[arg_discuss] PM-created listservs

[Brian Clark]

>I haven't heard of any PMs setting up a mailing list for players, but 

>I'm definitely not the end-all, be-all of ARG knowledge.


Hmmm ... the theoretician in me wonders if that is a useful slice. For
example, most of the discussion board driven games used boards that provided
people the opportunity to "subscribe" via email or RSS to threads.
Essentially the only trait of listserv missing is the ability to contribute
to that discussion via email as the input, and I think many PMs might be
hesitant about that (because of how much more difficult it is to keep "spam"
out of a channel like that than discussion boards that require more complete
registration.)

There would be some unique challenges to running a game with a listserv as a
primary (rather than just secondary) community outlet just because of the
reduced toolset of moderation as well (for example, no ability to "group"
conversations after the fact, no ability to "sticky" threads that are
important, etc.)

Christy -- could it be you're looking for something that maybe precedes the
existence of ARG as a label? What features would a content creator have to
implement to count as a "proto-ARG" if their work were dated before the age
of say The Beast? 

For example, I can think of MOO & MUD communities that provided the
equivalent of "user communities" via listerv that were very much about
"discussions about playing the game" and were often instrumental to that
(for example, LambdaMOO had a popular one back in the day.) But, then,
LambdaMOO sure isn't an ARG ... although it's probably a cousin on the
taxonomy tree of interactive narrative. 


Brian