Bill Martin <
bill_r...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Looking at my calendar… yeah, I'm sorry. I completely missed the new
> year, busy with stuff at home and at work. I apologize, and realize
> that I must step down from it. I'm grateful to Rob for handing it off
> to me, and to everyone that submitted fics to the challenges throughout
> the year. If someone wants to take up for next year, you're more than
> welcome to.
>
> Again, I'm sorry.
>
Bill -
Don't worry about it. The anime world has changed, as has r.a.a.m. If there
were still people around who were interested they would have posted here
some time ago to ask about it.
It's great that you volunteered and tried to make a go of it, but I don't
think anyone could have brought back the 90s and the old interest in
Challenges in those days.
My feeling is that challenges and other cooperative activities at r.a.a.m.
were a product of the days 20 years ago when there were far fewer anime
available to watch outside of Japan and so there was a lot more commonality
of experience in r.a.a.m. regulars. "Everyone" saw the same anime and so
when folks put together challenge entries they were pretty much assured
that the great majority of r.a.a.m. members would be familiar with the
stories and characters. Nowadays few of us watch the same series and there
is little agreement on any "must see" anime" that could provide that
commonality again.
Once again, thanks to you, to Rob, and to all those in the past two decades
plus who put in the effort to bring some extra fun to r.a.a.m. in the way
of the challenges.
Dave Baranyi