Back before the web, when all I had was email, I joined Blues-L. This is a mailing list. I signed up and I received messages from Blues lovers all over the world. If I answered a message, rather than going to the message author, the response was sent to the list server and got sent to everyone on the list.

The advantages of a list server is that there is no central web page. You get individual messages or a daily digest of all messages for the day right in your email in basket. No one actually knows your personal email address, so you are relatively anonymous.

Email lists are usually lively and more immediate than web pages. They encourage discussion in the way a BBS cannot do. Spammers have not yet infiltrated list servers because you have to sign up and wait for approval and have a valid email address.

I started the SpecFicL list. It seems odd to me that no one has done this, but after a little Googling, I could not find an active list for science fiction. There is a mostly dead list for Science Fiction movies, but nothing currently active.

I decided to do this because Speculations.com closed. Speculations was the liveliest discussion forum that I have ever been on, but the spammers killed it. I also suspect that they may have been sued by the Publish America, because there was so much discussion about them.

If you are interested in SF and writing SF, please try out the list. We’ll see if anything comes of it. It is easy to unsubscribe if you don’t like it. A word of warning, that if this becomes popular, there will be a good deal of traffic. A friend once described a List as trying to drink from a fire hose. This probably won’t take off, but then again it just might.

Join the SpecFicL List