Sinister: (no subject)

[david kitchen - jeepster]

hmmm, through lots of speculation and rumour (none of which people will actually
raise with us) i feel it's about time that i put across some of jeepster's ideas
on why there is now a second list, and why i feel that this is compatible with
existing alongside the original list.

to do this though, well it requires an almost essay sized e-mail. so if you're not
willing to read much, simply click delete now and be spared the twaddle :)

-- 

        "we won a brit, so why have you set up your own list and betrayed us?"

well, you're right we did win a brit. and down here at jeepster central we are
bloody thankful for it and wanted to say thank you in a big way, but we had had to
go through a load of shite defending the win from the press and that changed it.
we were even going to send a small box of chocolates to everyone on the list as a
way of saying thank you, but in light of the whole press kaboodle, anything like
that would now appear to be a belated bribe, which doesn't help anyone. so with
regret we're unable to do this even though we had even got to the stage of asking
honey for his aid to compile everyone's details so that we could send them to you.
we wanted so much to explain what it meant to the band to win and relay some of
the incredible anecdotes of the events in glasgow and the celebratory tone of the
bands families and friends. but, sinister was gone. it left us feeling a bit lost.
it was as if a mother had been robbed of it's child, there was no way to contact
you, the fans, to express our love of you and to tell you how jeepster and the
band were feeling about the win and carrying-on. 

in talking to honey on the monday after the brits, whilst sinister had problems,
he stated clearly that he was looking for a new home for sinister. i had offered
him  the use of the jeepster majordomo late last year when the list was offline
for a similar reason, but he declined, stating that the independence of the list
was too important for the list identity, which is a fair point, so on this
occasion we were unable to help him, except to give him occasional calls to let
him know if we had heard anything.

but, at a time when we needed you the most in light of all industry flak and our
need to celebrate the win with the fans, and when we had so much to tell you, we
were at a loss because the list we all relied on was offline and there was nothing
we could do to solve it. this was the first thing that raised the question of
should jeepster set up it's own list.

--

        "yeah, but why?"

this goes a bit further than just b&s, it also reaches the other bands on our
label. we have created uniform resources for all of the bands and wanted the other
bands to benefit from mailing lists as much as belle and sebastian have. and since
the snow patrol site will soon be handed over to a fan to run it seemed sensible
to help him and create some of the resources in advance.

so the idea of starting lists with our already available majordomo was obvious.
but the question was raised of what would this mean for sinister. 

although the plan is simple enough, to provide each band with, in time, it's own
list at a single location, the implementation is obviously a little bit different
from that. we started by simply setting up the snow patrol and salako lists, and
it seemed obvious that as we simply didn't know when sinister was going to be back
online, that the start of a belleandsebastian list would not offend too much as it
would grant the opportunity for everyone to talk again. it was only the day or two
after the list went on-line that honey rang up and said that he had solved the
problems for sinister and that he was offended by the corporate direction jeepster
was taking in setting up a second list. 

--

now, we know that a second list appears to have deeply offended a few of you,
whilst leaving even more bemused. but let's be a little more open-minded for a
moment, jeepster set up the new list as part of a move to give all of our bands
the same resources without relying on outside bodies which may not be reliable in
times of stress. we did this to help us stay in contact with you at a time when it
appeared that everyone was against us (us being the fans, band and label in light
of the cheating allegations).

now, the jeepster list (belleandsebastian at jeepster.co.uk) is not meant as a threat
to sinister (sinister at majordomo.net). indeed i believe both will happily
co-exist.  sinister will still fulfil it's role fully and offer a great service to
the fans by being an independent list free from band and label input which has
evolved into a community of good people. the jeepster list i envision will help
reduce the burden on sinister by being a first stop mailing list (which i don't
personally  believe will be as high in quality as the sinister list) but will
allow jeepster to have an accountable method of permanently contacting the fans
without using the news list and will most likely develop into a pre-sinister list.
the mature and intelligent method of sinister and the posts that appear on it is
not something that is likely to change in any way. The jeepster list could
probably be viewed as the smaller sister of sinister and would be more teen-like
in it's chat and discussion.

the only thing that jeepster wanted when we set up all of these lists for salako,
snow patrol and belle and sebastian was a permanently open channel by which we
could communicate with the fans of each band without relying on outside parties
who are not accountable to us for up-time and availability of the list and that
channel of communication.

i personally still do not believe this to be the 'crime to fans' as some have
implied, it's been set up as a service and what you make of it is your own affair.
we have tried to continue to give as much as we can for you. but we do feel very
strongly that we have the right to control whether our lines of communication with
you are open or closed, and I promise now that jeepster will do what it can to
keep the jeepster lists permanently open in line with this.

if anyone feels still that our motives are wrong, that we've sold out or anything,
then feel free to mail me rather than gossip or slander elsewhere. 

--

	on other issues, a few facts:

1- we are bloody thankful for all the support everyone has given the band and
jeepster throughout the brits shambles, it means a hell of a lot, and has helped
us all get through whilst ignoring what's being said.

2- jeepster are not suddenly rich because of the brit awards. The reported
five-fold increase in sales is rubbish. if it were true it would have placed us in
the top 30 on the UK chart, we're number 67!! and as regards the two messages i've
received saying that congrats on the brits and the evidence that we're loaded can
already be seen by the fact that we've bought the www.belleandsebastian.co.uk
domain, well that's rubbish too. we bought the domain because the jeepster site
was too busy and we get charged excess fees when it's gets too busy, and we simply
worked out that the cost of the excess charges was more than the cost of getting a
second account, and the second account would distribute the load which then means
we don't get charged the excess. it's not that hard to do the maths, we bought the
domain because it saves us money, and we're still looking at ways in which we can
save, as all indies do.

3- we haven't attempted to alienate any of you, nothing could be further from the
truth, what we've done is to try and not alienate you in times of trouble, but it
doesn't help to have everyone over-react and not actually ask us what's going on
:)

4- i've created a webpage for the bowlie fest, if anyone hasn't yet seen it, you
can get to it via the belle and sebastian site or directly by going to
http://www.jeepster.co.uk/bowlie/

i hope this message has helped clarify the things on a few people's mind, no doubt
a few of you will harbour whatever conclusions you've already reached, but listen
now, we've not changed, the band have not changed, no-one is try to alienate
anyone or split any community, we're all going to carry on as we have done and
continue to help the band and love their music, if you disagree with this, then
i'm sorry for that, but there is no room for the indie-schmindie, if you love the
music, then you should want the best for the band.

cheers

david

PS: just in case anyone wants to quote me, this message reflects my views and only
in part some of jeepster, primarily they should be contributed to me if anyone
wants to bring me up on them, but i really wish you wouldn't, we've been defending
ourselves against press and rumour for two weeks, we hardly want to start
defending ourselves against fans, but then, it looks like that's already happening
doesn't it?
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