OFF: Re: Fwd: Michael Moore's Awful Truth

[Stephen Swann]

On Mon, Apr 26, 1999 at 04:54:18AM +0000, <Nick English> wrote:
>  At the risk of suggesting the list should
> > =>be topical (gasp! ;) can we leave discussion of yet
> > =>another war and yet another murder to the forums
> > =>provided for them?
> >
> > I heartily second this!  Remember, this is *BOC-L*, folks.  If you
> > want to get detailed on Kosovo or Columbine, go to alt.misc.{kosovo,
> > columbine} or whatever, and thrash it all out there.  After all,
> > that's why we have separate forums.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Paul.
>
> Can I ask, then, why you opened an Off-topic e-mail in the first
> place? I don't want to offend anyone, but quite honestly, what is the
> big deal? It seems like people only complain about off-topic e-mails
> when they read one they don't like. Personally, as a BOC fan only,
> I've been getting quite bored with what little has been posted
> lately. This is one of the first topics that's really interested me
> in a week or two.

Well, I can answer that, since I wrote the original BOC charter (Ben
has made it more spiffy and detailed, but not changed the
fundamentals).

Off topic stuff is supposed to be for things that are musically related,
and may be of interest to people on the list, but aren't BOC/Hawkwind
specific.  So, OFF topics might be the legal battle surrounding MP3
technology, for example.  Or maybe the fact that a movie is being made
of one of Moorcock's works.  These things are "peripheral", but not
"unrelated" to the topics of the list.  Abortion, war, politics et al
are all well (extremely well) covered in other forums.  BOC-L is for
music, and things of related interest.

Steve
swann at plutonia.com