Fun_People Archive
11 May
THE NATURAL LIFE CYCLE OF MAILING LISTS

Date: Thu, 11 May 95 13:34:38 PDT
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: THE NATURAL LIFE CYCLE OF MAILING LISTS

[Save this; at some point you will find it handy to inject into a mailing list
that is entering stage 6.  Not that it will do any good, of course...  -psl]

Forwarded-by: bostic@CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Forwarded-by: cgw@io.com (christopher williams)
Forwarded-by: Mark S. Bailen <msbailen@wrdmail.er.usgs.gov>
Forwarded-by: Friese Greg <frie9481@uidaho.edu>
[author unknown]

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).
Fun_People Archive 11 MayTHE NATURAL LIFE CYCLE OF MAILING LISTS

Fun_People Archive
11 May
THE NATURAL LIFE CYCLE OF MAILING LISTS
