At 11:22 PM -0800 11/21/00, J C Lawrence wrote:
While I agree (with some distaste), those gyrations have shown themselves to have positive value for me.
short term. I had the same general attitude for a while, and did pretty much teh same thing, and found that over time, it basically killed my site through isolation and stagnation. I served a given population very well, but found that all I did was drive off fresh blood, and the existing population stopped growing, stagnated and started shrinking as old members moved on and weren't replaced.
Which, if it sounds like USENET today, well, oyu're right. USENET is doing the same thing, but on a hugely massive scale. I'm still working to recover what I feel is an essential vitality in my lists and get back into growth mode.
But we're so far off anything relevant to Mailman issues it's insane, so I won't push this one further on these lists, but audience management is tricky, and even things you think are working my bite you in the butt when you least expect it. Once you set the expectation of exclusionism on your site, it's a real bitch to change back....
-- Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com)
The vet said it was behavioral, but I prefer to think of it as genetic. It cuts down on the liability -- Get Fuzzy