[Glorantha] Some Facts about the World of Glorantha Group

From: rjmeints_at_aol.com <(rjmeints_at_aol.com)>
Date: Thu Jul 5 23:00:26 2007

Hello all,

Over the last few days I have been following the discussion related to?the World of Glorantha yahoo group - why it was created, how it works, etc. Some of those posts have been?full of?bitterness and anger. I've no problem with that, but?not when the "facts" being stated as the cause for such anger or bitterness just don't stand up.??

I only provide the following info so people have some insight into my potential bias: I am the creator of the World of Glorantha yahoo Group, and one of its three moderators. I have worked with Jeff Richard and Greg Stafford on each of their Gloranthan publications, worked with Issaries as they launched their IP Policy a few years back, and am the current licensed publisher of HeroQuest.

On to the?recent posts:

1. Jane Williams actively discouraged having someone cross-post some digest information to the World of Glorantha group when she said:?

>"If you really want to hear how that doesn't match Greg&Jeff's private
>Glorantha, which no longer has anything to do with real Glorantha
>anyway, go ahead: but why bother?"

2. Jane then went on to speculate about the origins of the World of Glorantha group:

>"Not to mention the creation of that list in the first place: so he
>wanted to use one list, for discussion of rules-free Glorantha in
>general: was the fact that this one isn't dedicated to his ego in
>some way a problem? He completely ignored its existence."

3. Graham Robinson expanded on Jane's statement with:

>"Adding a new list just splinters the fan-base. Add in Greg's reasons
>for starting the new list, and you'll start to see why some of us are
>bitter, and why you're lucky this list hasn't vanished already.

Some facts I want to make more widely known:

---

Greg (Stafford) and Jeff (Richard) contribute to?many of the discussions on the World of Glorantha group, but not all of them. Greg and Jeff?have posted about 11% (276 out of 2670) of the messages. The discussion is open to all. In?particular, the recent "Darksense" cross-post was well received and?seen as a great bit of Gloranthan creativity by all.?The World of Glorantha group is not an "ask Greg" forum. Greg has publicly stated that he has no desire to make that happen and he does not encourage it. He welcomes disagreement.

I (Rick) created the World of Glorantha group. I thought that Greg sending out a personal invite to people would help spur interest in signing up. Greg wanted to participate in a single forum to discuss Glorantha and said so in his invite. He thought that the World of Glorantha group was the best place to do that.?Creating a new group was NOT his or my?first choice. Early in 2006, shortly after Moon Design got the Heroquest license, I emailed Graham Robinson and discussed with him how we could have the Glorantha Digest become the "official" mailing list for Glorantha. I had recently begun mapping out the new Glorantha.com website and how we would be updating its content, and expanding its services and features. Mailing lists and forums are a big part of that, and are still in the works. We are behind schedule, but things are still progressing. We?asked Graham to be the site's main list administrator and we offered the help of others to support him. The changes we were suggesting for the Glorantha Digest were  relatively minor in scope and effort. Graham?politely declined. He also declined getting an IP Policy license for the Digest and preferred to remain an independent "one man show". Thus, we went to option "B", creating a new discussion group on Yahoo since the glorantha.com site wasn't ready for that.

As for "splintering the fan base", let's look at some yearly posting totals for the Digest (from the digest archives): 2003?- 1581 posts, 2004?- 1183 posts, 2005?- 1675 posts and 2006?- 2782 posts. In the first?5 months of the World of Glorantha Yahoo group's existence (Feb to June),?the World of Glorantha group?has had just over 2600 posts. Overall traffic has not decreased and?it is more concentrated in one place than before (on Yahoo groups).?

---

The discussion continued when Jane said:

>"The original reasons seemed to be, at best, ignorance
>that this list existed, which is pretty ignorant. The
>alternatives are considerably less flattering.

>Since then I've heard that it was "something to do
>with intellectual property". Since that wasn't
>explicitly stated in the first place, someone's trying
>to keep it secret. The only reason to keep it secret
>is if it's to the disadvantage of the (potential)
>contributors. So this, if there's anything behind it,
>makes me even more keen not to (re)join the WOG list,
>and makes me consider demanding that the owners there
>delete every post I ever made to it. About the only
>reason I haven't is that some of them are quite nice
>people who have enough hassle in life already."

Some more facts:

---

As per above, there was no ignorance of the existence of this list. I don't know what "alternatives"?Jane has in mind, so I couldn't possibly comment. As for the "something to do with intellectual property", there are no secrets involved there. Nobody is trying to?hide any disadvantages. Ask any specific questions you want. If you have any information or examples where someone has "disadvantaged" any?(potential) contributors, please let me know. I sense that you are?implying that?writers are being set up to be stolen from, not credited, etc., but I don't want to?infer something?incorrectly.?I'd like to know what you mean.

Regards,
Rick Meints
Moon Design Publications

---

AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com. Received on Thu 05 Jul 2007 - 20:10:49 EEST