Subject: ABML is now one half of four-and-twenty (years not blackbirds)
From: William George Ferguson

Happy Birthday to us
Happy Birthday to us
Happy Birthday, dear abml
Happy Birthday to us


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--begin quoted--
Control: newgroup alt.books.m-lackey
Newsgroups: control
From: cestep@netcom.com (Christopher Estep)
Subject: newgroup alt.books.m-lackey
Message-ID: <cestepCJL9Mt.9M2@netcom.com>
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 1994 22:11:15 GMT
Approved: cestep@netcom.com

After much discussion two months ago in alt.config this group is being
created for the purpose of discussion of the books of author Mercedes
Lackey and her collaborations.

alt.books.m-lackey Discussion of author Mercedes Lackey and her
books
--end quoted--

And another relevant post from the past

--begin quoted--
From: frgsn@primenet.com (William George Ferguson)
Subject: Re: Trying to remember...
Date: 1998/01/17
Message-ID: <34c030de.11061946@snews.zippo.com>

Brika Steinberg <bsteinbe@chat.carleton.ca> wrote:
>Thanks for the info...
>
>The hot tub and the fudge ovens sound fun, but who is Fluffy and why is
>he being tossed into a lake? :)

Others have given you short and skewed versions of the answer, but the
true answer is long and tied to the history of this group (and this
post is really going to live up to the subject line).

Deep in the dark past of usenet, a control message went out, saying
"let there be alt.books.m-lackey, and Lo, there was alt.book.m-lackey.
On some news servers. With big gaps in between.

Still, mysterious beings found their way to this new homeland, created
in the midst of pyramid schemes, binary copyright violations, and 'me
too'. Strange beasts roamed this homeland; dragons, gryphons, grey
wolves, copper squirrels, cats who were spaceship captains. This was
the 1st Age of abm-l. Little is known of this mystical period. The
only artifacts left are 'The FAQ', originally done by Melissa
Tabbifli, who left the group about the time I arrived, and the
injunction that 'Thou Shalt Not Use Misty's Characters or World
Without Misty's Permission' by Russell Galen, ML's agent.

The 2nd Age of abm-l began in the halcyon days of the Spring of 1995.
A sprightly young lass (we'll ignore her teenage children for the
moment) named Vicki Jean wandered into the group, looked around, and
said 'where the heck is everyone'. She began posting, and one of the
mysterious denizens, a Texan whose nom du usenet was (and is) Captain
Silkfur McFluffy, responded, in a manner full of gay persiflage. vj
responded in like kind, and during the months of April and May, the
two of them accounted for over half of all the posts to abm-l (not
difficult, considering the newsgroup was rarely hitting double figures
in daily posts at that time).

The posting to the newsgroup grew slowly during this period, as old
posters returned and new posters arrived. Tabbifli posted her last
version of The FAQ, and turned its keeping over to the Captain (in
whose good hands it rested, yea until this month).

Little did anyone realize that an Event was to occur that would change
the landscape of this little group forever. It began in all
innocence. vj said 'gee, wouldn't it be neat to list all the people
that post to this group, so they all may be known unto each other,
since some of them post so sparingly.' And she said 'hey everyone,
let me know who you are, and what state you're from'. And Lo, lurkers
did appear, saying "I'm in Kansas", and "I'm in New York", and "Can I
put the Province I'm in since we don't have states in Canada", and
"What about us folks in Britain", and "Hey, what about us in New
Zealand", and "Hi, from Stockholm". By the handful the lurkers
responded, and by the dozen, and by the score. vj would post an
updated list several times a week at first, but as it grew into the
hundreds, she said 'my goodness, what have I done'.

The interesting thing is, once these lurkers had posted once, many of
them kept right on posting, and a newsgroup which in April and May of
1995 was having a busy day when it reached 10 posts, by July of 1995
was routinely getting in a day 30 or 40 or (if you can believe it) 50
posts. And this was the Spring and Summer of the 2nd Age of abm-l.

