[at-l] "Exit, Voice, and Loyalty" -- elists; community; thruhiking advice

[sloetoe@yahoo.com (Sloetoe)]

1) MULTIPLE LISTS fracture the sense of community and the
diminish the community function of sharing in experience and
knowledge.

2) TANGENTIAL- (or even OFF-) TOPIC POSTS deepen the image of
the community's members, add that depth to those members'
credibility when they post, and put meat on the bones of the
community skeleton. The addition of this community heft can
further the community's function -- in this case, furthering the
cause of AT hiking.

3) TOO MUCH OFF TOPIC TRAFFIC simply adds fat to the community
skeleton, and diminishes the community's effectiveness at
fulfilling it's purpose in an efficient manner.

4) "SUBJECT" HEADINGS' INATTENTION means relevant post content
on a particular subject matter gets lost in a morass of inane
post content or obsolete subject matter headings. Either way,
the costs to acquire timely, accurate, relevant information from
the at-l are higher than appropriate.

5) "EXIT, VOICE, and LOYALTY" (I wonder who recognizes that...):
There are three ways we deal with diminution in the quality of
at-l community output.
-- EXIT: We can "vote with [our] feet" by leaving to start a new
list.
-- VOICE: We can piss, bitch, and moan, berate and beguile,
cajole and convince, and post till our fingers wear holes in the
keys, hoping to improve/recover by force of posting whatever has
been diminished in the at-l.
-- LOYALTY: And we can elect to submit to the denigration,
hoping for an endogenous recovery.

6) This community has seen all three [EXIT, VOICE and
LOYALTY]strategies in the past 21 months. New lists have been
started; pissing contests have regularly taken up 50% of the
traffic, and list stalwarts have quit entirely (*not* even going
to other elists, just *quit*). The other list communities have
responded: the BPL has gone from a pedantic community of True
Ounce Weenies to being "a community"; Baltimore Jack hangs here
just to wait for the occasional factual question -- he's learned
to reply to those questions offlist; AT200X welcomes hikers who
don't feel welcomed here.

7) As long as the at-l (or any list) keeps the price of list
benefit sufficiently high, it will remain a ponderous community
unresponsive to its members. Majority Off-Topic posts,
intermindable flame wars, and practised ignorance of subject
headings will devolve the at-l into an increasingly irrelevant
resource to people whose welfare depends on sound advice and
stored inspiration -- hikers through, section, and day.

Sloetoe

=====
Spatior! Nitor! Nitor! Tempero!
   Pro Pondera Et Meliora.

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