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

On 4.5.2007 taliesin the storyteller wrote:
 > 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.
 >

That's my feeling too. I still feel that the 5 a day limit
is too low -- even though I usually don't fill my quota very
often. The supersttitious side of me wants to set the number
at 7! :-) I have a feeling that a remerger of the spinoffs
may warrant rising the limit a little (to 7 :-), but frankly
I seldom work on more than one conlang on the same day, so
the need for a couple of extra posts would be only to have
the opportunity to comment on other, perhaps OT or semi-OT
threads. I for one enjoy the general linguistic threads
immensely, tho I would have nothing gainst a more meticulous
use of the THEORY tag. I don't filter anything out, but tags
help to sort things out. Of course tags or subjects should
be changed if the subject of a thread changes in mid-course.

BTW, in the case of a re-merger, could one establish tags
like ROMCONLANG, or is the number of possible tags limited?
Perhaps a general tag like ALTLANG (or APOSTERIORI, tho
yhat's easily misspelled) could do the trick, for those who
are not interested in altlangs, or only in them.

Is there, BTW, any setting for getting only mails with
certain tags and not getting untagged mails? That might
increase the willingless to remerge for some of those who
are now only subscribed to spinoffs.

 > > > 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.

Good to know that someone else feels like that! When I have
to use a BB I always use the mail notification feature. It
is no cure, but it spares me from some of the annoyance.

I quite like to use wiki for presenting more digested stuff.
Careful observers will note that parts of my wiki articles
began life as presentatory posts on this list or Romconlang.
--

/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se

"And therefore every care must be taken that our
auxiliaries, being stronger than our citizens, may
not grow to be too much for them and become savage
tyrants instead of friends and allies."
                    -- Plato (The Republic, Book 3, 416b)

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