Re: Is the list dead, the server down or what?

* Eric Christopherson said on 2007-05-04 04:30:24 +0200
> On May 3, 2007, at 8:07 AM, Henrik Theiling wrote:
> > The Yahoo special topic conlang spin-off lists were
> > initially created due to very high traffic on this list (we
> > hit 100 mails a day back then).
There were periods with 300 mails per day. Some people have
tools and habits to deal effectively with that much, others
don't. As for tools, mail user agents (MUAs) that support
threading are a big help, but works better when both a majority
of the list-users support threads, -and- there is sufficient
discipline to use threading properly (not starting a new thread
by replying to an old one for instance).

Would the amount of mails a day pick up if we didn't have the
limits? (5 a day per person, 100 a day total) I don't know. I
do know that in the olden days there were people who posted 40
messages per day on average, and I think most of them have left.

> Does anyone have ideas about what happened to the list's
> popularity?  Did a lot of members leave, or do they just lurk
> now? (I know I don't  see a lot of the names I saw back around
> 1999.)
A lot of people were basically scared off due to the sheer
amount of mail. Another thing that's happened is that there is
now direct competition to CONLANG-L, not the spinnoff-lists, but
things like the zompist bulletin board and other independent
communities like various wikis etc.

I still hang here, as I detest BB-systems.

> (I've seen other online communities I've been involved in
> dwindle and  die,
Remember that the amount of mail per day always was seasonal:
more in weekends/vacations. If one is busy with work/school,
hobbies are de-prioritized.


t.

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