Sinister: They shoot Hipsters, don't they?
Hi there Darlin's, This is a hard message for me to write, but please bear with me; I think it's important that anyone who cares about sinister should read it. To start with, I'll make it clear (as if I need to) how much sinister has meant to me for the past 18 months or so. I don't hate you all, I don't want you all to fuck off, and I don't think that everyone on the list is a fake,or a nazi, or both. But there is something deeply wrong with our list. Not many of you will know this, but Sinister is really two lists- the one you're reading, and a second, secret list, where friends of Honey discuss how the list is running, and decide what they should do to make it run the way in the way that they want it to. (i.e. in the way it ran for a few months in 1998, before most of us joined.) This second list is called SOS (save our sinister- clever eh?) and since it's founding 5/6 months ago, the main list has become more and more tired, more repetitive, and lacking the drunken, cheeky swagger that made it so compelling in the first place. Why? Well, because many of the people who used to contribute so much to the real list have joined SOS, and stopped posting to the real list. (I can think of only a couple of exceptions to this rule.) And I can only think that they spend so much time seeing if our posts are up to scratch that they don't have the time to contribute to the list themselves... New sinisterines have told me that they feel they're eavesdropping upon a private conversation, and loads of the great listees that I've loved have felt so ostracised by all this SOS business that they've left Sinister for good. This is how I feel. This is why I'm leaving. I won't stay on a list where a handful of unelected people (fuck it, let's call it what it is...a clique) decide who and what meets their standards, and ridicule and bully those whom they dislike. I've read things from the SOS list, and I've read bulling letters sent by its members, and I hate what I see. I don't like feeling as if I'm writing my posts for their benefit, playing to the gallery, and I don't like watching the list pretending to be what it was instead of accepting that growth and evolution are inevitable. I hate the thought that there are new members out there who are too afraid offend the list's Prefects to risk posting anything new or challenging. A list that looks at itself too closely, and tries too hard to maintain an percieved atmosphere can only end up as a forum for in jokes, and for mutual back slapping. And if this is going to happen, then I don't want to watch. There is a way out. If Honey wanted, he could hold proper elections for the Sinister Parish Council. The councillors could change regularly, and new ideas would percolate like flavour from a tea bag. But I get the feeling, seeing as SOS isn't even officially acknowleged, that our pot's just going to stew. I know that care is needed if we're going to survive. I know that rules are required to keep our very special community vital and enjoyable. But SOS doesn't seem to have done a very good job does it? Face it, when did you last cry with either laughter or gut ripping emotion after reading a post? I'm not saying for a moment that the SOS listees are evil- I know lots of them, and chances are you do too. They're lovely people, very friendly and talented, and that's why I'm not naming them now. But what they're doing, whether actively or passively, is wrong. I hope this letter does make you all ask questions, I hope there is a debate afterwards, and every mail box is flooded, from Glasgow to Thailand. Because this is OUR LIST. We're all indebted to honey for the huge amount of time, risk and work he's put into it, but if the sinisterines are feeling left out, what's the point? If the same old faces are going to say the same old things, and if the kids can't creep out of their loneliness into a warm, loving community, why bother with it all? I hope to keep in touch with you all, and please, if anyone wants a pint, or a picnic, a conversation, or a tape, then just write, you've got my address. But unless democracy rears it's beautiful head on this list once more, I won't be back. As a wise man once said,"Stay lucky". See ya popkids. seb +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the reborn Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". WWW: http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "jelly-filled danishes" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Mate -
Face it, when did you last cry with either laughter or gut ripping emotion after reading a post?
