[microsound] a few things

[Kim Cascone <kim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

ok I have a few things I want to put out there for rumination:

- microsound list=public:

'Our mailing lists are public forums, and our mailing list archives are 
public.
By sending an email to such a public forum, you agree to public 
distribution of your article. All mails sent to any of our mailing 
lists will be publically distributed and archived in our mailing list 
archives.'

	- the excerpt above is from a disclaimer which will be added to the 
microsound homepage...we were recently asked to 'scrub' an archived 
email of a posters name/content...besides from the obvious legal 
implications - scrubbing an email contained in a server backup or 
archive is quite unethical to do or to be asked to do...
	- please realize that this is a *public* forum and that anything you 
post here will be published for *public* consumption...so, if you send 
an email to the list you don't feel entirely confident about then you 
shouldn't have hit the 'send' button...sorry...you and you alone are 
responsible for what you type into your computer - not the microsound 
founders or our hosting provider hyperreal...

- contribution: I can't speak for Andy or Sean and I don't need to 
defend myself here but I'm not the moderator or main catalyst for this 
list...with that said though, if you look at the projects page you'll 
see that I have been responsible for starting every single one of the 
music projects over the past five years...my life has changed quite a 
bit since starting this list with Andy and Sean: I am no longer working 
in Silicon Valley, my son is almost a teenager, I work and travel in 
Europe a great deal, I'm involved in performing, teaching workshops and 
creating sound installations and I admin my touring schedules for 
spring and fall which consumes most of my day for months at a time...
so the time I have available for initiating microsound projects, 
hand-holding them through the various stages of production, checking if 
the uploaded filenames are correctly formatted, coordinating the 
'release' with the web team, emailing graphic designers w/r/t web 
design, etc., etc., etc., has diminished to the point where I just 
don't have the time to devote to microsound projects these days...nor 
do I have time to contribute to the list as far as discussion goes 
either due to not always having internet access while on the road and 
whenever I *am* on my computer I'm either performing, conducting a 
workshop, giving a lecture, debugging my Linux laptop or in my studio 
working  on writing or sound projects...
but most importantly this list is not about me or my vision alone -- 
this list is made up off many many talented and capable people who are 
free to contribute to discussions, start music projects, add to the 
TWiki site, create a sample library on the hotline server or 
whatever...
I have said this many times: please feel free to make this list what 
you want it -- so long as it rides alongside the founders mission 
statement...

announcements-microsound: I'm planning on taking this route...there is 
a tendency over the past five years for microsound to be seen as a 
genre (this could be a whole discussion in itself) and this creates a 
situation where a community begins to rely on outside legitimization 
and begins to assume the identity hoisted upon it from journalists and 
other public forums -- (in a nutshell: microsound is a community not a 
genre)...so all announcements regarding concerts, cd releases, radio 
lists, etc. will be routed to an announcements list so people who 
aren't interested in taking part in discussions about microsound 
aesthetics and philosophy can go to this other list for information 
they feel is important to them...
this is not about exclusion since the boundaries between the two lists 
is a) artificial, 2) merely put in place to organize information and 3) 
not meant to diminish the importance or relevance of announcing info 
about content to building a community...it is foolish to think that 
there is any sort of snobbery or exclusion going on - that is not the 
case at all...so please try to think first and have an open mind before 
tossing around assumption and conjecture...
once again John Saylor is donating his busy time to setting up this 
adjunct list for us and I once again thank him for all his hard 
work...I also want to thank Tad for his time spent combing out the 
snarls in the archives...this sort of contribution is what makes this 
community thrive...

I will keep everyone posted about the announcements-microsound list but 
it should go live in the next month or so...

set intersection: there is a lot of overlap between the praxis and 
theory of digital music (microsound/laptop/post-digital/place your 
label here) and I don't want to imply that asking about how to do 
something technically is verboten on this list...I welcome posts about 
Linux audio and the implications of moving to/using this platform both 
politically and aesthetically...I welcome thoughts about new software 
and how it can be used in ways perhaps not thought of by the 
developers...I welcome information about composers who might not be 
known to a certain part of the world (reference: a past thread 
regarding the noticeable lack of discussion/sharing info about female 
and Latino composers), and all this fits into the general concept of 
the microsound list as being a place where we can explore new ideas 
about digital music...so please don't hesitate to ask the list about 
how to do something technically so long as this is not your sole 
contribution to the community and there is some netiquette around the 
post like possibly including an [ot] in the subject line if you're not 
sure whether the microsound list is an appropriate forum for your 
question...

rule of thumb: whenever I'm asked something like: 'I want to post 
something about my new CD but I'm not sure if this sort of thing is 
Kosher on the microsound list' -- I say this: it's like a bank, you can 
only take out what you've already put in...so for those who contribute 
philosophically/musically to the community and build an account of good 
karma points (like /.) feel free to post an occasional mention of a 
project or something...for those who don't contribute to the microsound 
community and want to post an email about a concert, cd or something 
they are doing in public, you may do so on the adjunct announcements 
list which will be starting soon...

OK that's all...hopefully we can reboot this list and bring back the 
interesting discussions we are sorely lacking these days...

peace
KIM






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