Re: Lovehounders

[chrisw@fciad2.bsd.uchicago.edu (chris williams)]

p0070421@brookes.ac.uk (smith david rt) wrote:
> I think this has been said before but occasisonally I get the feeling
> that Lovehounds is a very close-knit community (I would include Chris
> and Vickie, IED, Pete Manchester, Steveo, Uli, Doug amongst others).

   The perception of a "Love-Hounds Cabel" is unfair. Yes,
some of us have been around a while, but the "membership" of this
community is simply those who have contributed. That is the only
defining factor. The people mentioned are, apart from their love
of Kate, an amazingly diverse group. 

   ("Close-knit?" Hardly. The archives will reveal disagreements,
sometimes heated, between almost all the people above.)

   The *main* connection is that all these people have worked long and
hard on various Love-Hounds projects. IED's Garden, Peter Manchester's
shepherding of the Tape-Tree, Steve0's T-Shirts, Uli's FAQ and |>oug's
creating rec.music.gaffa in the first place.

   Long-term, highly visible residents will always define the nature of
a group. Gaffa does tend to get quiet between album releases, and
yes, it does seem like the same questions get asked over and over
again. This is why gaffa has a fine FAQ. I nevertheless attempt
to answer all the questions that arise. I spend a lot of time traveling
and somtimes cannot answer questions for weeks at a time. Nobody
is purposely ignoring anyone.

  The FAQ of any newsgroup advises to read the group for a while to
get the gist of the conversation (and of course to read the FAQ.)
This last flap involed some people who had apparently neglected
to do either. Two digests is not a fair introduction before flaming.
Please, you need to become a lot more familar with the personalities
of the people involved in order to flame *effectively*. To flame me
by claiming that I'm unfamilier with Kate's music made the flamer
look more than a little foolish. 

  (BTW, I never wrote to the original flamer. It really didn't seem
worth the bother. Vickie felt differently and wrote to her. I was
in Kansas City at the time and didn't know about Vickie's letter.
A flame has to be a lot hotter than that to get a rise out of me.)

   If anyone noticed, although the "Pro-Tarot" folks pretended that
I was staging some sort of anti-tarot jihad, my posts on the subject,
numbered...not including this one...one. Hardly the oppressive force
claimed.

> On occasion I feel that newcomers and people like myself can find this
> community a bit overpowering and extremely hard to get into. People are
> probably sometimes afraid to voice their own opions for fear of being
> flamed alived or in the case of newcomers they read their digests and 
> unsubscribe immediately because they don't like what they see.

   The single most important post of last year was from someone who
posts once a year or so. Henry Burdett Messenger's post about the
genesis of _The Ninth Wave_ was an exceptional piece of Kate
scholarship. Did *anyone* jump on this as coming from outside this
punitive clique? Or did all the regulars leap to praise this
discovery? 

                          Chris Williams of
                             Chris'n'Vickie of Chicago
                               chrisw@fciad2.bsd.uchicago.edu (his)
                                 vickie@njin.rutgers.edu      (hers)