ATTN: JMS

Synonyms:
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ATTN: JMS (also: "Attn: JMS," "attn: JMS," and "(Attn: JMS)") is a self-imposed code/label that fans on rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5 put in their message subject line.

It was meant to attract the attention of J. Michael Straczynski in hopes he would read their post in regards to direct questions, conversations starters, show discussion, and suggestions. Many examples can be seen in the messages imbedded at "JMSNews": JMSNews, ^{Archived version}.

It is, of course, difficult to know if these posts did attract the attention of JMS. They certainly were clues to a fan group known as Rangers that the message needed to possibly be filtered before it was sent to JMS Himself.

Why Some Fans Disliked the Header

The phrase had been diluted: so many messages were titled this way that no single human could read them all, much less sift through things that were posted without deep thought or curation.

Another reason was that because of the nature of reposting, the phrase was often lost, embedded, and diluted in other messages, and it lost all meaning.

But the main reason many fans disliked the subject header was the brown-nosing it represented:

There is a depressing amount of sucking up to JMS, for example. Just the fact that the 'don't post story ideas or Joe will leave' thread seems to be going on in perpetuity shows that his presence means a lot to many of the people on the newsgroup. If that weren't enough, the kiss-up 'great flame, JMS' posts following some of his messages and the huge number of posts flagged 'ATTN:JMS' should clue any reader to the fact that he wields a lot of influence.