How the proposed moderated rastb5 will affect B5JMS

[B5JMS Poster]

This is a note from the moderator of B5JMS and B5JMS-DIGEST.

A few months ago right after JMS left rastb5, I informed this group how it
will affect B5JMS.  I told you that the number of messages in B5JMS will
likely go down, and they have.  I told you that I will keep this list as
long as people want it, and forward whatever messages from JMS I can gather
from other forums (CIS, AOL, etc.) and I have.  I also told you that I was
hopeful a new and better method would be found that will bring JMS back to
the Usenet forums.

Just over one week ago, the Request For Discussion (RFD) for the group
rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated was posted to several groups, including
news.groups, news.announce.newgroups, and rastb5.  The new group proposes to
fix many of the ills which resulted in JMS and many other readers leaving
rastb5 in dismay.  As you can imagine, there has been much heated debate
about it in those forums.

Some of the debate revolves around saying that no group should be created
for one person, and that the moderate group is meant for all of those who
want more "signal" and less "noise".  While I believe that this proposed
group should not become one man's forum, I also believe that JMS is the most
important reader of rastb5 to resign from it.  If the new group will bring
JMS back in a major way, I'm all for it.  JMS certainly deserves it IMHO.

So why I am bothering you with this message?  Well, the folks who worked
hard on this RFD for so long had mentioned that there was no guarantee that
JMS will be back once the moderated group is created.  Just a few days ago,
in a collection of JMS postings on GEnie, JMS provided the following very
encouraging news:

> SFRT II RoundTable
> Category 18,  Topic 1
> Message 557       Sun Feb 04, 1996
> STRACZYNSKI [Joe]            at 03:13 EST
>  
>      Other than GEnie...hrmmm...probably Compuserve.  As of this time,
> it's the one area I tend to post about equal to GEnie; it has a decent
> offline reader (Tapcis) that'll help save you lotsa dough...the science
> fiction media area (sfmedtwo) has 2 areas set aside for B5 in messages and
> library...it's a friendly place, absent the occasional troll, which is
> generally dealt with fairly well.  Once the moderated rec arts b5 area is
> created, I'll be there as well quite a bit.  In the interim, with GEnie
> long the unofficial home of B5 online fans, the first place that "noticed"
> us...I'll be here until they turn off the lights.

This means that if the rastb5.mod newsgroup gets created, JMS *will* be
back.  If he is back, the B5JMS list (and digest) will be getting more
postings from JMS as we had before.  We'd be back to the days when we got
more info from JMS, and faster!

I encourage you all to read the CFV and perhaps participate in the current
discussions going on in news.groups and rastb5 regarding rastb5.mod.  In 1-2
weeks most certainly the first Call For Votes (CFV) will come out.  I
encourage you all to vote for (or against) the creation of rastb5.mod as you
feel (I suppose I don't have to preach to the converted... :-) I will post
that CFV in this forum when it comes out.

Thank you for listening.

B5JMS Poster.
<b5jms-owner at majordomo.cs.columbia.edu>