Sinister: PLEASE READ: Sinister babies

[Honey]

The keenest amongst you will have noticed that you're all so fabulously
popular that there's over 900 of you now.  But not absolutely everyone
has been happy in Sinisterland in the last few months: it's suffered
from a lot of the boringly repetitive problems that many of you will
know from other music lists, and in spite of some mild botty spankings
has occasionally resembled a celestial game of sinister ping-pong.  For
that reason I've decided to indulge my desire to conduct cruel medical
experiment on you all: the introduction of a quarantine period.

Starting now, anyone who joins the list won't be able to post for a
short period, but will have to sit in the Sinister nursery for a while,
observing us silently.  The idea of this is that Sinister babies will
have to soak up the atmosphere before jumping in, and will hopefully
toddle off to the Archives and the FAQ on the WWW page for answers
before asking them here.  Think of it like a diver's decompression
chamber or something, only wearing nappies.  People who have been on the
list for the required period will be given voices automatically after
this time if they stick it out, so that they can then mail us all -
they'll be notified by email that they've been given a voice.  The
procedure to do this will run once a week, and looks back 2 weeks, so
people will be added after 2 to 3 weeks currently, depending on when
they first subscribe. This replies equally well to the main list and
digest.

I expect this to slow down Sinister membership somewhat, but I don't see
that as a disadvantage.  I'm hoping it will tend to sway the list in the
direction of the majority of us who wish to see it as a community rather
just a source of information or a selling shop. I'm not going to be mean
and shove users who *have* joined the list in the last 3 weeks into the
nursery but they should consider themselves "on nappy probation" and
will be whisked off to the nursery if they show they haven't been
looking in the Archive or haven't bothered with the list rules before
they post.  Note that this doesn't mean I don't love all you newcomers
:)  Equally well, anyone else who shows a disregard for the list rules
may have their vocal chords whisked out and replaced with a dummy if I
get a lot of groans about their mails privately.

Everyone currently on the list will, you'll be pleased to hear, be
voiced now.  If anyone who's been on Sinister with a voice leaves the
list, and subsequently rejoins, the software will hopefully recognise
them, give them a cheery wave and re-voice them when it runs (once a
week) as long as they haven't been a list criminal in the past.  You
should therefore all consider yourselves in the possession of a Willy
Wonka golden chocolate bar.  

This might all seem a bit harsh but I'm hoping it has an effect.  It's a
bit unorthodox but then this is a delightfully unorthodox list and I'll
do what I can to keep its sinisterlyness - you should therefore consider
this to be the first step in The Sinister New Direction.  More may
indeed follow.

If you have comments, please send them to me rather than the list, and
accompany them with a little love letter.

honey xxx
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