Actually, I’m enjoying it, even Tech, and, lord help us all, RL too. As I observed long ago, the Zone is an emergent phenomenon, the factorial of the interactions of Zoners. I can’t rebuild the place, it can only rebuild itself.

It’d be nice if we’re seeing the first tentative green shoots of a HabitableZone Spring.

And a Tech I see. Oh well, can’t win em all.

You spent a lot of time on Facebook, didn’t you? Did it let you become more of a spectator as you withdrew, or did you feel like pressured you to participate? I haven’t logged in at Facebook in years, yet I still get spammed daily with nagging messages trying to entice me into participating. They’re such nags!

Glad you’re laughing more, Jody, and that you have your granddaughter to cheer you up and make you relax. Maybe after school starts you can find some time to post here.

Whot happened to the Zone? So many answers to that question. A lot happened at the Zone.

Not exactly people becoming “busy”, but I think a lot of Zoners were seduced away by “social media”. There were waves, starting with blogs long ago, then lately Facebook and the Twitter. I think the world’s seen Peak Facebook, and in some quarters there’s a contrarian movement to re-decentralize the Net. Some people are recognizing the downsides to elephantiastic centralized systems like Facebook, and advocating a return to more little sites like this one. A guy can dream.

I must disagree about the role of political bullying. I can tell you for a fact that it was crucial, because it soured me on the Zone and I spent less and less time here myself. It got so I couldn’t stand the place and I had the most at stake here; no wonder so many others left.

I’ve said it often and I’ll say it again: The tone of politics on the Zone was always an accurate reflection of politics Out There. And politics out there has gotten post-apocalyptic toxic. Some of my “real world” relationships have been damaged by toxic politics too. If traffic suddenly were restored to historically high levels, I’d seriously consider shuttering Current Events and prohibiting politics everywhere, to avoid killing the place all over again. I no longer believe civil discussions about politics are possible.

Politics represents the second wave of extinction at the HabitableZone. The first came as a result of a different kind of political bullying, the existential and Manichean battles over the purity of the Space board. With my perspective today, I can see the similarities between the two events, in the reactionary take-no-prisoners attitude of the most vocal purists. The Zone’s been the focus of that kind of struggle for a long time.

I wonder if conversation is dead on the Internet. The term “comment section” is essentially synonymous with cess pit, and “Internet commenter” is an epithet. For forums what comes to mind are the seamier parts of reddit…lots of verbal mugging, damn little conversation.

Do you realize we’re, theoretically, in the lull between elections? The nastiness seems unabated now; I shudder to think how the Internet will burn as the next election approaches.

It has indeed been a long strange trip. I don’t think it’s over yet, but I don’t think it’s going to be a simple regeneration this time. Like Steven Moffat hitting the wall of the Doctor’s 12 lives, I may have to get clever to keep the plates spinning.

What happened, Robert? Surely you must have some idea.

Why the drop-off in contributions? And I don’t buy the “everybody’s too busy these days” excuse. Everybody didn’t become too busy all at once.

And I don’t think it was the political bullying, either. There was political conflict here for a long time before the contributions started falling off. Still, I do think the politics drove off some of the gentler Zoners who preferred not to get involved in disseminating or countering partisan propaganda. Many of them came to read or contribute good writing and resented having their every thought and idle musing subjected to detailed ideological cross-examination.

At any rate, thank you for the effort you’ve put in, and the headaches you’ve had to put up with. What a long, strange trip it’s been.

The Zone may someday become a retirement project, and I’ll resurrect the old message databases to tell a seamless story going back to 2001. But first, I have to retire, and my desire to fix up the Zone keeps colliding with my need to pay the bills. The only promise I can realistically make is to keep at least this much Zone on the air as long as I live.

Not quite no one here, Jody. But the echoes are kinda sad, no doubt about it.