On Feb 13, 6:18pm, Will-E proclaimed:
} I hate to be the one to bring it up but I've been contemplating for the
} past few minutes whether or not I should post here asking about the new
} Silent Records ambient compilation: From Here To Tranquility Volume 2
} but I've been thinking that it's not related to Intelligent Dance Music (IDM)
} primarily because it's not dance music for a start... but then something
} like this comes up which really makes me wonder what happened to the
} inital purpose of this mailing list. Can we discuss what subjects are
} valid for discussion on here and restrict ourselves to?
When Fluid first asked if we could set up an Aphex Twin mailing list,
I suggested we make it a little broader and include all "Intelligent
Dance Music" artists, which was pretty much agreed meant bands that
were either in or sounded a lot like Warp's IDM series. Musical
styles always have precedents and origins, so it's only natural that
people post about those too - I think that's one of the best parts of
this, since I've found quite a few discs this way that I really love
(like Strange Cargo III - thank you whoever first mentioned it! It's
fantastic!). It seems as if IDM has become the idm/ambient/
trance/headtweak music mailing list, mainly because there's not
another forum for it on USENET or in mailing lists, and that's
terrific by me.
Eventually, though, every large (IDM's at 206 right now) popular (one
day last week there were 52 messages!) mailing list can sometimes get
distracted and pursue topics which have little to do with the
original intent but topics which everyone has an opinion about that
they think everyone needs to know - the CD vs vinyl is an example,
and while it probably would have been okay if it lasted a day or two,
I sorta think it went way out of control. But, I sorta don't mind.
A few others did, since there were like 10 unsubscribes this past week,
but most people who have been on large mailing lists sorta expect
occasional flares. SFRaves has periods like that, sometimes even
three or four at once!
This topic is sorta recursive, since the more we talk about this the
less we talk about IDM :)
If I were moderator of this list, I probably wouldn't have let
Mary's post go through. I am not moderator specifically because
I don't want to play the politics of "this is correct/that isn't
correct", but sometimes when mail bounces from non-members and it's
something that's been crossposted to all the regional rave mailing
lists, alt.rap, rec.gardening, and comp.spinach, I usually toss it.
However, I would have let Mary's go through if she had included a line
like, "Oh yeah, Ambient Works 2 rocks!", or something else with a
marginal shred of correlation to the kind of music we're here for,
then in my mind that's fine. Sure, Mary's post probably didn't
bother most people, but when the traffic on this list is as high as
it's been recently an effort to make sure the quality of the posts
remains constant would be really appreciated.
In a similar vein, I'm proud to announce that I'm starting up a new
mailing list, called darren-test, which will be comprised of nothing
but test messages from Darren Emerson. You may subscribe, but posting
a reply "we're here!" will cause Majordomo to automatically remove
you. (JOKE JOKE JOKE - Darren, we luv ya! :)
Anyways, it's probably obvious that people wouldn't be here in the
first place if we weren;t all on similar wavelengths musically, so
I think the occasional transgression can be easily forgiven.
On Feb 13, 6:43pm, Mary proclaimed:
} Yet, although I haven't posted on music stuff, or sent out test
} messages, or asked other sorts of questions...I didn't think that
} it would be totally out of line to post on something different.
} After all, I was posting to a group of people who I had been
} joined with on some level for 4(?) months.
}
} If y'all wanna keep it to strickly idm stuff, cool...I won't
} post anything...but I somehow thought that the word intelligent
} might mean soemthing on its own.
Don't take this reply personally Mary - if you like the kind of music
posted about here, post a question or post about your unfettered love
for Rez or how you think Richard James should get a buzz. :)
This is the kind of thing that's going to keep sociology graduate
students in business over the next few years - the interaction
between members of online communities is very complex, and it's
very tempting to treat it as the real world's counterpart.
On Feb 14, 1:13am, peter.gebert@attis.rz.uni-konstanz.de said:
} do i think discussion of valid topics for discussion is valid? ;-)
} mary's question is not a discussion topic. ...i think the only one who is
} to judge whether the subscribers are discussing "valid" subjects is the one
} who has to administrate the server, right?
And I basically take a lassaiz-faire attitude about this all :)
Anyways, back to your regularly scheduled metaprogramming.
Brian