priority  with 
most of you.

****
I wrote the above and the following sentence this morning before 
going out for lunch. A fellow-guest turned out to be one of the 
technicians working on the special effects for the HP movies! He had 
some interesting stories to tell about the things they have done so 
far, and dropped some discreet hints about what they are working on 
for OoP. Since you're not interested in the techie stuff, I won't 
bore you with the details, but I couldn't believe the irony of the 
timing of this!

****

So I'm off; to a list where the members are civil, the logic is 
strong, and all the posts are above average.

Over and out,
Nicholas

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