Please pardon me for what may sound inappropriate. I was a contributor both
with posts and a good deal of personal money to Marko when he asked for it.
There came a point where I decided that I no longer wanted to stay with Vocalist
(for a number of reasons) and unsubscribed.
I have been one of the first few members of the Goonlist (GOONLORE) since its
inception and I don't mind telling you all that I am quite annoyed to see
Vocalisters taking over GOONLORE. I wrote my dear friend and the founder of the
Goonlist, Craig Mann, complaining about this. Gentleman that he is, he told me
that he could not "boot you off." He won't allow anything obscene or any ad hoc
criticisms of people.
Frankly, we Goonlisters don't do an awful lot of writing, but when we do, we
stay with a thread or expand it. But the threads are not hydra-headed. I enjoy
reading Lloyd's highly intelligent posts always.
Generally, however, I do not enjoy opening up my e-mail and having to go through
one-half or a third of it and, before I can open any other e-mails, go through
the hundred or more e-mails I get on a daily basis inflated by (for me)
meaningless Vocalist e-mails and deleting them. Vocalist seems to have taken
over Goonlist and I, for one, do not appreciate it.
Please forgive me for my honesty and please don't bother answering. If you have
John, who has been good enough to take this labor upon himself, I suggest that
if you want Vocalist.org to be a success, you should all contribute an amount of
money (which you should vote upon) and contribute and make it truly your own.
Our Goonlist is relatively small and we treat each other with respect both on-
and off-list. Should Craig, who is a great moderator and intelligent as well
ask for a donation, I would gladly send it. However, if my screen continues to
be inundated with Vocalist posts because of Craig's goodwill, I would have to
drop out (which is my problem). I have been a rabbi since 1977 and I find it
difficult to keep up correspondence now. It has become more difficult with a
lot of junk e-mail of all kinds.
Those of you who know me know I speak my mind. In this case I know that what I
have written sounds offensive; I don't mean to be. I am just up to my eyeballs
in work and I find it annoying to have to spend my time as described above.
Peace and Blessings,
Rabbi Richard Allen, Ph.D.
www.rabbiallen.com
allen@r...
Voice: 215-657-3737
Cell: 267-716-0760
FAX: 215-657-5588
----- Original Message -----
From: John Cheshire
To: vocalist-temporary@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, November 23, 2002 8:09 PM
Subject: Re: [vocalist] vocalist.org !!!
> While it is informative, it could easily
> turn commercial or biased - perhaps only because you will need money to pay
> for its hosting!
> The way Marko used to manage vocalist.org was more neutral, IMHO. What if I
> or other Vocalisters give you archives or other stuff that will bring
> traffic to your site, and then we discover that it is more and more about
> "Self Hypnosis" or "Speech Level Singing" or whatever?
Most of the links on vocalist.org have no affiliate arrangement and the
likelihood of the
site earning any significant commission is very slim. If anyone would like to
order 13500
USD worth of sheet music from the site, then that would put me close to
break-even
point, after which all I would need to find is money for the monthly hosting
costs.
To not accept affiliate agreements with products which naturally complement
the site, would, in my opinion be madness. If to "turn commercial" means to
feature
banners unrelated to singing such as ads for swimwear which I have seen
elsewhere -
then vocalist.org will not be "commercial" while it is under my ownership.
I expect vocalist.org to be a hobby which loses money, but not too much. I am
an
ex-company director and IT specialist who is now training as a classical
vocalist -
running the vocalist.org website seems to me to be a natural project for me to
take on.
Marko did a fantastic job and may have had a more "neutral" approach, but he
was
donating his time and the university donated the server. Donations are nice,
but
free and "neutral" donations do not tend to go on forever. Of course, the web
site
vocalist.org did not go on forever as it was. Maybe marko became busy
with a "proper job";
http://www.ltt.de/java-days.2002/helsinki.shtml ????? THE Marko ????
I hope vocalist.org can grow in to a useful free information service for
vocalists
worldwide. It is now only a couple of weeks old. I have managed to
write a couple of articles for the site, but I have not had much time, so
there is
still not much content.
Yes, I will gladly accept contributions for the site. I too want the site to
be more
about "whatever", but I can not just pluck pages full of original content out
of thin air.
John
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