The natural life cycle of mailing lists

[Brett Dikeman]

Andrew Buc wrote:

> Someone on BookCrossing called my attention to this:
>
> http://archive.mail-list.com/shoptalk/msg00002.html


After a decade on the q-list and starting a list of my own, fragments of 
that are true, but the conclusions reached in many cases are nothing 
more than assumptions.  Maybe in the author's list it's all true, but 
not here on Audifans, IMHO.

The q-list started at 10 or so people.  It grew to huge proportions.  
Then a couple of sublists started forming (s-car list, 200q20v, V8, 
20v at rennlist, etc) because traffic was so high people were leaving 
simply because they couldn't keep up with the volume.  Some people 
didn't like that, others breathed a huge sigh of relief. I know a number 
of old-hats came back to Audifans (or one of the other non-audifans 
lists) when things broke up a little; that, in my mind, offsets most of 
the negatives about 'fracturing'.  I haven't looked at membership #'s in 
a long time, and it's hard to judge as people subscribe from multiple 
addresses but set the "nomail" option so they can post from work and 
home, etc.  I don't think I've ever seen anyone "moan" about slow days, 
though I think some of us used to breath a sigh of relief when the # of 
messages to be downloaded was only 2 digits come Monday morning.  
Holidays are always very quiet, and we're just coming out of the holidays.

I don't think anyone, myself or Dan included, really cares how big or 
small things are; it's more important that it be useful to those who are 
here.  I've flat-out told people who were being obnoxious that if they 
didn't like having to follow a few basic rules designed to keep order on 
a FREE resource...that they should not let the door hit them on the ass 
on the way out.  I still feel that way; if someone can't follow the 
rules on a free resource, they're pretty arrogant, not to mention 
disrespectful and ungrateful to the efforts of those who run the site 
AND their fellow listers who have made Audifans what it is (without 
their willingness to share knowledge, we wouldn't be here today).  It's 
like walking into an art museum and bitching about how you can't light 
up your stogie; not only do you destroy the work of others, but you ruin 
the experience for others.


We did have the sticker thing put together, but I don't think it was 
ever driven by lack of membership or posting, just a common desire to 
spot community members.  It helped stock the coffers a little after 
years of Dan outlaying cash to pay for bandwidth and hardware.  Just a 
year or two ago, we took a giant step up in hardware thanks to 
donations.  I can't remember the last time we HAD to ask for donations.  
That's a good thing.  I hate pledge-a-thons just as much as everyone 
else :-)

As for recruitment, we discussed some ideas on-list a couple months ago, 
but I believe everyone resolved to do things their own way taking into 
account concerns people raised about setting Audifans in a good light 
and not being a nuisance.  I think everyone was content with that.  I do 
think we badly need to improve the main page to describe better what 
Audifans is; as Huw pointed out once, a google search put us pretty low, 
lower than we probably should be (I don't care about being #1, I just 
want us to be reasonably easy to find).  To that end, I'm thinking of 
making a section on the "new" knowledgebase for  suggestions on text for 
the front page, list descriptions, etc.  Also- you can all help by 
putting a link from your homepage to Audifans; don't forget to make the 
link text appropriate (ie not "click here" :-)

List membership #'s have never gone anywhere fast.  I used to keep an 
eye on stats now and then to make sure we were not accidentally bumping 
half the list off with the bounce handler, and every time I looked, I 
saw something of a revolving door; a small stream of people sub, see 
it's not for them, and leave within a week or so.   I suppose that means 
Audifans needs to do a better job of marketing itself- not to increase 
the # of people, but to help people figure out if it's "for" them or 
not; save them some hassle. Ignoring the revolving door, membership 
numbers ebb+flow slightly.

For the new year I'd like to see more active participation on the part 
of list members.  Like, say, with the knowledgebase! :-) 
(http://www.audifans.com/mailman/listinfo/knowledgebase/ )  Anyone 
around that can help move articles from the old KB to the new software? 
:-)  Going to try and do as much of that as I can today...any help would 
be welcome.  Join the KB list or email me privately for more info.

Brett
-- 

"They that give up essential liberty to obtain temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin
http://www.users.cloud9.net/~brett/