Decline of the Cypherpunks list...Part 19

[Brian C. