DargonZine
Volume 12, Number 12 |
Distributed: 12/11/1999
Circulation: 706 |
 |
DargonZine is the publication vehicle of the
Dargon Project, a collaborative group of aspiring fantasy writers on the
Internet. We welcome new readers and writers interested in joining the
project. Please address all correspondence to
<dargon@shore.net>
or visit us on the World Wide Web at http://www.dargonzine.org/. Back
issues are available from
ftp.shore.net
in members/dargon/. Issues and public discussion are posted to newsgroup
rec.mag.dargon.
DargonZine 12-12, ISSN 1080-9910, (C) Copyright December, 1999
by the Dargon Project. Editor: Ornoth D.A. Liscomb
<ornoth@shore.net>,
Assistant Editor: Jon Evans
<godling@mnsinc.com>.
All rights reserved. All rights are reassigned to the individual
contributors. Stories and artwork appearing herein may not be reproduced
or redistributed without the explicit permission of their creators, except
in the case of freely reproducing entire issues for further distribution.
Reproduction of issues or any portions thereof for profit is forbidden.
|
Editorial
t hardly seems possible that DargonZine has been going strong for
a decade and a half, yet today I find myself writing a fifteenth
anniversary Editorial for the magazine I initiated (as FSFNET) over the
Christmas break back in 1984. It's kind of funny to realize how far
we've come from that first mailing, where I said "I would like to see
FSFNET expand to include more exotic ideas, such as original fiction",
when today I can look back and see nearly three hundred original
stories! At the end of that initial announcement and call for
submissions, I added the following:
This is your fanzine, more than it is mine. It is up to you to keep
it going. I have merely brought you together. Now it is your turn.
And boy, did people keep it going! Even through my five-year absence, we
cranked out 82 new stories in 34 issues!
So since this is something of a watershed point for us, in addition
to the usual end of year wrap-up and predictions for the coming year, I
think it makes sense to look back at all our history and also take a
look further ahead. Let's take those one at a time.
First, let's talk about 1999, which was another record-breaker. We
printed an even dozen issues, which is as many as any year except 1985,
our inaugural year (when issues were one-quarter current size). We
printed more stories than ever (34), and more volume than ever (about a
megabyte). We also printed more writers than ever before (seventeen),
and four of those writers were new this year. Our Web site surpassed
30,000 visitors, doing two gigabytes of Web traffic and an additional
300 megabytes at the FTP site. But beyond the numbers, some great things
happened in the past twelve months. These include the cutover to the new
dargonzine.org domain, converting more than thirty back issues to HTML
format, the awesome reviews we got from the Open Road and Dark Matter
Chronicles, and the first stages of the deployment of our new database
(mainly in the form of an updated Online Glossary).
Looking back, DargonZine has been amazingly successful. In our
fifteen-year history we've brought nearly fifty writers together to
print 275 (Dargon) stories in 126 issues. That's enough writing to fill
more than a dozen paperback novels! Over the years we changed writers,
editors, computer networks, and delivery mechanisms, but today the
Dargon Project and its milieu are still viable, and our mission of
bringing writers together to practice their craft is as vital as ever.
So what does the future hold? Well, next year will be a big one. Of
course we plan to continue to crank out stories and issues just as fast
as we can. But the big changes that you will notice will be the planned
enhancements to the Web site, which include a major visual redesign and
functional restructuring, new detailed maps with built-in interactivity,
more quick surveys, and, if time permits, the ability for readers to
rate each story. We've got a ton of ideas about how to make DargonZine's
site more interesting and more interactive, and you'll see it happening
very soon!
And in the long term? Well, the goal will be to continue to serve
new writers and interested readers in whatever ways we can, however the
Internet evolves. But rather than try to anticipate what will happen,
we're focusing inward. Our writers are our leaders, and we need people
with a passion for writing and helping others grow, with a sense of
ownership and commitment to the project, with a compelling vision of
what the Dargon Project could be, and with the wisdom and flexibility to
adapt and change what we do. By establishing that kind of culture, we
will be able to meet whatever challenges might arise in our trip into
the coming decades.
It's been as much of an adventure for us as any of the tales we've
spun!
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