WAY OT, NAC: Re: The natural life cycle of mailing lists

[Eric S]

Brett,

As someone with a Decade on several other lists (like scirocco-l) I can
say, with confidence, that that "generalization" is pretty near the mark
as to what happens with most lists.  (I am currently subscribed to 7)

I do believe both this list and the rocco list have hit 6b "Maturity".  It
is daunting to be a new member here, because of its long time
standing...I've been rebuffed, told I am nothing short of a moron in
private emails, yet been welcomed in others.  Nature of the beast I
suppose.

The way society interacts is different now...when was the last time you
got a letter, a real letter, with content, hand written?  Instant
gratification and frustration is what the internet has allowed...but
certain groups of people stick together and DO create good communities
like this one...and very much they look like 6b in the link that was
given.  Of course, this is all my opinion, so easily given. ;-)

-- 
Eric
www.vintagewatercooleds.com

1981 Scirocco S (TDI swap project)
1988 Audi 90 Quattro
1990 Corrado TDI
1991 Cabriolet (2.0 crossflow 8v project)

Brett Dikeman said:
> 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/
>
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