I unsubscribed from DorothyL yesterday after sending in a brief announcement that I was leaving. I've been a regular a stalwart, a pillar there since something like 1992, unsubbing briefly once because i was too dumb to figure about going nomail. i joined when a friend suggested it when we were planning the 1994 Seattle Bouchercon. I was very new to thie whole idea of mailing lists, didn't know "subscribing" would be free. The day i got there, practically, there was a fan being "helpful" by providing the names of other Seattle hotels that one could stay at during Bouchercon. Helpful in quotes because he was listing iffy properties at the other end of downtown, near Seattle Center which would not be walkable, would probably freak out some folks at night and well, he wasn't doing us any favors. However, it might have been the first time a convention person showed up on a list and I stayed. Until this week.

It's been stunning to hear from people about my leaving. Many people I've never spoken to or met, as well as folks i think of as friends (even if we've not met face to face) as well as people i forget read the thing because they lurk). But the list has changed so much, and not to the good, i believe, and I'm fed up with it. i'm fed up with authors who come on without reading the FAQ and promote their books and don't do anything else. I'm fed up with people who think they're generating conversation by asking questions that could be found by using a search engine. I'm fed up with list hogs who refuse to get the hint, who post about nothing but post and post and post. And there's simply too much piffle, stuff to wade through. book signings and contests for books and who's on my blog this week and all thinly-veiled advertising/promotion. That's too much the backbone of DL now.

I know all of these are legit and approved and okayed by the list owners. I didn't say you couldn't do them. I'm saying i don't want to read them. I'm tired of the direction of the list. It's inevitable, I guess, but I am tired of readers who won't read. I am tired of people who can't be bothered going to the main web page to unsubscribe and who send their unsub notices to the list. I'm tired of supposedly literate folks who can't be bothered to be literate, or use the web (which they clearly have a basic understanding of) or who won't go to a website which has all the information they want and need, because they'd rather ask it on the list. Because then they're contributing. They are then part of the discussion.

But not in my book. And see, that's why I had to go. As I've told a few friends, I am sick to death of being the DL house curmudgeon, the old gunslinger who has to come out and shoot down the rude or moronic or wrong statement because no one else will. It's not polite. Besides, Andi will do it. So when someone complains that there's not enough program about funny mysteries at LCC because "it's the humorous mystery convention" Andi would go and explain, "no, it's not" and ask "where do you get this?" and get told off for being so snarky. Well, golly gee, Batman, where DO you get that and did you in fact read anything about LCC before you posted? Or did you just assume?

I'm real tired of hearing how "opinionated" i am, and getting emails telling me how people like to hear my curmudgeonly posts and how even if they don't agree with me or "get me", they read me. i do so appreciate hearing from people that they'll miss my "excellent" posts or my knowledge of mysteries that I contributed, that they'll miss how I expressed myself well and that they never missed a post from me. Wow. Huge praise and appreciated. But I'm tired of being the point person.

And no, sorry, I don't care what you are reading. I would be interested in hearing what you've READ, but not a list of what you read this week or month or what it's about. I can find that elsewhere. but you just posts lists of what you read, or will read next or are reading and that's not helpful. That, to me, is filler.

I am tired of it. I haven't been part of a real true DL conversation which went for days with a bunch of us chiming in on real true stuff in a very long time. Cornelia suggested that a while ago to me that most of that stuff, most of the very best stuff, the wit, the comments, the thoughts are no longer on DL because we're saving them for our blogs. I think she's right. I mean SHEESH, I've been blogging since 2005 (can you believe it?) and i see the numbers of people who've stopped by here and I am dumfounded. And I know a bunch of you from DL. I know that a bunch of you, bless you still, volunteered to work on LCC because I asked on DL if anyone would help. I've had great conversations with a lot of you, about books, and life, and conventions, and everything. Everything. I know that.

And I'm not not not saying you should leave. But as one of the folks who's probably been there the longest - I mean sheesh 16 years? - I thought I should tell you why I no longer want to be there any more. That i haven't enjoyed it in a long time. Yeah, I can point to a specific time and date, but even before then, it was thin. It wasn't the communal hang-out it had been. DorothyL used to be the thing i read first when I turned on the computer and got email. it's no longer even the last. It's just over and I'm done.

Thank you. Would someone get the light?