Sinister: split enz (history always repeats)

[GaoBest at xxx.com]

In a message dated 11/27/98 03:32:06 AM, someone wrote:

<<Hate to say it but it does seem to be pretty dull

these days. The list was much better in the old days, when the fans were

REAL and the people writing to the list were BETTER like when Moses used to

pitch in with his comments about Stuart's early tracks like "Missed the bus

lost my mess" . Liked Martin Horsefield's bit about casuals... etc.>>

Right, I don't want to sound tooo elitist, but considering that there have
been QUITE a few posts from listmembers whinging about how much better the
list used to be and how awful the list is now (probably because of posts like
this one that you're reading!), i do have a suggestion based on a real-life
mailinglist experience which has actually worked:

i'm one of the many members of Lipgloss (Pulp) mailing list who joined
Sinister.  On Lipgloss, a lot of the "old guard" used to whinge when they
realized that they were no longer the only big Pulp fans out there; they
weren't happy with the idea of more mega-Pulp fans.  I know that some of them
got upset when i started to copy "extremely rare" Pulp songs and gigs (i have
about 150 pulp gigs on tape) for "anyone in lipgloss" (one of the elitists
even emailed me and said something along the lines of "yo'ure letting all the
good stuff out! geez! don't do it!" as if it was bad to share the rarer and
harder-to-find Pulp tracks with other Pulp fans) - although most also got
upset 'cause of how much more crowded Lipgloss due to all the newer Pulp fans
who became fans because of Different Class and "Disco 2000" instead of being
Pulp fans after hearing the _It_ album in 1984 or "I want you" in 1986/87.

There were many posts having more to do with the idea of being a Pulp fan,
rather than about how wonderful it is to hear "don't you know" or about
watching "Butt Naked" program with Pulp.  Topics expanded from Pulp-only to
things in general, such as "i'm going to be in kalamazoo, MI for a couple of
days, can anyone suggest some good record shops" or "ooh, has anyone heard
Belle & Sebastien, they're soooo wonderful, you MUST hear them" or "can
someone recommend a Blur album to listen to? I've never heard them but i've
heard good things about them" etc etc.

The point is this: the old guard elitist members went on to form their own
mailing list for Pulp, which had a "Pulp-discussion-only" mantra, plus
membership was screened.  It seems to work out very well, because on Lipgloss
we no longer have to deal with these elitist people whinging about the "good
old days" of Lipgloss, and the elitists have their own list where they can
discuss ONLY Pulp (even though there is also a lot of off-topic discussion
there as well, big shocker!).  And fans of Pulp who only want to discuss Pulp
and nothing else can join their list (after the membership screening process)
and also partake in the joys of discussing only Pulp on a Pulp mailing list.
This HAS RESULTED overall in the classic "win-win-win" situation of
negotations, where everyone is happy overall, where everyone wins.  This is a
good situation.  No one loses.

So I suggest that the Sinisterists who are fed up (with how this list has
become) either form their own B&S list where they can screen the membership
and monitor the discussion topics, so that they would be happy (and end the "i
miss the good old days of Sinister" posts), OR they can petition Honey & the
other listowners to expel people like me and the other new<er> list members
who seem to occasionally (or frequently, i guess) discuss topics that are
vaguely related to B&S (but I guess not COMPLETELY on topic for B&S) or who
send posts that could have been answered in the FAQ.  Or they can just expel
me from the list i guess, so that critical posts such as these can be
permanently unseen.  Either way, this may result in a "win-win-win" situation
that would make everyone happy.

anyways, if for some reason i get expelled from the list, i'll forward the
completed Tigermilk poll results to a Sinister member who is still on the list
(probably one of the people who kindly participated in the poll) who can then
forward them to the list.  So far the numbers are astounding, in terms of
who's paid what for Tigermilk, or what people are willing to pay.  I almost
fainted when i read some of those replies (thanks to everyone who's replied,
and of course the poll deadline's not til dec 5 or something, so there's still
time to reply)

xox
mike
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