question about the TML

[Plankowner]

Before I found this site, I browsed the TML and I agree with everything that has been said here. You can't find the good stuff buried in all the junk. So I came over here and asked all my dumb questions and got nice answers (most of the time). Tripped a few long buried landmines along the way, but that is part of the fun. I checked out some of the archived stuff, but most of the good stuff seems to be from quite a few years ago.

 

[GypsyComet]

As a long time TML member, I can truthfully say that it isn't the list it used to be. The most prolific of the vehicle and ship designers were around during the MegaTraveller days, but the advent of TNE and the splitting of the TML into two *visible* lists and several splinter lists on other servers started the slide into irrelevance. The end of TNE and the death of GDW was pretty much the end of that slide, but not in a good way.

The list split in 1990 over TNE was just the beginning of the fracturing of the online Traveller "community". The advent of the service now called Yahoo Groups made it easy for people with specific interests to start their own list, and a great many did just that. As a result, the fans of editions that are "out of favor" with the old grognards of the TML have their own lists, the people interested primarily in world building, ship and vehicle design, a specific campaign variation or location, or some other subset of the polyglot hobby that is "Traveller", ALL started their own lists. Many of them walked away from the TML never to look back. Result: the TML is largely populated and dominated by the left-overs.

Occasional nuggets worth keeping DO get posted, which is why I continue to read the TML, and why a lot of others do as well, but the ratio of lurkers to posters is *very* high.

There used to be an FTP site that kept a lot of the older archives, but I think the old archives are, at this point, just resident on a few Old Ones' hard drives taking up space. For some of the best stuff from the MT days, check http://www.u.arizona.edu/~bjohnson/other_vehicles.html and http://www.ssgfx.com/traveller/

 

[Qstor2]

Originally posted by GypsyComet:

There used to be an FTP site that kept a lot of the older archives, but I think the old archives are, at this point, just resident on a few Old Ones' hard drives taking up space. For some of the best stuff from the MT days, check http://www.u.arizona.edu/~bjohnson/other_vehicles.html and http://www.ssgfx.com/traveller/

Thanks. I was a member from 1998-2000 and had a a few of my favorite posts saved but then lost them when my harddrive crashed and MS closed my Hotmail account for inactivity. I used the Hotmail account when I was on the TML and had the posts and digests saved in my inbox

Mike

 

[robject]

I downloaded as many as I could from the U of A site, last year. I was sort of thinking of building a couple of indexes to every single post gathered, and sticking it up on the 'web, but of course Real Life intervenes.

 

[Supplement Four]

Originally posted by GypsyComet:
As a long time TML member, I can truthfully say that it isn't the list it used to be.

I agree. I've been off and on the TML for about a decade now. It's definitely not the list it used to be.

It's too bad, too.

It used to be a damn cool place, even with all the flame wars.

 

[kafka47]

Can someone find my original postings? I was posting from the Czech Republic (end of the email ought to .cz) and again sometime when I posted an entire conversion Traveller into the 2300AD universe (probably under the name kafka47@hotmail.com).

 

[aramis]

I left in about '97 or '98... too much noise traffic, too many people being way too "TNE is the ONLY way", and too many people going "There's Nothing Wrong With T4" despite the TML surveys showing that the majority felt the task system was broken. WJP and I were at opposite ends of the spectrum on HOW to fix the T4 system, but both were extensively flamed for even proposing solutions, often by people who fessed up to not having tried to run T4...

And, of course, Hans, Myself, Thrash, and a couple others having basically the same "hot-button" debates, back in the day, as we have here. I truly do respect these guys, even if I think they're wrong...

The XBML had some of the best MT designs I've seen. The division there was not a problem; it really kept most of us MT fans from polluting the TML of the day; setting issues on the TML usually got cross posted, while tech didn't. As far as I'm concerned, the beginning of the end was when the XBML was told to join the TML or Go Away.

 

[GypsyComet]

Originally posted by kafka47:
Can someone find my original postings? I was posting from the Czech Republic (end of the email ought to .cz) and again sometime when I posted an entire conversion Traveller into the 2300AD universe (probably under the name kafka47@hotmail.com).

You remember a year, roughly? I'm one of the people with an extensive archive, and a search for ".cz" turns up blocks of Digests in multiple years.

 

[robject]

Originally posted by Aramis:

The XBML had some of the best MT designs I've seen. The division there was not a problem; it really kept most of us MT fans from polluting the TML of the day; setting issues on the TML usually got cross posted, while tech didn't. As far as I'm concerned, the beginning of the end was when the XBML was told to join the TML or Go Away.

Sigh. I think Wil's right. XBoat was very enjoyable. The TML seemed to become less so as time wore on.

 

[Qstor2]

Originally posted by GypsyComet:
There used to be an FTP site that kept a lot of the older archives, but I think the old archives are, at this point, just resident on a few Old Ones' hard drives taking up space. For some of the best stuff from the MT days, check http://www.u.arizona.edu/~bjohnson/other_vehicles.html and http://www.ssgfx.com/traveller/ [/QB]

I forgot I have the HIWG CD ROM, IIRC that I got from Bryan Borich(?) while I was on the TML in 2000-2001(?)

I double checked it last night and most of the messages from the last few years pre 2002(?) were saved in .txt format on the CD ROM. I don't have it here at work and don't remember the dates of the saved messages.

Mike