[Tfug] Is Social Networking Sites Reducing Activity on This List?

[Bexley Hall]

Hi Zack,

On 5/1/2013 11:59 AM, Zack Williams wrote:
> On Wed, May 1, 2013 at 11:52 AM, keith smith<klsmith2020 at yahoo.com>  wrote:
>
>> I belong to a number of tech mailing lists such as PLUG and AZPHP.  The
>> AZPHP list has gone almost completely dark.  It has been that way for maybe
>> 3 years??
>>
>> I'm wondering if the social networking websites might be drawing down
>> membership and activity.
>
> Alternatively, did people switch to more focused and/or wider area
> listservs?  Or jump to other methods of communication like IRC, etc.?

The most technical lists that I participate in have gone to a
closed, "invitation only" format.  This has big upsides -- *and*
downsides!

As to the former, the abilities of the membership are pretty much
"vetted" before they say word one.  I.e., if something *sounds*
stupid (to you), it probably means you don't understand what is
being asked (so, wise not to *act* as if it was stupid!  :> ).
This is especially true of participants who are not English-native
speakers (which isn't always easy to determine based on name/email
address, etc.).  They're *invited* presence obligates you to show
some patience with their attempts to verbalize their questions
*and* answers!

[Similarly, you can safely assume that the "obvious" solutions have
originally occurred to the correspondent.  So, folks tend to think
on problems a bit more before venturing forth with a suggestion --
which usually leads to a better answer!]

It also goes a long way to discourage the "chatter" that seems
to have pervaded the older forums (politics, jokes, etc.).  Annoying
that folks will rant and rave about some political issue instead of
heading off to their local *bar* (where they risk bodily injury
from someone with a different point of view!  :> ).  *Or*, a
forum *designed* for that purpose (where they risk verbal abuse
from others equally intent on expressing their different viewpoint).

[I wrote a small remailer that implements private lists *hiding*
the email addresses of each participant so spambots can't plague
them and rogue participants can't harvest addrs for "ulterior motives"
(one list was victimized by a participant passing on email addrs
to a headhunter cherry-picking contacts from the list's discussions).
The coolest feature of the software is that it distributes moderation
of the list among the participants -- allowing those folks to
"discourage/penalize" people who deviate from the list's charter!
But, I still have to refine the policies that it implements in order
to prevent BofH-type behavior -- too easy for someone to become
antisocial and bump people he doesn't like/agree with (i.e., the
remailer should bump *him* in this case!  :< ]

For the latter (downside), the lists can quickly get clique-ish
almost to a point of "xenophobia".  This seems to be highly
correlated with the narrowness of focus of the group.  Without
"new blood" (fresh ideas), they tend to stagnate cuz everyone
eventually learns the same technological "tricks"...

[OTOH, the "open" lists let folks in who ask questions like:
"How do I put a bigger disk in my computer?" or "What's the
answer to #5 on my homework set?"  :< ]

The "bulletin board" forums seem to be a popular "communal"
meeting place.  But, suffer from being too permissive for
many uses (e.g., much of the technical stuff that I discuss
I wouldn't want others to be able to "sniff" -- often for
contractual reasons).  And, "posts" tend to "linger" too
long due to the very nature of the medium -- i.e., you might
see someone revisiting a thread a year or more after it
was pertinent!  (this doesn't happen with email based lists
as most folks don't keep ancient messages in their mbox's!)

> You could research this by finding a few of the prolific posters
> pre-listserv death, and search for their email addresses on a search
> engine, to see where else they've been posting more recently, if at all.

I'm not sure how well that will work.  Many people maintain several
email addresses for different types of communication, forums, etc.
So, you're unlikely to find a particular email address in a *variety*
of places/haunts.

Worth trying, though!