By: Lady Pallas
A year or so ago I decided to join a few Sailor
Moon mailing lists. Some have been from aol, but most have
been internet mailing lists. Many of these have been very
good. The first had plenty of information, fun trivia,
polls, and prizes. Others included media sendings, and
mailing lists for excellent Sailor Moon contests. I myself
had a temporary mailing, but ended it because I really
didn't have the time to continue one, and many others
covered all I wanted from my mailing list, which was great.
Over the past few months I have noted, that mailing lists
have become a major trend. Just in the past day I have
received over ten advertisments, for different Sailor Moon
mailing lists, all which seem to be pathetic copies of some
of the origional good ones. Usually this is done because
they want to be known, and not be left behind as more and
more mailing lists come out. The same can be said for some
webpages. The problem is more then just receiving a ton of
mail you don't care about though.
Usually people send their advertisments by collecting the
email adresses of other mailing lists that they are on.
Often this means that people will get the advertisment more
then once, if they are on a lot of ml's. Another problem
occurs when someone replies to all to say that they want to
be on, or to yell at everyone to stop. What is worse, is
when someone replies to all just to tell everyone to stop
replying to all, and there are usually about ten to twenty of them.
I have actually agreed to join some of these mailing lists,
to see what they are like. Many of them have nothing on
them but bits of info, some quizzes and polls they never
actually check the responses to, and a few lousy pictures
that they actually have time to upload when sending the
mail. Often they do not know the answers to the quizzes,
and when they do check them they mark responses wrong,
because they got the information from one source. Usually
this is done because they want to be known, and not be left
behind as more and more mailing lists come out. The same
can be said for some webpages.
The worst I have seen in the mailings themselves, is when
someone takes an ml that is already made, switches the
colours, wording, and maybe a few poll questions, and then
calls it their own. Usually the person does not get away
with it, for those who created the origional ml often get
the mailing themselves, or a fan of their ml does. The
cheapest thing I have seen, is when someone sends out the
actual mailing to hundreds of people, without even asking
if they would like to join. Luckily when that happens, the
person usually receives as many flames, of about half of
how many people they sent the ml to. I am in a few mailing
lists though, that I never really figured out how I got on.
This is causing more and more problems for people with good
mailing lists. Often people do not want to join them
because the suspect the same cheap thing. Other times they
have an older mailing list, that is deleted by members,
because the mailing list chaos is to high, and they are
sick of them. A few suggestions for those creating amailing list.
1. Don't make it So-and-so's Sailor Moon Mailing. There are
tons of Sailor Moon general mailing out there, and it is to
basic for people to be interested.
2. Try narrowing down the topic. When I decided to create
my temporary ml, I based it on villains, not the wholeseries.
3. Keep away from polls just to make your ml more
interesting, and not because you have an actual interest,
and want to let others see, what people's opinions are.
4. Don't have information sections or quizzes based on
opinion. I hate when someone makes a section about a
character, say Sailor Saturn, and all it is just saying how
she is the greatest and most interesting. I've actually
seen a quiz that asked, who is everyone's favorite "scout?"
And answered it later that it was Sailor Mercury, along
with saying how "she" was the greatest. This is what polls are for.
Well, I hope this has proved interesting, and maybe a
warning towards people making mailing lists just to be
known. ML popularity is declining, try something new and
origional, our mailboxes are flooded enough!
Comments on this article can be sent to:
Lady Pallas.
