🚀 go-pugleaf

An interesting posting on Mailing list from another list. Joel.

Date: Mon, 12 Feb 1996 16:25:27 -0900
From: Jim Goes <goes> Subject: THE
NATURAL LIFE CYCLE OF MAILING LISTS Message-ID:
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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).




=========================================================================
Joel Ouriou - Calgary, Alberta Canada - (403)258-2902 - Fax:(403)258-3828
     ouriouj@cuug.ab.ca  ----  http://www.cuug.ab.ca:8001/~ouriouj/