By: Setsuna Meioh
Past
In the past years of the BSSM Online Community, people
where actually surprised and thrilled to know a single tag
of HTML. The page standards were not as high as now, since
web designs have not really come to the mind of the SM
Community yet.
The past is "trash *" compared to now, since newer versions
of HTML were still coming around the Internet. People have
just discovered it, and it’s community-like communications.
E-mail was still coming around to the people, and BSSM was
still on the air. Great sites like the SailorMoon Zone was
still beginning to get into one piece, and the AQ was still
trying to learn HTML. Sounds like a story that your
grandparents would tell, eh?
But this is reality, people. Everything has a beginning,
middle, and end. In our case, this would be the beginning
of the SM community. While AQ and SMZ were putting their
sites into 1 whole piece, the rest of the community was
still struggling with HTML. Yes, even great sites now may
had a rough start in 1996. In the past years, the BSSM
Community was still trying to develop its way through while
it was still on the air.
Present
Now, the standards of a web page are rising, the AQ are no
longer putting their site into 1 piece; instead they are
reading over nominations, fan-letters, flames and articles
for their "Lemure Files." No longer is Apatt struggling
with HTML, instead he is getting requests, fan-letters,
flames and The SM Files submissions.
What is the difference? Yes, the web page standards have
been rose from 1 to 9. And suddenly, people are starting to
get serious about design and forget the content, the
flamers are putting some kind of letter in a popular page’s
guest book, the Juniors vs. Seniors flame war has started,
a flame war started in the SMZCC Forum . . . . All sorts of
things are happening. Gorgeous sites with rotten contents
are popping up, beautiful designed and original contents
pages are now recognized as "Best Site of the Month" and so
on and so on.
Now when you think about it, BSSM Community is growing
fairly fast; the rotten sites are everywhere, the gorgeous
sites are not up-to-date, wonderful web masters and
mistresses are shutting sites down . . . it’s like an
abandoned part of a beautiful city, ne?
While the elegant and delicate and original sites are
there, most of them have a small update at least once a
month, or sometimes even only 1 tiny update in every 2
months. What happened to the people fascinated by HTML?
What happened SailorMoon still on the air?
The community changes like a rocket. One second you are
fascinated because you’ve made a sloppy, ugly, rotten site
with plagiarism written all over it and the next you’re
admiring the gorgeous layouts and complicated graphics of
the Web Page Authors Mafia.
Future
Telling the future of the community is complicated . . . .
sites may not be changed ever because of the millennium
bug, the web designs might even rise to a higher level,
information and personality to a character might not be
important anymore; anything could happen. For, the BSSM
Community could just suddenly be filled with flame wars, it
might fall apart just like a civil war, and you never know
but in one-finger snap’s second the BSSM Community might
just be torn down by flamers and newbies deciding wether to
create a combo, shrine, image gallery or a midi page.
It’s like telling what might be in a Hershey chocolate box;
you never know what could happen; it is the future anyways.
The Community might even just improve, and people agree
with one and other and respect policies and opinions of
others, and the community might become a better place for
everyone. Or it could be filled with adult stuff, and the
younger view’s eyes may be filled with SailorMoon romance
instead of what the series is really about.
No one can tell that for sure, of course. It is just a
guess of the new millennium.
However, the future of the SailorMoon Net Community depends
on now, what we do to make sure that the root of SailorMoon
and the basics, lessons of are known. But no matter how
much editorials, articles, AQ rants, the web might still
not accept that fact that plagiarism is illegal. Or can the
Haruka fans accept that the fact that just because she is
lesbian, it does not mean that she is not a female Senshi.
Even if the SM Community has 100, 000, 000 editorials about
the confusing issues, and some real answers to the
questions, the web might still not listen.
Comments on this article can be sent to:
Setsuna Meioh.
