I don't know about y'all, but I spend most of my time at stage 4...and
I'm on my third _keyboard_, to say nothing of the delete key. I continue
to be amazed by the general level of resourcefulness displayed by many of
the list's participants and thankful for its existence.
-- Marc
On Mon, 5 Aug 1996, REICHLE, CHRISTOPHER wrote:
>
> 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).
>
>
>
|