You may already be aware of the colourful character of Jeff Villet who sells his wares (at reasonable prices) from his Art@Home website. In the process of plying him with cash for some tawdry merchandise we fell into muttering about there not being anything really devoted to collecting. The excellent discussion group, Prints-L was OK as far as it went, but it is mostly directed at printmakers and the academic side of things. He had apparently discussed this with several others in the trade and was also considering setting up something for Dealers. The general idea was to use one of the commercial 'Mail-List' companies to run a 'Discussion Group' for Dealers and a separate one for Collectors. Ostensibly they would be independent, although some crossover would be of mutual benefit.
Sounds like a great idea - an email list of 4-500 print collectors worldwide who could swap expertise, information, help each other on valuations, identification and source or sell material on-line. The Dealers could link in and indicate what they had for sale from time to time. Super! All that was needed was some stooge to 'moderate' it and keep the marauding collectors under control. Why did they pick me? Did I really have 'MUG' tattooed on my forehead? Presumably my website had convinced them I was mentally unhinged enough to agree to the proposal.
After a lot of disgruntled mumbling and listing a hundred and one reasons why I suspected it was going to be an abject failure (apathy constituted the first ninety nine on the list), I was convinced we should give it a go, particularly as Jeff offered to underwrite the cost initially and had hundreds of interested potential members.
After a hunt I found Mail-List.Com which looked perfect. Jeff approached Mark McCreary who runs it and set up two lists, one for Dealers and one for Collectors. He was a bit taken aback by Jeffs initial list of 500 or so collectors. This was a pooled list from several sources. He had emailed all of them (twice!) to ensure they were interested, outline the proposals, and offer to remove them if not. Oh dear! (Absolutely fatal) I was wary. McCreary was unsure. Jeff was gung-ho. His smooth ex-legal tongue convinced us doubters that all would go well. Anything less than a full-frontal assault on the apathetes would be pointless. So we signed up 500 unsuspecting punters to Collectors@Mail-List.Com.
Independence Day 1998 saw Moderator Steves inaugural address to the faithful winging it's way on the
Internet to their Mailboxes. Jeff and I waited with bated breath...I logged on expectantly. The first few replies were unpromising. 'Get me off this ******* list' was the gist of most of them. Despite it being spelled out in words of one syllable, the punters were incapable of unlisting themselves. Bedlam ensued. A situation akin to trying to leave a burning, smoke ridden boat at night populated by abusive hysterics ensued. Those incapable of unlisting themselves just sent messages back to the list, to me, or each other, or both, thereby generating more messages and another batch clamouring to avoid the engulfing tide of emails. Some addresses presumably just forwarded mail to another list of the unwary and uninterested who joined the panic.
Initially it was a bit of a laugh, but every hour when I logged on the number of mails escalated and the tone was getting nastier. It got truly frightening. I was drowning in emails, requests to register people already registered and personal threats if I didn't deregister others ASAP, and all the stuff Mail-list sends the moderator to deal with as well. At one stage I was getting 150 emails an hour. Jeff then helpfully added to the situation by emailing everyone on the list and telling them they were stupid! This generated another resurgence in the by then slightly flagging hornets nest.
It was a nightmare. I was being threatened with legal action and abused from all sides. Mark McCreary emailed to say that he had received numerous complaints from Internet Providers about unsolicited mail emanating from his business and they would institute sanctions that would threaten his livelihood if it continued. I pleaded with him to close Collectors down. Thankfully, he had come to the same conclusion. The plug was pulled after 18 hours. I had aged about a year in less than a day.
It took about a month for the abusive messages to dry up. The most memorable was two full screens of '**** OFF!'. Most impugned the legitimacy of my birth, indicated adverse carnal relations with my mother, and threatened extreme violence to my person or family. So much for the better class of person that peruses ones website print dealerships. Presumably most were demented hillbillies in search of 'adult art' in spare moments when not polishing their gun collections in the patriot bunker. I sent contrite replies to the more courteous and tried to ignore the rest.
When the dust settled, it was all resurrected (although McCreary was not a happy bunny) and done the other way round. Unfortunately the apathy that generated the original erroneous list due to failure to 'unlist' afflicted the new group and hardly anyone could be bothered to join. Shame. I closed it finally last month.
Distanced in time from the original terrifying episode, it all seems hilarious. In retrospect it
would have made a fabulous practical joke - take a disparate list of opinionated right wing bigots
and sign them up to a fabulously lefty discussion group along the lines of 'Equal Rights for Disabled Gay Green Whales',
press the button, dive for cover and watch the sparks fly!Anyway, it was an interesting experiment that would have amused sociologists, and yielded some interesting insights into the users and pitfalls of the internet. Anyone contemplating anything similar should take heed of the following:
Assume everyone in your target audience is at least twice as stupid as you imagine
Most people do not read any of their emails.
Those that do, usually completely misunderstand them.
Even the simplest instructions regarding joining and leaving lists will be misconstrued.
Active, useful participation is the exception rather than the rule.
Most lists and discussion groups fail. Apathy is rife.
There are some very dodgy legal issues surrounding unsolicited mail.
There are some very unpleasant characters out there indeed - beware!
I still occasionally have nightmares about drowning in abusive email.....never again.....Aaargh!
Yes Jeff - I mean never! NEVER! You still owe me discount for the hair loss I incurred over this episode!
Photo Credits::
Top: Another mighty peak falls to the intrepid British Mountaineers
Middle: Slaughtering poor, tiny, defenceless creatures in Ireland (OK, I confess, I missed everything)
Bottom: A handsome muscular lumberjack denuding the countryside of greenery
(Courtesy of Dr Dave Robinson and Anthony Hughes)
Drop me a line if there is anything here that you profoundly disagree with, or maybe you would just like to point out my extreme ignorance and inadequate grasp of the subject.... I am not easily offended.
Gallery