The Past: The Dark Lantern League met in two venues at first, e-list and chatroom, both of which were on Yahoo! Groups. Our Canonical characters were in denial about the whole thing, of course, as:

Our e-mail list became the great mantelpiece over the fireplace in the clubrooms of the society. Letters, telegrams, notes and other written materials were affixed there with jack-knives for the other members to read at their leisure. Copy-carrots with copied quotes from previous e-mails, smiley-faces, and all that other e-mail effluvia were done away with, and e-mails attempted to use all of those antiquated forms that we used to know and love. Using salutations, actually referring to other notes with paraphrasing and the like . . . all those antiquated "snail mail" protocols are now back in style (at least on this list). Brief telegraph messages in a standard telegraph form (where all caps is no longer considered "shouting") were another handy (and Holmesian) method for posting.

Our scheduled chat-room encounters took place in predetermined Canonical venues, like the local public-house nearest to the scene of a recent Holmes case, and a predetermined time and date, both in this world and that of the Canon. If a member refered to some visual detail a bit wrongly while we were there, well, sometimes our eyesight isn’t too good. Details of the place, time, and case under discussion were given out well in advance of our monthly meeting, and all characters were responsible for finding their own transport from whatever part of the Victorian world they were currently residing in on that particular day in history.

Here's how it was supposed to work: "The monthly meetings will be the climax of each story-cycle. Say we decided to look at the events of "Empty House" on May 2. In the month or so prior to that gathering, members post letters, telegrams, and notes on things their characters have discovered on the Adair murder and its subsequent investigation. Whether they post observations made from their own point of view, details of that time and place in Victorian London (pertinent or not), whether they just read about the murder in the Times or happened to have a sister who knew Adair’s fiancee – it all gets posted on the mantelpiece. The nearest public-house is, of course, the "center of country gossip" and gossip we shall, keeping each other posted with jack-knife pinnings until we can finally convene to discuss our findings (or lack of same).Background checks, local history . . . when Canonical characters start investigating a Holmes investigation, who knows what they’ll come up with. If it’s a case your character is involved in, you might just be pleading for innocence or respect. The results might even be worth compiling in a dossier for publication . . . a Christmas annual was being considered." (And, I'm happy to say, eventually accomplished.)

Members who insisted upon making references to the modern day and unashamedly foisting anachronisms on the other members were, of course, to be seen as madmen, and eventually carted off to Helston in the black carriage if they don’t stop babbling. This never really happened, thankfully.