Generating community in such a transient population as college students is always interesting. When we start, it's often with the knowledge that there's this time limit ticking away, that sooner or later we will leave this community we've grown. When everyone is coming up together, there's this feeling that things aren't really moving, no one is getting farther away so where's the sense of motion? Then we get closer and closer to this final demarcation, where suddenly there's no more up-til-dawn nights or casually walking over to spend some time with your friends between things. By the time you're there it seems a shock. There's been the feeling of no motion for so long and suddenly you're so distant. Younger friends relegated to campus, same-age friends spreading out, older friends already gone. It's wonderful that we can build something together in the time that we have. Ending should never prevent beginning, but the bonds can be so strong it's hard to imagine them being broken by time and life. Whatever another incarnation would look like, it will always be transient. If you're older then you'll leave it, if you're younger it will leave you. I think it's important to understand this when trying to build another community. We have to be able to look and know it won't last forever, know that we only have the community for as long as we have some key members and even then we may leave it before its expiration.

I don't think discord groups 1) encourage newcomers to join or 2) generate real life meetups with regular frequency. I personally think that barriers to entry harm rather than help communities. Our more successful get-togethers have a lot of different people (though mostly weebs).

As I said before in a previous thread - I would be willing to pay for the hosting of howler, since I will have a job. Although, things have changed slightly for me since I said that; I was looking at two additional years of graduate school but now I am leaving at the end of the semester. I might end up leaving the triangle come August.

All that said, I would like something to remain post archival. If I remain in the triangle I would be willing to host events for newcomers and graduates, there will always be some free couches to sleep on for out-of-towners. If I move away, I would be willing to make a pilgrimage every now and then to hang out. I know no one in the areas I'm applying so I'll need an excuse to come back.

I don't really have anything to say, but I'll end on this. I finished undergrad in 2016 and by now, I've lost contact with almost every single person I met. It's sad, but normally the longer you live, the fewer people you have close connections with. It will happen again in a few months when I leave graduate school. But even if Howler dies, we should maintain some kind of group chat/IRC to stay in contact. Even if it quickly falls apart or turns into a self-referential circklejerk, it would be nice to try.

>>10474

>pay for hosting

You're missing the point. Yumi doesn't pay to host this site, he owns the domain and runs a webserver.

>>10475
No I understand that. But getting the stuff from his webserver and moving it to a rentable webserver is no big deal.

>>10475
>>10476
Well it doesn't matter anyways. It looks like I'll be gone from the triangle by August, no point in maintaining a college website in a state I no longer live

100 days until permanent archival and we're still going (・∀・)

>>10479
Why must you taunt the new students so. Hang the fragrant fruit in front of their snouts, and yet to pull it away mere moments later. Have you no humanity?

>>10485
humies bait like no other
it's genetic at this point