Re: Does this newsgroup have a charter?

[nessus@media.mit.edu (Douglas Alan)]

In article <1c1jqvINNhuk@agate.berkeley.edu>
ruppen%sharlin.qal.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.berkeley.EDU (Not Obsessed)
writes:

>   Does this group have a charter? I don't know. But the creator of
>   this group, Doug Alan, still checks in from time to time. He would
>   know. And if there is a charter, perhaps he should post it. (And
>   repost it from time, perhaps, to minimize this topic's
>   reappearances.) Then maybe once and for all we will know whether
>   this group is devoted only to Kate, or to Kate and anyone whose
>   music in any way vaguely resembles her music.

Yes, the mailing list "Love-Hounds" and the newsgroup
"rec.music.gaffa" have a charter that reads something like "For the
discussion of the music of Kate Bush and other progressive artists".
I did not originally create Love-Hounds to be a mailing list for the
discussion of Kate Bush, but rather as a mailing list for the
discussion of all progressive music, where infinite amounts of
discussion of Kate Bush would be tolerated and encouraged.

The reason for this slant was not because I felt that the world needed
a place for Kate Bush fans to be sheltered from the rest of the music
world, but rather because I was forcibly expelled from net.music (now
rec.music.misc) for single-handedly causing about half of the traffic
on it to be about Kate Bush.  Kate Bush fans needed a place where they
would not antagonize everyone else.  For a long time, Love-Hounds was
what is now two separate lists, NM-List and Love-Hounds.  NM-List is
for the discussion of music that has evolved from Punk, Industrial,
and Experimental music, for the most part.  I encouraged the
discussion of all of these types of music here because I felt that
they were at the cutting edges of the music world at the time.

After a while, I started forwarding issues of the Love-Hounds Digest
to mod.music.  I did this because some readers could not receive
Love-Hounds via e-mail.  Eventually, the moderator of mod.music wanted
to quit because there was no other traffic in it, other than the
Love-Hounds Digests and Love-Hounds acquired its own newsgroup,
"mod.music.gaffa".

The story of how the name "gaffa" was arrived at is somewhat
interesting.  The UseNet administrators would not allow the name
"mod.music.love-hounds" because they thought that this name appeared
unprofessional.  Because of the flamboyancy of the name "love-hounds",
it might, they said, attract the attention of the people who pay the
bills for all of this, and they might not be pleased when they saw
what they were paying for.  The UseNet administrators said that I
should use the name "mod.music.kate-bush".  I refused this choice,
however, because I specifically did not want to limit the newsgroup
and mailing list to Kate Bush.  The name "mod.music.progressive" was
suggested as an alternative, but I didn't like this either, because I
didn't want to encourage lots of endless Rush, Yes, and ELP
blathering, feeling that blathering about music in more current styles
would be nicer.  Also I wanted a name that would indicate that endless
amounts of blathering of Kate Bush was acceptable.  With the help of
Fu-Sheng Tsung, the name mod.music.gaffa was arrived at.

Eventually, what is now NM-List split off from Love-Hounds when one
contributor was very, very obnoxious to another contributor.  The
party that felt insulted enrolled people to call up and complain to
the insulter's boss.  The Punk and Industrial fans felt this was
censorship and left to form a separate mailing list.

As the net has grown and the number of contributors to every newsgroup
and mailing list has grown, it may be a good thing to have seperate
mailing lists for different styles, just so that the volume in any one
mailing list or newsgroup doesn't become overwhelmingly large, but I
also don't believe in newsgroups or mailing lists that narrow their
focus to the point of being myopic.  At this point in time, I think
that Love-Hounds being dedicated to a genre that the music of Kate
Bush epitomizes is a great place to be.

|>oug
   <nessus@mit.edu>