As the world turned, and outside events had impact on this
not-so-quiet, but gentle haven, the strange and wonderful entities
called Internet Service Providers became nervous of the legal impact
of various activities that passed through their machines. Illegally
reproduced pictures did fill much of alt.*, yea even in non-binary
groups. Diligent reporters in the midst of sweeps periods did
document evil men trying to lure young children into error.
Electronically ground shoulder pork and ham did choke off groups until
they became like unto unreadable. Through it all, the ISPs looked and
said 'it's those alt. folks, they're the problem'. And it did come to
the realization of the more sober members of abm-l (and even the less
sober) that the propogation of the group did remove the insides from
eggs with a straw.

Then rose some of those present, and they said 'to protect our
propogation, we must seek more secure ground. Let us migrate to
rec.*'. And after much conversation on the newsgroup, a wonderful
document called an 'RFD' was submitted to the vicious pirahnas that
inhabit 'news.groups', where it was promptly rended mightily.
Chiefly, the denizens of this arcane group felt that people looking
for discussion of books would be much more likely to look for it in a
group labeled 'written' than they would in a group labeled 'books'
(yes, I know that isn't fair, I'm not really trying to be fair here).
Opinions on abm-l were strongly divided, with a significant number
strongly opposed to the sf.written heirarchy as a home. Eventually,
the RFD quietly expired, no CFV was requested, and, as fears over the
propogation of alt.* lessened, the topic quietly died.

There was one major impact on abm-l that remained from the Great
RABM-L/RASWM-L debate. Posting from November 95 to February 96
virtually doubled. Instead of getting 30-50 posts a day, abm-l was
now getting 70-100 posts a day.

During the Spring and Summer of 1996, another change occurred to the
newsgroup. Conversations had always had a tendency to diverge wildly
from the original topic, but at this point this tendency became
institutionalized (it was actually written into the proposed Charter
of RABM-L). It had been said right along that the only things off
topic in abm-l were flames and spam, but a fair percentage, if not
most of the threads at least started as discussions of ML's books.
However, in 1996, the now large membership of abm-l became somewhat
more stable, with the side-effect that they pretty much discussed out
the existing books, and ML slowed her up-to-then prodigious output,
which meant there were less new books to discuss.

People turned to other interests in the newsgroup to fill the time.
Two of the older (in abm-l residence) members, Copper Squirrel and
Captain McFluffy (hereinafter, just Fluffy), had been wont to welcome
newcomers to the group with virtual gifts. Fluffy's welcomes were
especially memorable, various ascii art with the tag line "You have
been Fluffed". Others, admiring this, joined in the welcoming
process, until there was a rush to be the first to welcome any
delurker. People emulated the Squirrel's gifts of virtual food,
getting progressively wilder in the diversity. Virtual food which was
first given to newcomers, soon started being thrown at them. Virtual
story threads abounded with Hot Tubs, Inns, Springs, and other
surroundings. And The Persecution of Fluffy started.

The first major All-against-Fluff war, in 1996, started with Fluffy,
as is his wont, playfully teasing another regular, whose usenet atavar
was a goddess. During the course of the weeks-long resulting thread,
Fluffy was turned green. The second major All-against-Fluff war, in
1997, was the Trial of Fluffy (Fluffy's sig line during this thread
was 'remember, vote Guilty').

At the beginning of January 1998, Fluffy announced that he had
realized that his reading and posting to the group had been steadily
falling off, and felt that it would be better if someone were to take
over his duties as FAQ-keeper. Patricia Swan has taken it over at
this time. Fluffy did come back for a short round of posts, but is
currently absent from the group. It should be noted that many
long-time posters have taken sabbaticals from abm-l and ultimately
returned (Tal Greywolf once went a year without posting, Copper
Squirrel has gone several months between abm-l posts), so Fluffy is
merely absent, not necessarily gone.
--end quoted--

Minor updating of the above.

Patricia Swan is long absent, and Megan currently maintains the faq.

Fluffy has also been absent for a fairly long time, but we do get periodic

updates from Nightshade, who he met online right here in abml, then

ended up marrying in rl.

Vicki Jean comes and goes, she's currently in a 'goes' phase, but she's
been there before and returned.

One of the saddest updates is the passing of Copper Squirrel (Carl Munk)
on November 17, 2001. I think all of us long-timers still miss him.
--
I have a theory, it could be bunnies