Why are the vast majority of people who subscribe to e-mail lists complete idiots? Maybe I'm turning into the Internet equivalent of that old guy who yells at you to stay off his lawn, but it seems like lists are overwhemingly populated by people who can't tell "your" from "you're," and don't know how to, you know, delete all that extraneous crap in the message they're replying to. Recently, one bonehead in particular left an entire digest in his reply, which, I might add, was only one sentence long.

Perhaps its just Sturgeon's Law -- that 90 percent of everything is crap -- in effect, only this time applying to (depending on how you look at it) people's posts or indeed the people themselves. The latter seems a little cruel, though potentially accurate. I generally dislike about 90 percent of the people I meet, or, at least, I would not choose to spend very much time with them.

Back to the topic at hand, though, I may have been spoiled by my first encounter with an Internet mailing list. In 1994, I joined Echoes, a list devoted to Pink Floyd and known for its erudition. Of course, this was largely due to the band's following in intellectual circles and the limitation of 'net access in the early days to scientists and people in higher education. Now that the Internet has opened up to the general public, the list's character has changed, and though it still has an old guard of COD's (Crusty Old Dinosaurs, as they've named themselves) attempting to keep the standards high, sheer numbers are against them. When I last took leave of the list (probably a year ago), mostly because of the lack of any real Pink Floyd news or substantive discussion, it was mostly concerned with in-fighting and lyrical interpretations, neither of which particularly interest me.

I've joined other lists, mostly on Yahoo Groups, generally because I want to keep abreast of activities of bands or entertainers that I follow. Sometimes I can catch wind of a new project or a deal on a release that I wouldn't have found otherwise. But the sheer amount of crap I have to wade through to get that stuff is frustratingly huge. I've tried politely correcting people, but it's like whistling in a windstorm. Nobody listens, and I wonder why I even bother. Instead, I should focus on refining my scanning skills, or just lower my standards. Unfortunately, standards are like world records: Once they've been set, it's nearly impossible to lower them again...