Why I'm thinking of unsubbing.

[melclaros]

This has been coming on a while now and the posts here over the last 
couple of days have clarified things greatly.

1. My first inkling of trouble was immediately following the 
publication of OoP when it seemed that virtually EVERY familiar 
poster on the main list vanished overnight. "Ok," I thought, "they're 
formulating their usual well-thought-out responses." And so I 
scrolled patiently through the "Why couldn't Harry see the 
Thestrals?" posts and the "I'm new here!" posts, and the "Sorry if 
this has been brought up before," posts while I waited. And waited. 
And waited. It's been months now and I can still say with confindence 
that the overwhelming majority of posts on the mainlist right now are 
by people I do not recognize as having been there prior to the 
publication of OoP. I have no problem with that in and of itself, but 
UNTIL LAST NIGHT continued to wonder where my favorite posters were.

Thank you, Cindy, for telling us that they quietly removed themselves 
from us rabble and took themselves off to a private inner-sanctum 
where the word "Thestral" has probably yet to be typed. I find this 
*disgusting*. Ok, you wanted some peace and quiet, I don't blame you, 
but just how long are you planning to stay away, "Old Crowd"?



2. I almost hit the Unsub button a few months ago while reading this 
very list when I stumbled upon a group of listees, many of whom had 
been members either about the same length of time as myself (or less! 
and I've been here maybe a year and a half for your reference) making 
nasty comments about "newbies" on the main list and suggesting 
draconian methods of "dealing" with them such as implementing a "No 
Post" period for all new listees or limiting all newbies to one-post-
per-day. This at at time while OoP had just been published and there 
were DOZENS of current threads going on many DIFFERENT topics. Aren't 
new members still put on "moderated" status? Isn't that the POINT? If 
one particular new listee is posting 27 one-line responses to the 
same thread, isn't it his/her elf's job to nudge them in the right 
direction?  If elves can't handle the jobs they've volunteered for, 
then they should resign. "Please limit your responses in any given 
thread" seems like a simple enough directive. Perhaps if some of them 
had spent less time b*tching and hiding they'd have been able to 
handle the volume of new listees. Note the word **SOME**.

3. The very idea that this idiocy is STILL GOING ON. There is one 
bright side to it though. Post volume and active membership will 
plummet. Think of all the free time ADMIN will have then.


Mel, who gives her patience through this weekend, maybe.