The pinhole swap announcement has caused a major hurricane to blow on this
list !
At present time, about 50 people from plenty of countries are willing to
participate in either one or two of the formulas. And it will not stop just
now.
I am also very happy to find both some well-known names (like old friends)
with whom I enjoyed the various previous swaps and new pinholers eager to
try the experiment ...
In fact, I am not surprised of this success : pinholers are genuine
enthusiastic people ! and the future months promise to be full of pleasure
for all of the participants!
but...
... we have to manage with this success and to organize the things. this
will be done easily but only needs a little "discipline" by everyone and
some patience. This will help us the moderators to set up things clearly.
1) The 1st major point to clear is :
"Distinction between 2 kinds of Pinhole Swaps"
It seems from all your messages under the "PS4" subject that not everybody
clearly makes the distinction between :
- the "Christmas swap" also called "Holiday swap" or "the list"
- the more formal "PS4" Pinhole Print Spring Swap 2004
I shall not make again a detailed description of the 2 formulas. they are
quite different and I suggest that you read Tom Miller's excellent post
about this topic (2003/10/13) to understand the different mechanisms
involved.
I paste Tom's post at the end of this present message.
The 2 swaps are completely independent, with very different rules; they
respond to distinct desires of exchange between pinholers. One may
participate in either one of these swaps or in the 2 .
I'm asking everybody willing to participate (even if you have already sent
your "intention" message) to completely separate the posts about the 2
swaps.
Why ?
Just because I shall not imply myself in the management of the "Holiday
swap". at present time, I do not know who will do that job but I know it
will not be me. It probably needs a coordinator to set up this swap, even if
this "open" formula needs less organization than the formal one
I announced the PS4 formal swap because I am ready to "launch" this project
as coordinator and I wish to concentrate on the success of this project with
help of everyone.
Consequently, please use "PS4" subject line only when you post about this
"formal" swap. by advance, all my thanks!
2) PS4 organization, rules, etc.
several among you ask for some more info about their commitment in PS4. It's
normal.
I am preparing a complete post with proposals about organization of PS4. It
still requires some work and now it is 02:55 AM here in France and I need
some sleep ;-)
This will be sent on this list in the next 24 hours and the message will
bring many answers to your questions regarding the formal PS4. Without
revealing the whole content, I may tell you now that the 1st step will be
constitution of several PS4 groups since we are very numerous.
Also it will precise the "sign in" procedure and will open discussion of
several points which will constitute the "rules" after we find agreement on
them...
And for preventing to pollute the general pinhole list with too many PS4
related posts, after this coming general message, all the communication
about PS4 will be directed on a new e-mail address.
Now, thanks for your patience and your enthusiasm and please still wait
until Thursday for the next important step!
Have good pinholing!
Cheers from France,
Jean
************************************
PS : Tom's explanations about "Christmas/ holiday" swap opposed to "formal"
swap (as PS4) :
Hi Jean,
Thanks for offering to coordinate another "formal" swap. You did an
excellent job in coordinating the formal swap that I took part in a couple
of years ago.
It is good that you mentioned the distinction between the formal and the
holiday swaps. Some things I noticed that were different about them are: 1)
the the number participants; 2) the size and quality of images; 3) level of
reciprocity. I think these are inter-related.
The rules for the holiday swap were that any number of people could sign up
for the swap, but each individual would send cards to only as many folks at
they felt they could. If I remember correctly, there were 49 folks signed
up for the holiday swap last year. I know that all 49 folks didn't send out
49 images. This is OK, since it was part of the ground rules, but should be
kept in mind.
On the other hand, so many people signed up for the formal swaps that they
were broken into two or three groups based on subject. I remember about
15 - 18 people in each group? Some folks participated in more than one.
Each person committed to send a photo to ALL other participants. Jean, I
know this caused you a lot of work because some folks fell way behind the
deadline and needed extra reminding. However, everyone in the group I was
in (the self-portrait group) did participate in the end. This was truly
remarkable and joyful.
I've also noticed that generally smaller images were sent in the holiday
swap, Christmas card size or smaller (5x7; 4x6 and down) and many were
postcards that suffered from postal handling in the winter. The formal swap
images were generally larger, up to 8x10 and all were carefully packaged for
mailing.
I hope all this doesn't sound like sour grapes, but it is something to think
about when joining the swap.
Jean, please count me in on the formal swap. And, if there is a holiday
swap, I'll be in that one, too!
Tom Miller
