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Stephen's fans are a varied bunch of people. Some are tall, some are short, some have nose rings and some wear a suit to work. More importantly, some want to talk about Stephen and his music until the cows come home and some don't. Providing two mailing lists enables them to choose which they camp they fall into.
Everything that is sent out to the Torch mailing list is sent by one person: me. This means that all of the information they receive comes from somebody who is well informed. It also means that the volume of email is more likely to be manageable because they can rely on me to send out news and information in regular, well-timed batches instead of a constant daily dribble.
While the subscribers to Torch will feel like they are well-informed, what they won't sense is a community of fans. If anything, they will begin to think that I must be the most rabidly obsessive Stephen Cummings fan out there.
The Big Room will allay those concerns. As rabid obsessives go, I am not alone. On this mailing list, I post the same information that I post to Torch but here they can poke and prod at it, question it and perhaps more importantly, completely ignore me and have their own Stephen-related discussions amongst themselves. In truth, there isn't usually a lot of discussion on this "discussion" list (especially compared to other music mailing lists I subscribe to) but it's healthy to provide this list.
For an obscure performer like Stephen, his fanbase is pretty scattered. Many fans probably feel like they're the only person who has ever bought one of his albums and a discussion list allows them to share in the feeling that they're not alone. <cue violins>
Why is this a good thing? That question isn't easily answered because what those fans can provide varies enormously. At worst, they can complain about some song they particularly hate because it reminds them of that time that... well, the details aren't really important. At best, they can give you useful feedback on stuff like gigs ("could someone tell Stephen that the sound mix last night really sucked?"). Stephen has used the mailing lists in the past to help him select appropriate tracks for one of his compilation albums. Fans can offer all weird and wonderful things.
Consider the Lovetown website itself as an extreme example: it is run on a volunteer basis. Almost all of the content on the site has been provided by volunteers and indeed, even the internet hosting of the site is done as a favour between friends (thanks Cos). While I could never have anticipated what people would contribute to the site when I first started it, without some mechanism for establishing those contacts amongst fans first, the Lovetown website wouldn't be where it is today. <cue stirring symphonic climax>
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