Learning about this website

[Formendacil]

You have basically apprehended the basics: this is The Barrow Wight's site and it has grown quite sleepy--the analogy of the Ents turning treeish has been made many times and it grows truer with each year.

As far as "in charge" goes, it is still the Barrow Wight's site, even if he rules it as Elessar did Arnor--i.e. mostly from afar. There has, in my sixteen years, always been an element of "self-policing" among the membership, and this has grown as the membership had become more stolid and staid: the influx of teens during the early years after the original Peter Jackson movies is no more.

That said, even if we are more of Old Folks Home than a party house these days, some of the admins or mods are still about, even if they're not always logging in, and one of the factors that contributed to the site falling asleep was the rise of social media--but with the silver lining that, should any of them be needed, someone can usually be summoned swiftly enough through the Facebook group.

Ultimately, if there's a desire to shake us up or wake us up, I am not entirely unsympathetic (perhaps I am more of a Quickbeam than a Huorn)--I would gladly have a return to the days of logging in and finding a stack of posts awaiting me daily, but that would seem to imply a need for change and, well, change isn't always such a popular thing. From a structural standpoint, as noted, this website is still legally the Barrow-Wight's and although the majority of the membership has clearly fallen away from regular activity, I can attest to a high degree of emotional--and even financial--investment in the 'Downs as it was .