For the Joni Only List

[sl . m]

I've left NJC off this post deliberately because it's intended for the Joni-only people.

I only joined this list a couple of months ago so I don't know the history, but as I understand it, this is a discussion list for people who love Joni Mitchell. It doesn't appear to be a list for a discussion of Joni Mitchell exclusively. But for the benefit of those who want to do that, people are requested to put NJC in the subject line if their posts are not about Joni Mitchell.

The NJC posts are very wide-ranging in subject matter and are virtually always written from an incredibly intelligent and interesting point of view. When people disagree, they (usually!) do it politely, with arguments to back up their positions rather than personal abuse. I don't think I've ever seen an internet community so able to defend its positions, and with such diverse interests and tastes - but in fact, this is exactly what I'd expect from Joni Mitchell fans, which is why this list is such a great idea. From that point of view, this has to be one of the best lists in existence.

The only real hostility I've seen on this list has been in posts from Joni-only people, pissed off because someone forgot to put NJC in the subject line.

Please - this isn't a big deal! Most people remember to write NJC most of the time. Please bear in mind that you don't SEE the overwhelming majority of the NJC posts, so you're not able to judge how tiny the percentage is that mistakenly ends up in your inbox.

Surely these can simply be deleted. Or, if you're on the digest, you can quickly scroll past them. Even when NJC has been left off by accident, people are pretty good about using descriptive subject lines, so you can usually tell without opening the email that is has no Joni content. How many seconds, literally, of your week is taken up deleting emails that should have been labelled NJC?

Please allow those of us who want to discuss other issues to do so, and we will try VERY HARD to remember to put NJC in the subject line every time. But please don't respond in such a hostile way when we forget. We are only human!

Sarah