Theos-Talk Archives (November 1997 Message tt00050)

Mark Jaqua:

Your posting gives me an opportunity to add a few comments
regarding the list.

Currently theos-talk is a majordomo mailing list, because
it's offered for free from the website provider as part of
their basic account. The email volume on the list counts
towards the monthly web volume, and until this month the
account never exceeded the 100MB/month quota.

>- I think Rich Taylor's comment about "inundation"/too many
>trivial responses is right on the money.

As the activity on theos-talk has sky-rocketed, I can see
that having a listserv version of the list would prove
beneficial. It will take a few weeks to look into it, but
the transition should be fairly smooth. The basic commands
would be the same.

>- Ramdoss had 20 responses yesterday, for instance. Is this
>"theosophical" to impose oneself that many times on all the
>subscribers? It wrecks the discussion site.

There are two features of a listserv mailing list that could
come into play at some point. One is that it's possibly to put
a number-of-messages-per-day limit for the entire list, and
another limit on a per-subscriber basis. That doesn't necessarily
cut down traffic, since anyone can put lots of replies into a
single message. An agrument against such a limit is that it's
easier to sort through replies if they are organized as separate
postings, since one can look at the start of the message and
subject and quickly decide to delete, save, or read, without
having to page througt the entire message looking for what is in it.
On balance, the feature is more appropriate for lists numbering
in the thousands, where the traffic levels would totally
swamp everyone.

A more useful feature is the concept of "topics", with a
general catch-all topic for messages marked with a topic.
People can subscribe to one-or-more predefined topics and
only get postings for the topics that interest them. A
message goes out under a particular topic if the appropriate
keyword is put into its subject line. There could be a
general discussion topic, a news topic, a history topic,
etc, depending on how the communications could be grouped.

>- While I'm guessing there are at least 50 subscribers to this list, half
>the messages are from less than 5 people.- "Lurkers" don't send in
>submissions partially because they know they'll likely be pounced on by the
>few "regulars" who seems to think it is his/their responsibility to
>personally respond to nearly each entry. (Dallas, for one) This is a type
>of intimidation. ISN'T THIS A WAY TO 'TAKE OVER' A SITE - possibly for
>one's own personal reasons, or from just being out of control/compusive?

The list is a bit bigger. In the past week it dropped from 116 to 110,
losing five to only-getting THEOSOPHY WORLD. (The sixth hasn't replied
yet to indicate their intentions.) It also gained two new subscribers,
going back up to 112. There are 32 more that only get the magazine.

>- I believe a site is ruined by this mass of trivial response. There is
>so much quantity and confusion to the average reader that nothing useful
>gets accomplished or discussed. Personal conversations would be better
>held off site.

Sometimes we don't consider if our replies are useful for a
number of readers, or are basically intended for the recipient.
Other times, we may make a mistake and assume something is of
general interest when it's not. An example would be where there's
a request for information, like for lodges in the Washington DC
area. One way to reduce the traffic would be to ask people with
information to reply directly, and when the poster had gotten
all the replies, a day or two later, to summarize and post the
results. This helps prevent people from simultaneously posting
the same answers to the list.

>- These discussion sites turn into elemental beehives, and some take
>advantage of it and others are taken advantage of.

There is a huge burst of energy. And it's not all bad. The
challenge is to keep it useful and productive, keeping down
the "noise to signal" ratio.

>- Because there are no "rules", what is to stop anyone from ruining or
>vastly impairing the usefulness of a site by inundating it with responses?

The best first step is by self-regulation. If any of us see
someone writing too much and being counterproductive, we can
write them directly. If someone gets totally out-of-hand, it's
possible to make postings from their userid moderated, without
making the entire list moderated. That is something that I
hope never has to happen!

We should keep in mind, though, that what's a wasteful
posting for one reader may be something special and valuable
to another reader. We have various reasons for communicating.
A message where someone talks about themselves and is sharing
with someone else can be good or bad. One reader might object
to the "merely personal" content, getting in the way of
philosophical discussions. Another reader may be gladdened
by the "human touch" and feel a sense of community from
reading the same message.

> My bet is that 90% of viewers are not interested in seeing the same
>multiple submissions by the same persons everyday. I'm not.

Depending upon your email program, you may be able to filter
out or set aside to a different folder all submissions from
selected individuals. You could read the rest of the postings
and optionally get to the rest later.

>- I think things/a site should be "managed". 'Not as to personal
>individual viewpoints, but as to making oneself a pest and indirectly
>destroying the value of a site.
>
>- Does any of the silent majority out there agree with any of this? Does
>it make any difference?

Comments as you are making are read and considered by people.
It does make a difference. When things get out of balance in
some way, a new harmony needs to be established. The recent
burst of energy on the list is a good thing; it just needs to
be kept in balance and make into something useful.

Anyone else have comments and constructive ideas regarding
how things should go from here?