From: marco@itnsg1.cineca.it (Marco Olivotto)
Subject: Re: Prog Rock Isolationism (Was Re: Welcome to alt.fan.peter.hammill)
Organization: Laboratorio di Fisica Computazionale, INFM. Trento Italia
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 06:36:05 GMT

jester@crash.cts.com (Ken Bibb) writes:

>I question if there is a need for this group: don't get me wrong, I'm a
>big fan of pH and vdgg, *BUT* this smacks of the elitist, narrow world-view
>promoted by the rush newsgroup.

	Ken, I appreciate your point of view. I've been thinking about creating
this newsgroup for about two months. It's been advertised in alt.config and
several other groups of the alt. hierarchy for a while, and quite a few people
said they were interested.
	I don't feel elitist at all, if I must say it all -- the only reason
is that I (and, apparently, other people) think that an artist such as pH
deserves to have a group of his own.
	I guess that I am in the position to coordinate such a group, because
I am quite a good friend of this man, I am constantly in touch with him, and
can maybe access interesting information sooner than others -- in this sense
I am a reliable source of news (humble, maybe, but reliable).

>There *is* a need for fans worldwide to keep in touch with each other, but
>how are we to attract new Peter Hammill/Van Der Graaf Generator fans if we
>concentrate our posts in a new newsgroup?  The average music listener
>is *not* aware of Hammill, nor are they aware of his influence on the
>European community.  If Hammill's fans isolate themselves in a newsgroup
>of their own, we will not be sharing his music with those who have not
>heard him.

	This may be true, and it is the only serious risk I have considered.
But it also has a purpose of noise reduction with respect to such groups as
alt.music.progressive - which I read and thoroughly enjoy, of course, but
tend to be a bit too widespread occasionally.
	Everytime there is a chance I try to talk other people into artists
like pH -- and I mean singers/players who have a huge artistic potential and
often a small audience because of marketing snags.

>This is not just a criticism of this newsgroup, but of all these isolationist
>groups.  Why not upgrade your newsreader to something that will autoselect
>headers with keywords like "Hammill" or "VDGG"?  Why not upgrade to a
>newsreader with thread following capabilities?  If most usenet users were
>to do this, the need for groups like this would be unnecessary.

	This is absolutely true, but you see -- I would never go and fight
a war, but on the other hand I can't stop the slaughter in Yugoslavia. Just
to say that some rules, like it or not, *arise* from the fact that we're in
a usenet community. Either we comply or we get out -- and the only attempt
to change can come from the inside. Just my opinion, of course.

>The other problem is that the alt hierarchy doesn't penetrate many sites
>which have fans of progressive music.  Instead of creating these splinter
>groups, there are a couple options available:

[stuff deleted]
	I'm thinking of a mail list, and very seriously. The only serious
point is that my system administration may not like the idea... :). If you
want to start one, I'll give you *every* possible help, be sure.
	Re groups that don't exist yet, as rec.music.progressive, I would
support it immediately for the sake of a widespread diffusion. After all,
alt.<whatever> has the same problems as this group, technically speaking.
I'm ready to support rec. groups immediately, if I'm interested.
	In any case, the real purpose of this group is not of isolation.
I mean, if I and you and 50 other friends go to alt.music.progressive and
start to debate subtle Hammillean an VdGG-related threads, none can tell
us that we are "misusing" the group, but what we actually do is use it as
alt.music.peter-hammill or alt.fan.Van-der-Graaf-Generator.

	My opinion is simple: let's see how it goes for a month or so --
given time :) to check this, we may plainly decide to remove the group.
If the discussion is lively and interesting and may attract some new people,
well -- it will have been a well-done move.

	Thanks for discussing this topic with me, hear from you soon.

	Ciao, Marco