Life cycle of internet groups - no direct Audi content, but this applies to us

[Larry C Leung]

Heartily Agree! Congrats to all!

LL - NY

On Tue, 24 Apr 2001 22:13:07 Mike Arman <armanmik at n-jcenter.com> writes:
>
>
>Life cycle of internet groups - no direct Audi content, but this 
>applies to us
>
>
>
>The Natural Life Cycle Of Mailing Lists
>
>Nat Nagel (KatNagel at eznet.net) sent this terrific piece to the 
>EARLY-M
>mailing list in December 1994. It is the best description of the 
>social
>development of a mailing list I've read. 
>
>Every list seems to go through the same cycle: 
>
>1.Initial enthusiasm (people introduce themselves, and gush a lot 
>about how
>wonderful it is to find kindred souls).
>
>2.Evangelism (people moan about how few folks are posting to the list, 
>and
>brainstorm recruitment strategies).
>
>3.Growth (more and more people join, more and more lengthy threads 
>develop,
>occasional off-topic threads pop up).
>
>4.Community (lots of threads, some more relevant than others; lots of
>information and advice is exchanged; experts help other experts as 
>well as
>less experienced colleagues; friendships develop; people tease each 
>other;
>newcomers are welcomed with generosity  and patience; everyone -- 
>newbie
>and expert alike -- feels comfortable asking questions, suggesting 
>answers,
>and sharing opinions).
>
>5.Discomfort with diversity (the number of messages increases 
>dramatically;
>not every thread is fascinating to every reader; people start 
>complaining
>about the signal-to-noise ratio; person 1 threatens to quit if 
>*other*
>people don't limit discussion to person 1's pet topic; person 2 agrees 
>with
>person 1; person 3 tells 1 & 2 to lighten up; more bandwidth is 
>wasted
>complaining about off-topic threads than is used for the threads
>themselves; everyone gets annoyed). 
>
>6.Finally: 
>
>A. Smug complacency and stagnation (the purists flame everyone who 
>asks an
>'old' question or responds with humor to a serious post; newbies are
>rebuffed; traffic drops to a doze-producing level of a few minor 
>issues;
>all interesting discussions happen by private email and are limited to 
>a
>few participants; the purists spend lots of time self-righteously
>congratulating each other on keeping off-topic threads off the list). 
>
>
>OR 
>
>B. Maturity (a few people quit in a huff; the rest of the participants 
>stay
>near stage 4, with stage 5 popping up briefly every few weeks; many 
>people
>wear out their second or third 'delete' key, but the list lives 
>contentedly
>ever after). 
>
>
>
>Looks to me like "our" q-list made it to stage 6-B - a pat on the back 
>to
>all of us, and especially to our revered list-meister, Dan S.
>
>Best Regards,
>
>Mike Arman
>
>
>