In February, 1999, a discussion on rec.arts.sf.fandom led to my asking how do we clearly explain to people new to sf fandom what draws us together. How do we talk about the common thread, the "it" at the core of our community? Graydon Saunders responded:

"It is the belief that anyone, wheresoever they have come from and whatsoever they have seen or done on the way, may love words and the uses of words and the enactment of words -- their own words and the words of others -- in the service of an ideal that the world may be imagined again, grown larger and stranger and more beautiful, grown fuller and more home-like and more wise, and that this imagining, of its own shape and nature, may be a joy and a pleasure and an exaltation to perform."