OK, so most of the letters to the list will never illicit this kind of response. But a few, from a select few people, really do. And you were one of those people. For me the list isn't just about the posts that touch obvious emotions like those you mentioned, it's about the way that listees seem to craft their mails. A lot of the time it's like reading well-worded fiction - people on this list seem to be incredibly literate and really take some pride in exactly how they piece together their writing. And most of the time I just sit here in amazement aspiring to put prose quite as eloquently as a large percentage of regular posters do. Yes, I joined the list because I melt when I hear Belle and Sebastian. But a lot of the reason I've stayed about is because of the number of emails I get every day, week-in, week-out, that are simply great to read. I don't know you, I've never met you, but my inbox will miss you like hell. I've cc'd the list on this, because I feel that others will feel the same. I really hope you don't mind. p. -- ---------------------------*||*------------------------------ Life is full of regrets, and I've had a few, as Frank Sinatra once sang, before hiccuping loudly and falling over sideways. Pete Ramsdale - peter.ramsdale@wdr.com Phone: 0171 568 3836 ---------------------------*||*------------------------------ This message contains confidential information and is intended only for the individual named. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail. Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system. E-mail transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free as information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, arrive late or incomplete, or contain viruses. The sender therefore does not accept liability for any errors or omissions in the contents of this message which arise as a result of e-mail transmission. If verification is required please request a hard-copy version. This message is provided for informational purposes and should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any securities or related financial instruments. +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the reborn Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". WWW: http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "jelly-filled danishes" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+
You're going to all have to forgive me if it takes a little while to respond properly to Seb's allegations: there's just too much to correct off the cuff and too much damage that could be done. For those of you who've kept faith with this list, I'd ask, if it's possible, that you wait a little while, and at least some of you give me the benefit of the doubt that the whole thrust of this is untrue: I know some will and others won't, and I don't expect anyone to blindly trust. I'm just steaming mad that this sort of allegation could be fired at the list and me without checking with sources first, although I know this presents a problem of who to trust. But this mails bears a remarkable similarity to other sources who seem to want to spread such crap about the list, and, hell try and finish it off. I've never really quite understood why and it's completely exhausting. I'm feeling extremely beleagured by the whole thing, and beginning to think that this time it might be fatal, and those people will get what they want. I don't include Seb in any of that, but I do blame him for passing on rumour from wholly unreliable sources: but in the end it's up to him. All I can say for now is that this "other list" was never EVER an unelected body, a covert secret council, and never made ONE damn decision on what content or people should be on the list: it was a distribution list of friends who I sometimes asked for an opinion on list matters, and in NO WAY did this fluctuating set of friends ever have, or believe they had, any say on where the list went and what should be on it. We all have collections of friends who, bless them, lend a listening ear when we don't know what to do; to represent that friendship as a participation in so me sort of hidden list executive seems to me to be either ignorance and/or scheming. Nor was it ever even a social list, as anyone who I mailed will agree that I *specifically* asked those who agreed to lend me an ear not to talk social and dilute the joy of all our minglings on Sinister itself. I know that this rumour has been spread around recently and forcefully by those who seem to have become less than friends of Sinister, the same people who used to participate keenly in such discussions. I don't ever quite know why but I guess they're rejoicing now. If the whole sordid story of just who's been trying to do what to this list has to come out because of all this, then so it will, and with fire and brimstone. I've always been keenly aware, that the existence of such a distribution list, while wholly innocent of the claims now made about its fiddling with democracy, could be misrepresented by an enemy as something malign. It seems some people are intent on doing this and this has become apparent in the last few weeks: it's a matter of on record that I could see this coming when I heard of the muck-spreading and shut down the distribution list two weeks ago to try and protect the list and the people who'd listened to my ramblings. Maybe it was always too risky a thing to set up all along, for which I take the blame, or maybe I underestimated the depths to which some people would sink. Let me say it as clearly as I can for those who want to listen though: this is plain wrong, and I have always been responsible for what happens on this list, full stop. If you want to shout at anyone about list policy, shout at me. If you hate this list, tell me. If you want list policy changed kick my door down. But don't go thinking there's a secret talking shop behind your backs, because it isn't DAMN well true, and it makes me so angry to hear this used as a weapon. I know some of you won't want to hear this, and won't have cause to believe me, but I hope a few will. It's also worth saying that if we're going to discuss the existence of forums like this, that joining Sinister is a choice: there are plenty of other forums, and we've seen the rise of a completely unmoderated one today, the newsgroup, which does nothing but increase the choice available to you all of the places you want to live. But I can promise you, that for those who chose to join Sinister because it was a managed list, it's always been managed by one person, me, and no-one else. I'm not sure what else I can say to this. Finally, I've always tried to discourage people talking about the list ON the list, but I can see that any authority I have for saying that is questionable under this sort of extreme allegation, so I don't know how to appeal to people's better nature; but most of you have kept good faith remarkably over long periods of trouble this list has had. All I can really do is say: talk about it however you see fit on the list, but please have some sense of the audience out there, and how long and scrappy those conversations should be. Ill health and exhaustion with all things list-y might mean you'll need a little patience and I'm really really sorry for that, because I know where my responsibilities to you all lie. honey +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the reborn Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". WWW: http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "jelly-filled danishes" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+
participants (3)
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funkyseb＠freeuk.com -
Honey -
Pete Ramsdale