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EDITORIAL

Rik with wife Eve somewhere in England

The death of email

Along with many other people we have been forced to adopt draconian and evermore ingenious anti-spam measures. This means that some genuine email inevitably gets rejected automatically. If you want to be sure of reaching us please use the Feedback form at the foot of each page or old-fashioned snailmail at BM Box 4392, London, WC1N 3XX, England.

Email as we have known it is dieing, the victim of spammers, fraudsters, digital vandals and 'legitimate' marketeers, the dividing lines between which are becoming increasingly blurred.

Rik - 8 April 2004

731,232 PAGE HITS IN 2003

Our weblogs analysis program shows that there were 731,232 successful page hits for the fluxeuropa.com domain during 2003.

Rik - 16 January 2004

MUSIC REVIEWS MOVE TO DATABASE

The continuous addition of new music reviews has finally rendered FluxEuropa unmanageable as a collection of 'hand-coded' HTML pages, so I am currently moving the reviews to a database-driven system. This has already been done for new and recent reviews, and older material will gradually follow. The database format will help users to find and focus on their particular interests, as the new list of reviews can be sorted and filtered in many different ways. During this changeover music reviews will be divided between MUSIC (the new system) and MUSIC 2 (the old system), which will be shown separately on the main menu.

Rik - 12 December 2003

LEGIBILITY

Although white-on-black text is fine on my own monitor, I was not satisfied with its legibility on other equipment, and therefore decided to subject FluxEuropa to yet another redesign.

Rik - 13 February 2003

REFOCUSING ON DARK MUSIC

The modern world belongs to specialists rather than generalists. After a seven year struggle to broaden the content of this webzine, I have finally given in to focusing on FluxEuropa's core theme of 'dark music'. This does not mean that all other content will be excluded, but it does mean that we will be aiming to recapture FluxEuropa's former postion as the primary web resource for reviews of neofolk and related music.

Rik - 3 January 2003

THE MACEDONIAN QUESTION

It might seem a little bizarre that FluxEuropa should have to adopt a position on "the Macedonian question", but it appears that the mere mention of the word 'Macedonia' (which occurs in some music reviews) makes this unavoidable. Whilst I am well aware of Greek objections, the Republic of Macedonia is a fact and the use of the term 'Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia' used in some international circles as a result of Greek pressure is frankly preposterous. I have, therefore, decided to change any references from 'FYROM' to 'Macedonia'. This does not, however, imply the endorsement of any particular view on the precise ethnicity of the Ancient Macedonians, or support for any territorial claims - real or imagined - on Northern Greece.

Rik - 18 November 2002

LIGHT AT THE END...

The reorganisation of the music section (by band name) which I implemented earlier in the year has not only increased traffic, but freed me from the deadening conveyor-belt burden of publishing music reviews in large monthly batches.

The future of FluxEuropa hangs on the slender thread of associating its production with pleasure rather than pain, and I am pleased to report that following my 'drowning not waving' editorial earlier this month, the benefits of the new production process are now beginning to be felt both psychologically and in terms of output.

I've recently been trickling through new items (of all types) on an irregular but very frequent - sometimes daily - basis. Concentrating on one thing at a time and seeing it through from beginning to end is much more pleasurable than the prospect of indigestible monthly lumps, and should also bring benefits to our readers and the artists we review. Visitors will be encouraged to come back more often, and - once I get through the backlog of CDs received - there should be a quicker turnaround from receipt of a promo to publication of a review. Music reviews will in future be published as they are received or completed, maybe about three at a time, so would other contributors now please send me their reviews as soon as they are ready rather than in batches.

Rik - 15 November 2002

SEVEN YEAR ITCH

After seven years of immersing myself in producing this webzine, I needed to come up for air. I regret that's been bad news for artists awaiting review, but it's been necessary for me personally and perhaps for the longer-term continuation of FluxEuropa itself. Having spewed the water from my lungs, I've been able to paddle about in some musical projects of my own as well as developing draconian measures to fend off the wave of spam and other email which has now swollen into a veritable tsunami. Coping with this onslaught means that I can now reply only to absolutely vital (or personal) email, and I give my apologies to the authors of all other correspondence who might previously have been afforded the courtesy of acknowledgement.

Rik - 5 November 2002

DEATH OF DIALOGUE: SUPERFLUITY OF SPAM

Those who bother to read editorials in search of some personal touch and a sense of interactivity may also have noticed that we recently removed the FluxEuropa discussion boards and guestbook. This is not the first time that I started and then abandoned a discussion forum due to lack of interest.

I began FluxEuropa (then just Flux) in 1995 which was quite pioneering in UK terms. There were few bluechip companies in the game at that time. Most of the Web's content seemed to be amateur home pages (often with more hyperlinks than content). Encouraged by my ISP at that time (CityScape), there was a clublike atmosphere amongst its customers, who vied for page hits with one another.

Those pioneering days were fun. They were also a time of great expectations, some of which have been met and some of which have not.

With the relatively low cost of entry, the Internet revolution did bring unparalleled publishing opportunities to private individuals, and it is still possible for a site run from a teenager's bedroom to outstrip in success the output of an established commercial company.

The other great assumption, however, the assumption that the Internet would be 'interactive' has not been realised. The Web is essentially a broadcast medium, which people search for information or things they want to buy. As ever, most people prefer to be passive consumers rather than active contributors, but that is the way of humanity.

I abandoned the guestbook for a slightly different reason. Postings were few, but these few increasingly comprised messages lodged by spammers, the bane of my email in-box. I get about 20-30 emails a day, the vast majority offering financial or spying services, porn or viagra, penis enlargement (unnecessary) or breast enlargement (undesirable) or 'business opportunities' in Nigeria (no, you can't have my bank account details). I have a well-developed filtering system to quarantine suspect messages for concentrated zapping, but I still have to download and skim through them which eats up precious time and energy. In the last few months the spammers have increasingly been able to evade my counter-measures.

For those who do feel the need for interactivity, I have reinstituted a feedback form. And then there is always email. I do have a few serious but neglected email correspondents with whom I would like to pursue a more expansive dialogue were I not spending my time zapping spam.

Rik - 10 April 2002

READER INTERESTS

Many thanks to the 108 readers who participated in the recent poll. Respondents were asked why they visited FluxEuropa and were given a choice of the following sections.

I intend to replace this survey with a more detailed one in the near future.

Rik - 16 June 2001

YOU ARE WHAT YOU READ

Many thanks to all those - and especially our American readers - who help to subsidise this project by routing through it their Amazon book purchases. These have included books on art and architecture, philosophy and literacy criticism, works of literature and Noir fiction, computer handbooks, film studies, political and military history, mysticism, alternative and conventional medicine, martial arts, sailing and oriental cookery. You are obviously a highly educated, interesting and cultured group of people!

Rik - 14 March 2001

INTRODUCTION

As a detached postmodernist with no commitment to any grand narrative it is extremely difficult to find anything about which to editorialise. On the other hand, it seems appropriate that FluxEuropa should have an area for my tabletalk. For the time being, at any rate, I will confine myself to the activities surrounding this webzine and the immediate world in which it takes an interest.

Rik - 2 March 2000

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