subjective admin

[jfnm]

stp la version française

----- Original Message -----
From: Frederic Madre <fmadre@wanadoo.fr>
To: <palais-tokyo@pleine-peau.com>
Sent: Monday, June 05, 2000 5:04 PM
Subject: subjective admin


> hello!
>
> first, I want to apologize for closing the list in an abrupt manner and I
wish to explain as rationaly as possible what is after all only my
subjective reaction, which I thought (still do) adequate. And then maybe
open a discussion on this list for those so inclined.
>
> I had talked for a while of closing this list and thought there was
sufficient pre-signals of it, although some subscribers did not notice that
I mentioned it and others thought it was a joke. But in fact it has always
been part of my long thinking about mailing lists that 1) they should never
be moderated 2) they should be terminated if needed. After all it is so easy
to create a list, why shouldn't it be as easy to close it ?
> it certainly should not be closed without extensive explanation. my
mistake. I just want to repeat that i'm not here on the internet to build a
career and that anything that is not bearable to me for ethical or
hedonistic reasons, well, I will not bear even if that would be good for
other reasons.
>
> During those 3 days of technical closure, I have received (privately)
mostly signs of approval or understanding and also (publicly, for those)
signs of disagreement and a little dash of abuse. Also, after a period of
relief, and then thought, I felt that there is a gap (wound ?) which was
filled by this list and to cut it short: some voices were lost and there is
stuff that went on here that can't be expressed anywhere that I know of.
There are also a lot of things that were wrong and offuscated completely the
great stuff.
>
> Broadly, I'll go thru the different kinds of email productions going on
here including discussions between several members which we all love
(right?) and that are not in question. Neither are the one-off mavericky
strange beautiful spurts, untouchable, desirable.
>
> so, here's _my_ take on questionnable stuff:
> Then there are the spam machines, and the first to put one up was me,
which I still believe to be interesting experiments but a) may impair
ongoing debates b) tend to become stale and samey c) sometimes are used as
weapons against us (or others). I have made 5 versions of mine, maybe I
should have unplugged it, I dunno.
>
> Then there are public chats between couples (2 sometimes but rarely 3
people) which usually do not interest the rest of the subscribers and
frankly, are annoying and bores. Often those messages included long unedited
quotes of previous messages, too. I hated those to the point of thinking
that some of them were happening just to produce that: anger.
>
> Then there are the announcements from subscribers, and boy I did a lot of
those, sometimes they verge on auto repetitive promotion and, yes, they are
boring as hell. even more if they contain 250k embedded gifs.
>
> Then there are the x-posts. sometimes acceptable and understandable if
they are announcements, but totally unbearable if they are systematic, I
think. This got very out of hand here. I feel that each list has its topic
(sometimes unexplained) and unique feel. I do not see how one message can
fit 2,3, or more mailing lists, I do not.
>
> and last, I do not see that a person can send more than 3 (whatever)
valuable posts in a day. but, fuck, what is valuable and what is not...
>
> So, I do not want to sound too patronizing here, after all its an
auto-critique more than anything else but:
> seeing the tendency of each kind of production described above, it
suddenly dawned on me that this was a good time as any to stop this
particular mailing list and that it was probably better to do it now than
wait a couple of months more and regret it.
>
> Now we've all had time to think about this stuff (or not! or could not
care less!) and so I re-open the list to publish this explanation (and the
apology contained within) and start a debate on that topic and that one
mostly, please.
>
> the life of lists, what you like(d), don't, will (not) accept do
> build ? re-build ? rename reorder
> plug save
> off
> on
>
> technicalities:
> the list now takes no new subscribers
> anyone can unsub from the web interface (just ask me if you have any pb)
at anytime
> the list accepts posts that are explicitely sent to it
> the list does not accept more than one recipient on an email
>
> ethicalities:
> this list never was and is not moderated
>
> shoot,
> frederic.
> ps: pardon my english
>
>
> palais-tokyo +|- je t'aimais bien