DargonZine
Volume 13, Number 3 |
Distributed: 3/25/2000
Circulation: 730 |
 |
DargonZine is the publication vehicle of the
Dargon Project, a collaborative group of aspiring fantasy writers on the
Internet. We welcome new readers and writers interested in joining the
project. Please address all correspondence to
<dargon@shore.net>
or visit us on the World Wide Web at http://www.dargonzine.org/. Back
issues are available from
ftp.shore.net
in members/dargon/. Issues and public discussion are posted to newsgroup
rec.mag.dargon.
DargonZine 13-3, ISSN 1080-9910, (C) Copyright March, 2000
by the Dargon Project. Editor: Ornoth D.A. Liscomb
<ornoth@shore.net>,
Assistant Editor: Jon Evans
<godling@mnsinc.com>.
All rights reserved. All rights are reassigned to the individual
contributors. Stories and artwork appearing herein may not be reproduced
or redistributed without the explicit permission of their creators, except
in the case of freely reproducing entire issues for further distribution.
Reproduction of issues or any portions thereof for profit is forbidden.
|
Editorial
ne of the major benefits of the rise of personal computing and the
Internet is our ability to archive information. At a click, I can search
for a word in dozens of dictionaries, or scan hundreds of telephone
directories to find someone's number, or obtain real-time stock market
information. This power is also available to us as individuals. Many
people save their email or their checkbook or their address book in some
electronic form. We have quick access to information that was
unthinkable just ten years ago. We all have examples, but this was
driven home for me last week when, out of curiosity, I wanted to cite
the date of O.J. Simpson's "low-speed chase" in an email I was
composing; obtaining that piece of information took less than a minute,
and just four mouse clicks.
It seems odd, then, that we have so little information about how
the Internet came about, and the people who made it happen. While there are a few
familiar names who pioneered the technical infrastructure, few people
could name someone who was a catalyst in popularizing the early
Internet. Can you name the people who brought you listserv or majordomo
or IRC or ICQ? Do you know who founded rec.arts.sf.written or soc.motss
or rec.music.misc? Those are people who transformed the Internet from a
boring raw communication facility into an exciting, interesting world
full of unparalleled opportunities to communicate with, learn from, and
share experiences with one another. Those people are the Internet's
unsung heroes.
I want to tell you about one of those heroes: John Labovitz. A few
of you may recognize his name, because it's part of the resource he
created: John Labovitz's E-Zine List, which can be found at
<http://www.meer.net/~johnl/e-zine-list/index.html>. Since he began
back in 1993, John has maintained the best, most exhaustive, most
accurate list of electronic magazines on the Internet. He did this not
out of commercial interest, but because he knew such a site was needed
and would be useful to both readers and publishers. His service has been
wonderfully successful, and has helped DargonZine and hundreds of other
emags grow. Hundreds of readers have been introduced to our site through
index sites like John's, but John's is by far the most widely-known, and
more than a dozen of our subscribers mentioned his site by name when
they joined DargonZine.
I single out John because after seven years of selfless service,
John has decided to cease maintaining the E-Zine List. As a reflection
of his adherence to the noncommercial spirit of the early Internet, he
is presently looking for someone who will adopt this popular site and
continue to operate it as a public, not-for-profit resource. We are
thankful recipients of John's valuable contribution to the Internet, and
we wish him luck in his future endeavors.
On a more positive note, I'd like to mention a new feature that we
recently added to the DargonZine Web site.
We know that maps of Dargon and the surrounding lands are useful
ways to help readers visualize the settings of our stories. We've
recently put together a small DHTML script which ties some of our maps
together with our Online Glossary. By hovering your mouse over landmarks
on the maps, you will see their Glossary descriptions. And by clicking a
landmark, you will be taken directly to that feature's Glossary page,
which contains additional information. It's a great way to familiarize
yourself with the places that our stories talk about, and we're really
pleased to be able to share it with you.
However, the interactive features of these maps rely on fairly
recent innovations, so they will not work for older browsers (we've
tested the script using Netscape 4.0 and Internet Explorer 4.0). If you
have a recent browser, you should have no problem using the maps, but
older or nonstandard browsers may have more difficulty with the
additional interactive features.
The interactive maps of the city of Dargon and of the surrounding
area can be found in the map section of the About Dargon page.
In this issue we continue ongoing series' by Dafydd and Nick
Wansbutter, and print the first part of a two-part story by JD Kenyon.
All three of these storylines will culminate in our next issue,
DargonZine 13-4, so don't miss that one! It should be out before the end
of April.
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