File spoon-archives/list-proposals.archive/list-p_1995/list-p_Jun.95, message 161


Date: Fri, 23 Jun 1995 12:19:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: engcubbi-AT-ACS.EKU.EDU
Subject: Re: Too much talk



Malgosia (slight wail)

Here I am trying to save my hands, and you keep posting such interesting 
issues that I end up having to respond to. :)

The issue of unsubbing to active lists is a matter of the kind of 
discourse people expected to take place on the list. The truth is that 
very active lists and news groups develop a casual spirit among regulars 
that results in posts that are often off the stated topic of the group or 
list because people start revealing aspects of their own lives so as to 
know one another better. Meanwhile others subscribe to the list or group 
very focused on the topic and become frustrated by the off-topic 
community development. It's the case on the majority of lists and groups 
I'm familiar with. It becomes a question of the ratio of on-topic to 
off-topic posts. One newsgroup I follow went to a system of heading 
subject lines with WOTP for "warning: off topic post." The group still 
has to deal with the tension though because by its nature as a tv fan 
group for Mystery Science Theater 3000, topics that start off on-topic 
often lead elsewhere. That is ultimately a situation the group needs to 
thrash out for itself.

Laurie, really shutting up this time


On Fri, 23 Jun 1995, Malgosia Askanas wrote:

> Let me pose the opposite problem, which I actually find much more 
> perplexing: that when a list becomes very active, many people unsub, and
> they are most frequently the very people whose presence on the list
> could be most valuable.  This, to me, is a really hard nut to crack.
> Perhaps it could be solved by having, from the very start, a digest
> option for each list, so that instead of unsubbing people would sub to
> the digest.  But I am not sure they would.  Fact is, it is much harder 
> to keep people on a very active list than on a moribund one.  Hee hee.
> 
> 
> -m 
> 

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