When I think of the many great games and the past camaraderie within this group, I have to say that Dipsters is a great group.
Although most of our members are skilled in this game, virtually all of our members (whether skilled or not) are respectful of other members and just fun to play with.
Still we do not seem to be as vibrant a group as we were.
Is it the fault of switching to dipsters.org from YAHOO! Groups? I am not so sure. If you look at the number of messages on all the Diplomacy Groups on YAHOO Groups, you will see that the number of messages in every group is down dramatically from one and two years ago. In addition, the total number of games on all combined Ken Lowe judges has decreased as well.
If you are looking for a reason why Dipsters is less vibrant than before, look at me. Unfortunately, the biggest negative about Dipsters is that it has and apparently still does rely upon me to move it along.
Checking the hundreds of completed Dipsters games and Dipsters tournament games, you can see that I was the GM for probably 95% of all games:
http://www.floc.net/observer.py?login=DipComplete&password=&other_public=&page=login
That's a problem because I have not had a good year. My mother had to enter an assisted living facility in August; my sister-in-law, with whom I was very close, suddenly lost her battle with cancer in November; and I have seen my own health problems become considerably worse this year.
The bottom line is that I have had neither the time nor the inclination to work on this group as I had in the past.
Only a few members have tried to help us out. Only a few have created or offered to Gm new games. And the one person who had offered to run our variant tournament has basically disappeared now that it is time to get the tournament running (I am ill and don't have time to do it myself so this will probably be a tournament that will never start).
I admit that there are problems with the dipsters.org site because I have not had the time to work on it, but it still has advantages over YAHOO! groups. YAHOO! Groups is not really conducive to setting up:
- showcase games
- tournament sites
- local F2F message boards
- game and tournament listings
- and more
We can certainly go back to YAHOO! Groups for our message board but I think that would be a backwards step and not really the right step to take. But if the majority of members want to do it, we will.
I have to tell you that I was thoroughly disheartened by the response from some members when we switched from YAHOO! Groups to the dipsters.org message board. I had hoped that everyone would work with me during the transition. Some members actually gave me ultimatums about the change. That really took the wind out of my sails after devoting so many years to dipsters.
The bottom line is that I am not going to be around as I had been in the past to push this group. Just switching back to YAHOO! Groups is not going to be the answer.
The bottom line is that all members need to finally step up and do what is necessary to keep this group going. Asking everyone to GM just one game a year is not too much to ask...yet hardly anyone is doing it. And that is sad.
I also think that it is time to select a new moderator, the sooner the better.
If I were to pick a successor, it would be someone who is devoted to this hobby but who does not have a personal agenda.
A few names pop into my mind but I am sure that this is not the complete list.
People like Russ Blau, Yves Grosdidier, Ben Harris, Eric Hunter, Adam Lang, Martin Moore, Ken Navarro, and Jonathan Powles would all do a great job as the new moderator for Dipsters.
Although any of our JKs (Alan, Chris, Millis, Sam, Todd) would also be excellent, I think that it is very important that the Dipsters Group treats all judges equally. Having a JK as the Group's Moderator would make that goal almost impossible to attain.
Anyway I would like to get your reaction to these issues.
All the Best!
Alan