hhhmmmm.... Ads on rec.games.pbm From: soliiigm@aol.com (Sol III GM) Date: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 00:00:00 +0000 Ok, I think I might be stirring a bad pot here, based on some of the comments I have been seeing. You folks are going to have to excuse me for that, but although I have been in this business for over 8 years, all of it PBeM, I have generally tended to ignore this newsgroup. Why? Well, that's easy. Mr. Lindahl. Now personally, he and I appear to have a *lot* in common. I see his posts on two mailing lists I am involved with that have nothing to do with PBeM, as well as his gracious and thankless maintaining of both the PBM FTP site and the PBM list on the web. In addition to that, he also maintains the Rialto Archives for the SCA, which is a pretty big undertaking. All of this is to point out that this is *not* a slam. However, I have learned a lot about the way things are in the last 2-3 years on dealing with the net directly. One of the main things that I have learned is that this newsgroup does not have to suffer the way that it does. We have lot's of people interested in PBM and PBeM. I know this in my bones, since I see living proof of it on a daily basis with my mailbox. In addition to the 5-50 messages that come in a day from the 3 different PBM mailing lists that I subscribe to, my own players generate anywhere from 40-100 messages a day, every day, 7 days a week. On a typical day, I get more PBM related mail in my mailbox than shows up in this newsgroup in a week. Bob's list has 100's of people on it, not just the 4-7 that post here in this group. Why did I just go through a bunch of info that everybody knows? Because I want to make a point. This group has been stagnated. The worst part is, I do not even understand why. Yes, I understand that hype filled ads are considered to be in bad taste, and that this is a relativly spam free newsgroup, and it would be nice to keep it that way... But what is the *real* problem with updates, improvements, and even posting a tasteful ad on a semi-regular basis? I know that I am not the only game moderator that ignores this group due to the nature of it, but my god, this should not be the case. This group should be so full of messages, on such a wide range of PB(e)M games, that people have to use a kill file and there are threads discussing which games need their own spin-off groups. I mean, the PBM forum on AOL generates more messages a week than this newsgroup does, and that is without the use of ads or spam or long winded discussions on whether or not a particular game is artificially inflating it's posts. Sheeesh! My point is this. This newsgroup is stagnate. Nothing can be said to deny that, because it is a provable fact. AOL's PBM forum generates more and better messages. The PBM - Forum often generates more messages, and they are always of an interesting nature, even when they are blatant ads. Now, the question is, what can be done to fix the problem? Eagle Sol III Game Master Sol III Play By E-Mail Role Playing Game http://members.aol.com/soliiigm/ (Large site with 100+ pages and growing) Choose your friends wisely. Your enemies will choose you. Referenced By Up