The HP obsession (Was: To Carol)

[cindersla]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" <justcarol67 at ...> 
wrote:
>
> Carol responds:
> 
> You're welcome. I'm just wondering why I couldn't find my own 
message.
> And don't worry; certain topics dominate for awhile but even the
> variety of emotions aroused by Gay!DD will die down when we've all 
had
> our say. A lot of us are also incurably obsessed with Snape; you'll
> find tons of posts about him on the main list.
> 
> If our posts clog your inbox, you can always opt to read online from
> the site itself. That's what I do. (If you think it's hard to keep 
up
> now, imagine how it was when we had thousands of messages per month
> coming in. IIRC, those times were usually right before or right 
after
> a book came out. (I just checked the stats for the main list: 7,267
> messages in June 2003, astoundingly topped by 8,234 the following
> month (July 2003). Thanks to the temporary three-post limit during
> peak response times (and the semi-permanent five-post limit, which
> perhaps the List Elves will consider lifting if things get slow in a
> year or two????), the numbers have been more manageable in recent
> years. In fact, January and September of this year are tied for the
> lowest complete month at 1,083 each. October may well come up even
> shorter, with a mere 943 posts so far and only four-odd days to go.
> 
> Aside to Sarah G., who just posted on her HP obsession in the
> "Distracted" thread: You're not alone! There are currently 27,459
> members of the main list (not all of whom actually post, obviously!)
> At a guess, some of those members are now inactive and just never
> bothered to resign from the list; how many are compulsive lurkers, I
> can't even guess. Still, considering that many members were 
primarily
> interested in speculating on what would happen in future books, 
that's
> a large number. Maybe one of the List Elves can give us an idea how
> that compares to the membership pre-DH or at other peak periods.
> 
> Carol, who finds the statistics fascinating and hopes she hasn't 
bored
> everybody else
>
Wow, I think I'm glad that I joined after that. Though for awhile 
there was still just too much mail to keep up with, so I just mass 
delete a lot, plus I'm a member of a lot of other lists (not related 
to Harry, but to writing and sports and things), so I do a lot of 
mass deleting. People ask me well, why did I join so many lists. 
That's cuz that's what I am interested in, and I figure if I learn 
even a few things each day, thats more than I would have learned if I 
hadn't joined. :) 

The one thing I have definately learned from all of this for my own 
writing is that I need to work on character development. :) The Harry 
novels were what made me start writing children's novels. Before that 
I wrote romance. So the books changed me in a lot of ways, too, and 
taught me a lot about my own writing. :)

Cinders (Carol)