CHAT: mailing lists vs. web-based forums...fora...whatever. WAS: Re: [BoD] CONLANG article deleted from Wikipedia

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Vertical" <johnvertical@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Monday, May 07, 2007 9:58 AM
Subject: Re: [BoD] CONLANG article deleted from Wikipedia


>> but it would explain why so few conlangers seem to visit both regularly.
>> I
> kno only about half a dozen others beside myself... Personally, I do find
> mailing lists more usable than forums, but only as long as the discussion
> stays within sensible message-limits. 30-50 per day is tolerable; 200+ per
> day with multiple OT discussions certainly warrants a forum or a
> newsgroup. Then again, the setting also affects the discussion. I mean, I
> wouldn't dream of starting a discussion about the love lifes of geeks or
> something like that here... but threds like that are a staple of the ZBB's
> separate "off topic" section.
>
I check in on ZBB once in a while. I have an account I could use for
posting, if I wanted. I don't do a lot of posting anywhere, but I am far
more likely to post on CONLANG if I do. There was a time when there was a
lot more OT and personal banter on CONLANG, but it seems that the list has
grown and shifted, and the culture of the list has moved away from that. It
is probably just as well that things are as they are now. I think people
prefer fewer posts that are mostly on-topic, and generally not on the topic
of which auxlang is best.

(Next thing you know, I'll be telling you about when posting a reply
involved chiseling it into a stone tablet and delivering it to the server by
hand, barefoot in the snow.)

I am a bit of a forum rat out there on the web. I think that web-based
bulletin boards are easier to skim and pop off quick replies, which is both
their strength and their weakness. It is good to get people participating on
threads, IMO, even if their contribution is small, so that everyone feels
like they are part of what is going on, but the culture of some forums is
such that people give glib replies and flaming chaos breaks out regularly. I
post on gaming forums more than conlanging forums these days, and it can get
wildly out of control really fast if there's little or no moderation.

FWIW, it isn't that I like gaming more than conlanging. I'm just guilty of
the aforementioned glib replies on those forums.

Mia.

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