Everyone has valid points about the festival mania. I appreciate Decius' breakdown regarding festivals vs. events vs. holidays, but really, aren't we simply talking about the focus of AW seemingly becoming more about "parties" than about discussing ancient history?

Now, don't get me wrong, I love to party just as much as Paris. I don't find the festivals intrusive, and that is probably because I am a "history lite" person. BUT I wish we could make a decision about it one way or the other. I suggested a vote on whether we liked Sank's idea ~ one world festival per year. I think maybe 3 or 4 people voiced their vote. I also proposed how to make a list of Fests in hopes of getting something accomplished. That didn't get much response. Are we all going to post in the Curia the same things we have hashed over at the Admin Scribe board? If we haggle endlessly about what a festival is and whether we are having too many, we will never make progress.

There are probably a multitude of reasons for the current lack of academic discussions at AW. The main one is that many of the old time academic posters got fed up with all the e-drinking and multi-day festivals and quit. I think one disgruntled patron described AW as "history lite." As another patron mentioned, he visits AW occasionally but is not as active as he once was because no one is posting anything that interests him. Where have you gone, Aurelian Junius??

On the other hand, we still have interesting and historical active posters, to name just one, M. Fabius Furius. He spends hours creating his Guides to ancient Roma(posted as articles or journal entries). And there was the unique and authentic The Feast of Saturn. I believe this was the effort of a group of citizens who are usually very quiet at AW. We all should take note of this low-key, one-day, citizen-driven celebration, and use it as a standard for how to create a small unobtrusive party. I was very impressed with how well it was done and how much fun we had.

So, in summary, I support the idea that we cut down on the number of Festivals and see what happens. I hope that we can get to a vote soon to find out what the majority thinks. If the majority wants less festivals, then let's get a list going for a fixed festival calendar. Who knows, more historical postings might increase and group activity might pick up. At least, the scribes will have more time to tend to the hoods and other scribal duties. We have lost some very good active members over the past few years from burnout. I'm not sure if that is all due to the festival overload, but it will be interesting to see if we can actually come to a consensus and resolve this ONE issue.