ONElist
| Website | |
|---|---|
| Name: | ONElist |
| Owner/Maintainer: | Mark Fletcher |
| Dates: | 24 January 1998 – November 1999 |
| Type: | mailing list provider |
| Fandom: | general |
| URL: | www.onelist.com (Wayback Machine link) |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
ONElist was a mailing list service launched in 1998. It merged with eGroups in 1999, which was then purchased by Yahoo! and became Yahoo! Groups.
History
ONElist was started by Mark Fletcher in August 1997 and officially launched on January 24, 1998. After advertising on Usenet, the first list was created: anole, a list for Anole lizards.[1]
By January 1999, there were 415 lists in the site's Fan Fiction category, 1,130 lists in the Role Playing category, and a number of fannish lists in various other categories. By November 1999, the numbers grew to 1,972 Fan Fiction lists and 4,096 Role Playing lists.[2]
It was announced in November 1999 that ONElist would merge into eGroups,[3] and by early 2000, all ONElist URLs and email addresses redirected to eGroups. Some groups were renamed (if both ONElist and eGroups had a group with the same name).[4]
Less than a year later, in August 2000, the merged eGroups was bought by Yahoo!, and Yahoo! merged old ONElist and eGroups communities into Yahoo! Groups in early 2001.
Impact on Fandom
ONElist made it possible for anyone to create a mailing list. Although there were several other similar services that debuted around the same time (including Coollist, eGroups, and Topica), ONElist was one of the first and one of the most popular among fans.
Fandom took full advantage of the new service, with new lists for shows that hadn't had any lists at all before, and more specialized lists -- for pairings, fiction kinks, etc. -- for fandoms that had been centralized. Mailing lists allowed fans to create a more customized and controlled fandom experience.
Back in the day, especially on Usenet, there was a larger sense of fandom. Slashers, shippers, and those who couldn't care less who's banging who all co-existed on the same newsgroup. Oh yeah, there were fights, but fandom was a lot more interesting back then because you were exposed to more opinions. With the advent of OneList and it's many evolutions, fandom started to become much more factionalized as each fandom had dozens of lists. Now fandoms have dozens of communities. Slashers never have to be exposed to shippers, and vice versa. It cuts down on shipper wars, sure, but I think it robs of a sense of truly being a fandom.-- Anonymous comment on fail_fandomanon, 15 August 2010
Some Notable Fan Communities
- Querstrich (slash, German)
- Witnesslist (cop shows and courtroom dramas)
- bsgslash (Battlestar Galactica)
- RideForever (due South)
- Z.I.T. (Hanson)
- Harry_Potter and HPotter (Harry Potter)
- Quantum Leap RPG (Quantum Leap)
- The Chakotay/Paris Writers' Support Group (CPSG) (Star Trek: Voyager)
- vglist (Velvet Goldmine)
- RATales (The X-Files)
- Carol's Xena Fan Fiction Tape Consortium (Xena: Warrior Princess)
Further Reading
- The ONElist File, an in-depth history of ONElist by Mark Fletcher
- ONElist’s 10 Year Anniversary, post by Mark Fletcher, 29 January 2008
- ONElist on Wikipedia
References
- ^ ONElist’s 10 Year Anniversary at Mark Fletcher's Blog, dated 29 January 2008.
- ^ ONElist's Entertainment category, 29 January 1999 and 28 November 1999 (as archived by the Wayback Machine).
- ^ ONELIST AND EGROUPS ANNOUNCE MERGER at onelist.com, 09 November 1999. (Archived 28 November 1999 by the Wayback Machine.)
- ^ eGroups/ONElist Merger at egroups.com, Updated 01 April 2000. (Archived 21 June 2000 by the Wayback Machine.)