From: Carl Barimore (carl_at_stirtloe.fsnet.co.uk)
Date: 2004-04-18 21:58:16
>i think this also has something to do with the decline in music sales
I don't reckon so, there seems to be lots of activity on web-site discussion
forums.
>or maybe it's not the fresh&new thing anymore, so people are looking
elsewhere?
But the subject matter on the list has generally changed with the music, and
all music styles were regularly discussed, including reggae, afrobeat,
hip-hop, west London and others. The list hasn't been about 'acid-jazz' for
years, if anyone even managed to define what it was.
>I started posting when i was in college and it was more of a dedicated
hobby
>the people who originally energized the list with postings are now the ones
making music, throwing parties, writing articles, running websites and
generally being too busy to have an opinion on anything.
I agree this is probably the case for many, but where are the new-comers to
the list who are currently in college, or have the time to post? If you have
a quick look back, there aren't many who have been consistently posting
since 1995. It seems to be that people came and went, but there were always
new people popping up and asking new questions (and old questions) and
keeping the list going.
If I remember when it was really busy in 2000-2001, there were about 30
people who seemed to post most of the stuff, and lots of other peope would
chip in. All in all there would be about 4 or 5 discussions going on at once
and the list could fill up your inbox in a day.
>for real, i second dave's quote: "how many playlists can you take before
you glaze over?"
True, but the playlists were always there and they never put people off
before. It seems like there are more now because there is so little
discussion they make up most of the postings on the list. When the list was
busy the playlists/adverts only made up a small proportion of all the posts
and so weren't as prevalent.
>3. posting on sites rather than lists (more interactive)
I reckon that is definitely a factor. Even small labels have their own
websites and discussion forums now. For example there used to be a lot of
talk on here about broken beat. But now both Goya Distribution, 4 Hero and
Bugz in the Attic have their own websites and discussion forums.
I see that the list policy was changed in July 2002 so that non-subscribers
could no longer post. It's from exactly that time that the list has started
to decline, so I wonder if the list was partly held up by people who
contributed casually but did not wish to subscribe. I know the resulting
decline in spam would decrease the post count, but not by that much. If you
take out all the playlists, there are only about a dozen posts a month on
this list now.