I think the other reccer I mentioned above had similar expectations - she expressed confusion when the discussions about her recommended stories were taking place on a locked mailing list where neither she nor the author could see or participate. When you add the fact that many people don't feel comfortable discussing a story in an author's journal you will see the overall decline in both quantity and quality of discussion opportunities.

what I find interesting is the blogging focus in this thread- many older stories are posted in archives and websites where discussion is not possible or manageable . We are assuming that crack van recommendations led to a journal where discussions could happen. Basically, our blogging mindset as to when and what we can discuss would be as alien to someone coming from a LOC background. Or a mailing list background. And now a Twitter and tumblr background. We literally do not 'compute'. We have different expectations and we end up writing posts that start with ...."this position makes no sense. Why would anyone expect....?"