now the world's #1 star trek discussion list

A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME....

When I first came on the net a little over 5 years ago, I looked for a Star Trek list to join and 'Startrekker' was the largest and busiest, with over 440 members. The Startrekker list was great and was run by a guy called Mike, who was a model moderator. As it turned out later no-one on the list knew a thing about him, except he was in Austria. He confided in me off-list once that he was being hounded by someone (I got the impression it was a guy, I could be wrong)....... well, the list started to go crazy with hundreds of bounced mails being recycled and multiplied. Mike traced the person (who had subscribed under a false name) and took him off. It went quiet for a while then started again. He persisted in trying to keep the list going, but he didn't have the kind of advanced software that Yahoo!Groups supply and eventually one day it all went deadly quiet..... The list was down........ Mike had gone....... We've never found him.

Myself and a handful of other members were keen that the list should continue..... but of course the database was not available. We started to mail as many of the old list as we could. Everyone seemed to have at a least a couple more addys to add to the new list. But because over half the Startrekker Database did not seem to have mailed to the list, from 440+ we only managed to salvage a few dozen. We tried running the list at Coollist... then Listbot... before ONElist... which was later taken over by E-Groups... which were bought out by Yahoo...

Over the last few years the membership has built to around the 1200 mark, despite a couple of members who have, for their own reasons, decided that they would like to run their 'own' lists. They obviously didn't understand that ST1 'was' their 'own' list.... Anyway, if they want to start their own list then this is of course their perogative, but I've noticed that whenever a ST1 member joins one of these other lists, there is a drop in the number of mails they send to ST1. Either that, or they tend to send a lot of cross-posts, which can be very annoying for people who are on more than one list. I've always felt that one big list can achieve more than three or four small lists, so I will continue to attempt to grow Star-Trek-One.

In 2004 we found Mike! He was about to re-launch Startrekker Chat so I thought it would be kind of cool if we joined forces, it seemed to kind of round the circle. Startrekker Chat and Star Trek One now run alongside eachother in a symbiotic relationship.

In the years ahead I can see Star Trek One continuing to grow. Possibly a larger percentage will be on the 'Digest' and hopefully there will be even more pure Trek content on the list, as people get used to our 'strict' regulations. I am sure Star-Trek-One will remain as cordial and friendly as it grows. I'll try my very best to continue to improve Star-Trek-One for all our beloved members who have trusted me with their e-mail address! We may be #1, but that doesn't mean we can't be even better. Perhaps one day Star-Trek-One will be recognized as an essential resource for fans of Star Trek all around the world.

Tim Stubbs (list manager)