I have a question

[mbarrick]

Why are people joining my Gothic BC community but nobody ever joined vancouvergothic (Nancie's community that has been around a lot longer)? Why does my GothicBC Yahoo group keep attracting members when all the other Van-Goth spin-offs all started around the same time have long since stagnated? Why do people expect things of me? How come everybody has to show me their new camera? How come a rant I wrote for alt.gothic eight years ago still gets over a thousand people reading it each month and I get people mailing me about their research papers on the subject? How come people tag on to my freaking hobbies so readily? Why do people like Reptar, Daryl, and other psychos actually demand to be included in my idle goofing around? I'm not a promoter. I'm not a DJ. I'm just a net.Geek that likes to look at the pretty lights in the club and have a few drinks every once in a while. I mean really, the photographs aren't even a hobby unto themselves, they are tanget of another hobby - I take pictures so I have subject material to paint. I don't even know how I ended up being called goth in the first place. I just like what I like and do what I do and for some unfathomable reason a bunch of people have latched onto some of it - and not even the stuff I like best. What the hell is up with that?

Comments

[sleeplessknight.livejournal.com]

Well, it was fun while it lasted. ~_~

I'm glad I found the list, (I joined during the sudden unexpected explosion of popularity the previous year, all some weird coincidence! O_o) and I'm grateful that I've made so many friends and learned so many things from being there. Thanks Mike and Lorra, for hosting such a great place. ^_^ I don't know where I'd be now if I hadn't signed up on Van-goth. And while there's a lot of shit being thrown across the list and the bunch of airheads that post nonesense on there. There will always be the small ratio of less desireable peoples around in relation to the rest of the total population. But at the very least we can identify them by stupid things they've said on-list and try our best to avoid them. I'll stick around the Van-goth list although now I mostly just lurk, observe, and throw in my two cents into legitamite topics. I really don't find it to be worth my time and energy to join in on a flame war of any sort. But hopefully things will get better at some point and some lost soul, not unlike myself over a year ago, will find the list when it's clamer, and find good friends in this community. ^_^

Of course there's also the DarkVancouver EZboard that Issac's set up. I'm sure that will work out great as well. ^_^ Because of how the EZboards are set up, it should be much easier to filter out the noise in there while ignoring the antagonizers as they run around loose without annoying everyone. There are different aspects of both the message board and mailing list that are appealing to some and not to others. Also, extending the arms of the community might make it able to catch more people who might otherwise either miss the van-goth list, smokepit, or DarkVancouver.

Yahoo groups makes for a very sloppy message board, but it is more direct and handier for certain people as the E-mails do come directly to someone's inbox. The problem is with the replies you have no idea what you're going to read. And once again I'm thankful to you and Lorra for keeping the noise down lower than it would've been without you guys.

You guys rock. Thanks. ^_^

Thanks, Mike.

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

This was a great reminder that not everything about it sucks. The funny thing is I was in a similar fed-up state back when the list first exploded. At that point the only thing that kept me around was Lorra making me a moderator because she was too fed up herself to deal with any of it. It was at that point Van-Industrial, Van-Divothead Van-Rivethead, and my GothicBC mailing list all spun off Van-Goth. Which goes back to the orignal question - for no reason that makes any sense my list, the one that is in my opinion the most redundant of the three, remains the most successful.

But, yeah, I've met some good people - including you - that I might not have ordinarily met. The list has its place. I'm just sick of babysitting it for now.