RE: [stella] A new generation--offa stella list?

Subject: RE: [stella] A new generation--offa stella list?
From: "Bob Montgomery" <BobM@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 3 May 2005 17:17:11 -0400
Well, I'm here (vdub_bobby).  But I dunno...I feel a little more comfortable asking questions on the AA forums than I do here, for whatever reason.

Some other semi-related thoughts:

[stella] is amazingly cool as a resource; when I have a tough question I go to the the [stella] archives first more often than not; the "problem" is that I usually waste half an hour down mile-long rabbit trails reading three-year-old posts about what HSYNC does or something!

On the other hand, [stella] does seem a little like an old club where everybody knows everybody else; it isn't that the folks here are hostile (or anything but welcoming, really) to newcomers, I just feel like an outsider nonetheless, and I hesitate to ask questions here.

And also, a lot of the talk on [stella] lately has been extremely technical hardware questions - very interesting to read but it's a subject towards which I have very little to contribute.

-bob


-----Original Message-----
From: Kirk Israel [mailto:kirkjerk@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, May 03, 2005 1:21 PM
To: stella@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [stella] A new generation--offa stella list?


So I keep up with AtariAge.com...and I see a lot of interesting stuff
happening there..
cd-w's Hunch and Jetman , vdub-bobby's "Go Fish" and "M4", plus the
Man Goes Down and Fall Down projects.

It occurs to me that I've seen barely any talk from these guys on
[stella]. So maybe they're that much better than I was starting out
(not that hard!) -- but I do see some action from them on the AA
Programming for Newbie forums.  So they're not totally setting out on
their own...

So a prophecy about [stella]....a *prediction* on what seems likely to
happen, (as oppoed to  what I think should happen either way)...but I
think unless there's some kind of effort to drag newbies to [stella]
the mailing list, eventually the new action is all going to migrate to
AtariAge's forums, or some other web-based site, where there's a more
obvious public gateway (i.e. people browsing on AA might stumble on
the tech talk gradually).

Maybe we've seen some of this already...[stella] has had a lot of
lulls, and I've only been on for 3 years or so, but it does seem like
a significant funk. But if these guys had posted their questions here
on [stella], it wouldn't seem nearly so mysteriously quiet, and people
wouldn't be questioning its health.

I have mixed feelings about this. [stella] has been a special place
for a lot of us--I've always been amazed at the generosity in time and
code I've seen here-- and its archive will always have immense
intellectual and emotional and historical value.  And it was cool and
useful to have a bit of an "insiders" place...not invitation only, and
with public records, but still out of the public eye for the most
part.  On the other hand, I think the accesibilty of the web is a
postive thing.  And if it IS going to happen someplace beside
[stella], AtariAge is a swell place, with a commited staff.

So what do you think?  Am I right in my guesses about the present and
future of [stella]? If so should we fight it or roll with it?  At some
point I should probably update 2600101 to reflect some of the changes,
just like I changed to de-hozer-ize it back in the day.

-Kirk
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