Roman Re-enacment Evolution

[JRSCline]

Well, I would have to disagree with the statement that without re-enactors there wouldn't be more than a post a day at RAT, but there's no question that re-enactors have brought a lot of enthusiasm to the forum, and continue to do so.<br>
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The fact that new groups are being founded all over the world -- especially in the U.S. which has no Roman heritage --and that these startups are due in part to the support and knowledge shared here, is an enormously satisfying thrill for me as an Admin.<br>
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Some people have asked me why I don't post more often. I tell them I never wanted to be a star on my own little stage. I created RAT years ago for fellowship and friendship, and have made some true friends along the way. RAT is beyond anything I expected it would ever be, so I'm just grateful for all the members and the flow of high-quality info. If RAT went offline tomorrow, I'd consider it a success and bid farewell without regrets.<br>
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Our forum won't be all things for all people -- for instance, it just can't be an indexed encyclopedia, due to the technical limits imposed by our hosting service, Ezboard. And it can't, as we've discovered, be a good place for discussion of current events.<br>
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Communities are full of diverse personalities which mix and match, or don't, and people are always coming and going. We have lost many members, and gained many new ones, and it's like that on every board, no matter how carefully tended. If one thinks all the interesting people have gone, IMO one isn't giving the new people enough of a chance.<br>
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He never shared his reasons, but as far as I can tell, Sander dropped out due to frustrations with technical aspects of Ezboard -- the fact that Ezboard does not indefinitely preserve threads. I gave him Admin-level powers in order to manually archive them here, or better yet, to extract and preserve them in essay form at RomanArmy.com, but that power went unused. Perhaps it was too disheartening to have to "start over."<br>
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I could relate to that feeling; I have many projects -- some Roman, some not -- and more often than not they are on the back burner while I serve my country as a soldier.<br>
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Cheers,<br>
Jenny <p></p><i></i>