Sinister: REQUIRED READING FOR LIST MEMBERS (but said in a low voice)

[honey at xxx.org]

Catspaw1 at aol.com said:

> But did I hear that posting reviews to the list is a no-no?  This is list 
> policy?  

No.  List policy is all in the FAQ at:

	http://www.missprint.org/sinister/faq.html

It's always been there, and you were all sent it when you joined; you
can all go and read it anytime.  It took ages to write, and was the
product of a lot of help and suggestions from a lot of kind people who
care about this list and have given a lot to it.  It's long, but you
make it.

One of the things the FAQ says, and this is important, is:

  Don't comment on what is or isn't a "good mail" to the list, and the
  nature of content on the list please: comments such as "you shouldn't
  have posted that, it's not on-topic" or "I think we should be able to
  talk about ... and it's none of your business to stop us". These kind
  of discussions about mailing lists *on* mailing lists are as old as
  the hills and go round and round - any attempt to "improve" list
  content inevitably results in an increasingly tedious well-trod path
  or "yes we can", "no you can't" and the list always gets worse. Mails
  about list content are not considered a valid subject for this list,
  and I will put a stop to such if I see them starting.  The correct
  response if you see postings you don't like is: (a) mail the sender
  politely and with panache, explaining why, and/or (b) mail me and let
  me know.  If I get a few comments on a particular thread on the list
  I will always act to make it work for the majority of people; plus it
  makes me feel wanted.

What is starting up right now is just such a discussion; we had similar
about 9 months ago and the list nearly closed after disappearing up its
own backside, the argument about list content getting narrower, more
brainless and more squalid as time went on.  It's how mailing lists
die.  So please stop these discussions now, or I'll act, according to
what I'm asked to do by the majority of people who send me private
emails.  And opinion is currently very heavily stacked *against* this
sort of content, and asking me to stop it.  Everyone seems to know what
they don't want this list to turn into by now, and those who have been
on other mailing lists probably know it best.  So any repetition of
this now and I'll start throwing switches.  Which I hate doing.  That
includes responses to recent mails about list content.  Mail me if you
think that's wrong of me, I'll put it with the other opinions and I
promise to always weigh them, and in the end you'll get a reply back.
But please do bear with me though, I'm very very swamped with email
right now.

Yes, there was some discussion about the degree to which reviews of the
new LP should appear on the list, and a vague consensus was reached by
you all that for those who might not want to read it, you should make
it very clear what the mail is about.  But we don't need to retread
that discussion now please.  It's all in the archive, you can find
anything you need in the archive if you read how the search works and
think a little.  Please do bear in mind that there's a whole lot of
promos, tapes of promos etc etc floating around now, so you're unlikely
to be the first to have heard a song: others have probably made their
own decisions not to post reviews yet.  And of course some poor soul
who wanted 5 minutes of fame digitised his/her tape of a tape of a
promo and put it on Napster.  Duh.

But please, remember your opinion is your opinion.  Strong opinions are
a good thing, so please do express them here, but with some diplomacy.
Don't tell others what "the facts" are, and set up some sort of
argument that (a) they will disagree with you when they hear the LP,
and (b) they will still "be wrong".  I'll make a radical prediction: of
the 1300 people here on this list, a whole lot will love the new LP, a
whole lot will think it's "ok" but not as good as the others, and a
good few will think it stinks, is indicative of artistic and aesthetic
decay, and have their say then drift off the list.  I hope they do it
with grace.  None of these people are wrong, it's just that some are
more right than others :)

Look, I'm sorry if I sound terribly ratty at the moment.  I do worry
when people take things I say the wrong way, and get upset, or think
I've said one thing when I didn't mean to sound like I did.  It makes
me feel very inarticulate, and I know my mails are sometimes
spaghetti.  It's just very tiring just now, and there is a sense of
spinning out of control going on.  I'd like to keep this thing going
if you can all help.

The band have a new LP coming out soon, one that's likely to sell more,
and provoke more discussion and higher temperatures than any previous
release; the list subscription is suddenly rocketing up after being
flat for a year, the chatroom is filling up with new people, and the
nursery door is bulging.  Sinister likes new people, and I was very
worried after my last mail that a couple of people thought I was
protecting an old guard of list members, or saying only budding
novelists were allowed to post.  I'm really sorry if I put some
innocent people off posting.  If you're new, then please do post, and
show us the way.  If you're shy about posting, we probably need you to
post as much as those who aren't.  All I'm asking is that *anyone* who
posts to the list pauses, re-reads their mail, asks themselves how much
we all want to hear, and does simple stuff like check in the archive,
use the search etc. for questions that might've been asked before.  And
posts with some tact and thought as to the effects of what they are
saying.  Yes, that means you too.

Now, if you don't mind I'll add a couple of things to the list footer
from Steven Wells' NME piece that he said about us, just because it
amuses me.  Remember he's just doing his rather contrived job, and I
promise I'll remove them soon: they do make the list footer very long.
I just can't resist.  At night I dream of the secretive conversation
between Steven and his counterpart on the MM: "Wait, who's going to
hate B&S and who's going to love them?" "Me, me I'll do the love
bit..." "But I think they're well.. ok sort of..." "Shh".

He also added a string of adjectives, applied to a paraphrase of a
post to this list: I like to think it was mine of a week ago, but it
could be equally well yours.  I think I'll add them to my signature,
you could add them to yours too.

Honey x

--
"unbelievably naive... appallingly dishonest... stupendously dull...
intellectually insulting... elitist... perverse... self-conscious...
petulant... intensely irritating"


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