Sinister: Life Cycle of an Email Discussion List (B&S Free) (fwd)

[Rod Begbie]

Reminded me of this list, for some reason...

(I think we're at 6b.  Non?)

Rod.

                                    Rod Begbie @ http://www.begbie.com |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| I bribe Greek cod
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 23:05:48 -0500
From: Rahul Chandran <rahul.chandran at xxx.edu>
Reply-To: monkeyjunkies at wired.com
To: monkeyjunkies at wired.com
Subject: [mj] FW: Life Cycle of an Email Discussion List (humor) 

THE NATURAL LIFE CYCLE OF MAILING LISTS

Every list seems to go through the same cycle:

1.  Initial enthusiasm (people introduce themselves, and gush
      alot 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)

6a.  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

6b.  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)


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