Re: translation needed

On Thu, 21 Oct 1999, Nik Taylor wrote:

>
> I have no idea what makes this list so nice, but I'm glad.  I figure,
> don't question a good thing.  :-)
>
I've often wondered about it, though. I've been in an awful lot of
usenet groups and email lists, and some of them had a 'nice' culture,
too. A remarkable fact was that all the nice groups had a not-so-nice
counterpart (for instance, rec.games.frp.advocacy used to point to
rec.games.frp.misc as a place infested by trolls, before sinder,
a troll, came and broke the group). The institution of group rules
(like no flaming people's language, saying welcome back to absentees,
keeping to basic email etiquette) helps, too - I wonder if this is
akin to group rules like those in the TCBS.

I think there are some interesting group dynamics to be studied
(good old-fashioned tribalism?), and sometimes I wish I was a social
scientist - there's easily a PhD in it, maybe even a career. (Imagine
little self-help books on getting into e-mail lists ;-) Riches
abound!).

Boudewijn Rempt  | http://denden.conlang.org/~bsarempt