When I stopped writing Tolkien and Middle-earth essays for Suite101 many years ago my friend Hawke Robinson asked me to continue writing for his Website, MERP.com. Dedicated to Middle-earth role-playing gamers, MERP.com served as a springboard community for about 30 Tolkien-related Websites through the years.
Hawke not only published (and republished) my essays, he published essays by other people. He also set up, through the Tolkien Scholars Website, a repository for issues of the Other Hands gaming/literary journal created by Chris Seeman in the 1990s and the Other Minds journal created by Thomas Morwinsky in the 2000s.
Among other endeavors and perhaps his crowning Tolkien fandom achievement was Hawke's much-loved Middle-earth Radio, where fans could listen to the Web's largest archive of Tolkien-inspired music in multiple streaming channels 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Middle-earth Radio was so popular and successful that many niche artists asked Hawke to feature their latest albums in its streams.
Despite efforts from Tolkien Enterprises to shut down the site, Hawke prevailed (with some help from the Electronic Frontier Foundation) and managed to keep the music streaming for many years.
Unfortunately, despite warning friends and fans for about a year that all was not well with the finances he used to fund the Tolkien sites and other activities (including Tolkien Moot), on November 18, 2012 Hawke finally shut down his services because too few people had come forward to help keep them alive.
Some people have dismissed the announcement as being silly or trollish, but it's not a "stunt". When you pay out of your own pocket to run 1 or more Web servers that support dozens of Websites and 24/7 streaming media, you incur substantial expenses. Hawke's primary concern was that he not commercialize these fan-dedicated resources.
To merely say that he spent an inordinate amount of time fending off hackers, spammers, and other intrusive agents does not do justice to Hawke's tireless efforts to produce a high-quality experience for Tolkien fans around the world. You can still watch the Tolkien Moot channel on YouTube but soon all the archives for the various Tolkien (and non-Tolkien) sites Hawke managed will go offline forever.
And when that happens, one of the last living memories of the First Age of Middle-earth on the Web will have set sail into the West. As Hawke was fond of saying at the end of each episode of Middle-earth Talk Radio, "Wherever you are, be well. Namárië"
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