quoted 4 lines there's a difference between complaining about (admittedly) off-topic
> >there's a difference between complaining about (admittedly) off-topic
> >threads and being an idm elitist. maybe i'm crazy,
>
> You are.
Cool. Glad you cleared that up for me. Just for reference, where did you
study psychiatry and/or criminal justice law?
I don't remember saying anything disparaging about D'Angelo or anyone's
musical taste. But I'm sure that there's a list for quite a few, if not
all, of the many off-topic topics that have reared their heads on the list
over the four years since I first subscribed.
Maybe I'm just frustrated that the quality of list has, overall,
disintegrated over that time period. Perhaps I'm partially to blame--I
don't post particularly often. My intial infatuation with this
genre--which temporarily blinded me to other styles of music--has worn
off. I still think some of it is damn fine music, mind you, but IDM (what
a bizarre and derogatory term) _per se_ occupies my turntable/CD player
only about ten percent of the time, maybe less. I can certainly see the
desire among list members--all of whom are here because of a common
interest--to share other types of music that they like. This is not a
unique characteristic of this list, especially among the more veteran
members.
However, someone signing on the list for the first time today would see
very little on-topic posting, and would not take much (relevant)
information away from it. I discovered a not-insignificant amount of
music (IDM only, mind you) through this list, but looking at the state of
the list today, I must say that I can't see myself getting that much out
of it if I were a new subscriber. This troubles me.
Now, the other side of the argument boils down to (as I see it): "It's
everyone's list, and we can talk about whatever we want to. Delete the
messages you don't like." This argument has merit, but only up to a
certain point. It weakens when you move farther away from the original
topic. If some of us on the list want to talk about New Order (an
influential quasi-electronic band who have had IDM-type people do some
remixes), should we talk about it here? No. We should talk about it on
the New Order list, or in private. If there's not a New Order list, we
should make one. Many commercial services offer free mailing lists.
As far as I'm concerned, it is mere courtesy to try to keep things on
topic. People signed up for this list to expect messages about a certain
topic, and to deviate from that topic is downright rude. It turns the
list into nothing more than a giant chatroom.
I understand that IDM is a vaguely-defined genre, and that's fine; I've
participated in many debates/flamewars about that topic. But the line has
to be drawn somewhere--merely saying, "This is good music," doesn't cut
it. This isn't the "good music" mailing list, is it?
-w.
[See
http://www.catalog.com/vivian/lifecycle.html for an interesting take
on things.]
--
Warren Lapham laps@2350.org
FAXlabel reviews :
http://www.2350.org/
Pithy drivel and errata (8-12-1999 [visual]) :
http://www.myzeitgeist.org/
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