Hopefully, new subscribers can use this to get a better idea about what the list is for, right from the start, rather than feeling picked on if I squash their first couple of posts to the list.
Please don't reply to this to the list. This is not an invitation to discussion on the list. If you want to comment on this policy, or my theory, or the sociological implications of it, feel free to email me privately.
The life cycle of open informational forums tends to be both predictable and degenerative. Open forums are interesting beasts, in that there is generally little barrier to either entry or exit for participants, and almost no effort is involved in contributing to the discussion. This is good in oh-so-many ways, as we all know. However, as an adjunct to that, there is almost nothing unique which a general-purpose forum has to offer its participants. So, once a specifically topical forum begins to degenerate, the signal portion (the topic-specific content and discussion) which drew people to the list begins to decrease. As a result, people most interested in the topic tend to wander away. However, as a thriving open forum of almost any kind tends to draw and keep at least some participants, the noise (off-topic content and discussion) continues, and becomes a larger percentage of the list content. After a while, the group, if it survives at all, becomes a small circle of old-timers and squatters who basically consider all questions or comments submitted by "outsiders" to be beneath contempt based on their origin rather than their content.
On the other hand, chartered and moderated forums, as long as they stay on-message, can thrive for years with a fairly high signal-to-noise ratio. Many lists in existence do this well, and have over a long lifetime. Others have done poorly at it, and lost their focus and become large or small forums for exchanging generic nonsense.
My view is simply this - I started this list for one reason and one reason only - to give Kansas fans a place to find out information on the band and related events, and to exchange Kansas-related views and discussion with other like-minded folks. As long as it does that, I'm interested in keeping it running. If it degenerates (in spite of my efforts to keep it on-topic) to the point where the noise is much higher than the signal, then I'll hand it off to someone else or just shut it down.
It's not a personal vendetta that I have against people saying what they want; it's a practical understanding that without some control over the direction of the mailing list, it, like ever other open social forum in existence, will become a general forum. And there are literally dozens of thousands of such places, already in existence, between Usenet, other mailing lists, the hundreds of new web chat forums and bulletin boards springing up every day, and so on. But there's only one place to find the highest amount of Kansas content in the *world* - and that's the PotSW list. And that's the way I want it to stay.
Lastly, I'll briefly address my policy of no religion and no politics. It's very simple: if people could discuss the religion (or politics - the effect is identical, both in nature and fervor) of Kansas or its members, WITHOUT injecting their own judgments, views, beliefs, biases, and et cetera into the mix, then we'd be fine. But it can't happen, at least not for long.
It always, *always* moves quickly from
"Kerry's lyrics reflected his search for the truth, and once he felt his search had come to a succesful conclusion, his authorial perspective seemed to undergo a profound change."
to
"Once Kerry accepted Jesus for the Messiah that He is, he found the peace that you can ONLY know through Him. You only need to accept Him and you'll know it too. I think the others in the band are just prejudiced against God, and we should pray for him."
or
"After Kerry became a Christian, his misguided zeal drove him to destroy the band by trying to force his beliefs on the other members. While this is typical of Christians, I hate that he felt that he had to do it."
The difference, I hope, is clear enough. The first is talking about Kansas and the religious element in the band; the others are using the band as an excuse to show personal beliefs and biases about religion, which is an entirely different thing. And in my experience, both on this list and many others, there is almost no chance that a discussion will stay on the first and avoid the second and third paths.
And believe me, there's NOTHING like a good religious/political flame war to hurt everybody's feelings and destroy a healthy mailing list. You don't have to agree with me, but you'll have to learn that I'm right on this one elsewhere, because I just won't tolerate it on this list.
Anyway, for good or ill, there it is. Like I said, comments are welcome, but please, not on the list.