Originally posted by Gruffty:
This is true. I don't think the Spica Sector thing fell apart because of Mal's stellar generation system - I'm of the opinion it ceased to function because people have real lives, limited free time to expend on Traveller-related antics, and a whole host of other reasons that put the mockers on the project.
Oddly enough, I think that I actually predicted that this would happen when the Spica Project was starting. I'll say it again though, because every now and then well-meaning people like the Baron need a bit of a slap in the face from reality to bring them back down to Earth.
The fact is that big, commununal online projects that rely on lots of people to contribute to them for free are generally doomed to failure. Most of the time it's because real life gets in the way, but there's also the fact that it could end up taking so much time that the people contributing start wondering if it's even worth it since they're not getting anything back for their time, and furthermore there's the old adage of too many cooks spoiling the broth - people have different ideas about where to take things and the project just ends up being pulled apart (especially true of a Traveller project).
That's just how things are. No amount of idealistic, visionary pep-talking is going to change that. There's no "we can all do this if we try" about it at all - it just doesn't work like that.
At the end of the day, there's usually one or two people who have 'the vision' in any given project, and they're the ones that were most enthusiastic about it to start with. As far as I know, Gruff's still sorting bits out with Spica when he has the time (based on his emails) - and that's all that really matters.
The key thing, I've found, is that you have to want to do a project like this for yourself. As long as that's true, then you can keep tinkering away at it when the mood strikes you. If you start doing it because of other people, or because you feel an obligation to the community as a whole, then that's when you should just pull the plug. That's why I shelved my own worldbuilding stuff - I realised that I wasn't doing it for my own enjoyment or edification any more, I was doing it because I felt obliged to everyone else here, people who to be honest I owed nothing at all and who mostly just didn't seem to be all that interested in what I was doing anyway. It became a hell of a drag because of that, til I realised that I'd got it done to a level that *I* was satisfied with, and that was good enough reason to call it quits. I just wasn't going to spend more of my time pulling loads of documents and notes together just so everyone else could use it, and I was fed up of being at other peoples' beck and call and doing a lot of work to answer their astronomical problems for free. Call that selfish if you like - it quite probably is, but I'd reached the end of my tether there. I felt I'd spent enough of my time doing that sort of thing and I wasn't going to carry on with it out of any sense of obligation, because I sure wasn't finding it fun anymore.
So basically, if you have a vision of a project, then just get on with it and do it for yourself until such time as it's done or until you lose interest in it. Don't expect or rely on other people, because in most cases these things just fizzle out. That's just how it goes.
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