The Natural Life Cycle Of Mailing Lists
http://catalog.com/vivian/lifecycle.html
Kat Nagel (KatNagel@eznet.net) sent this terrific piece to the EARLY-M
mailing list in December 1994. It is the best description of the social
development of a mailing list I've read.
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Every list seems to go through the same cycle:
1. Initial enthusiasm (people introduce themselves, and gush a lot 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).
6. Finally:
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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So ... what "stage" do you believe the idm mailing list is currently in ?
I would say 5 or 6a ...
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