[HPforGrownups] SHIP? - protestations, call for HPFGU-SHIP

[Aberforth's Goat]

No: HPFGUIDX 31645

Elizabeth wrote,

> [I]t would seem to me that any topic
> that requires a tag on the subject line, that can constitute up to half of
the
> posts on the list for an extended period, and that draws repeated protests
from
> multiple members is a good candidate for such a division. It's been done
before,
> after all. We have separate HPFGU-Movie and HPFGU-OTChatter lists. Why not
a
> HPFGU-SHIP list? I imagine this has been discussed before, but list
management
> is always a dynamic topic, as the membership grows and changes.

Err ... could I sort of chime in, but not really?

To wit, I am, I think, a non-shipper (although, in my innocence, I still
think Harry and Ginny would make a sweet couple ... ). And my eyes have a
strange tendency to glaze over when I read more than three paragraphs
proving that the prepositional phrase in chapter 14, verse 23 has, in the
Mongolian translation, a variant reading presenting hitherto unnoticed
evidence that Harry *did* stare at Hermione's elbow. Somehow, these
discussions just don't ring my buzzer. (Unless David starts them ... )

However, the point of this list is to discuss the books - and romance is
every bit as much an aspect of that discussion as post-structuralist
analysis of Draco's semicolons. (Which may or may not be taken as a
euphemism.) Of course, it would be possible to create a list dedicated to
the discussion of everything about the HP books, excluding romantic
propinquities - but that would be a pretty radical redefinition of what this
list has spent the last one-and-a-half years being about.

(And it would, btw, involve some pretty hawk-eyed moderating to squelch any
discussion that might be turning pink - not to mention exhaustive
discussions of why my post *wasn't,* even though that numbskull of a
moderator thinks it is ...)

> Unfortunately, this does confirm a private speculation of mine that the
> preferences of the list owner were influencing the handling of this topic.
In
> that case, perhaps I should reverse my call and suggest the creation of a
new
> HPFGU-NOSHIP list. Or just wait for my Howler and subsequent banishment
for
> heresy, whichever. :(

Pssssssst. Don't tell anybody, but I *think* your speculation isn't private
any more; in fact, I have a nasty suspicion that 3000 people just heard
about it. Still, I don't see any reason why HPfGU-NoShip would be a bad
idea. In fact, it would be a lot of fun. As far as I know, that's pretty
much how sugar-quill (a web site for Ron-fans) got started - and I believe
that a lot of fans are having a lot of fun there.

I've been on the list with Penny for a while now - and I've never known her
to banish people for having interesting ideas. However, I have an inkling
that she may have felt hurt, on occasion, by people who have made unkind
statements about the way she - and her moderators (to whom I do *not*
belong) - run the list she created and we joined.

Baaaaaa!

Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray, poltergoat)
_______________________

"Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, so that may not have been
bravery...."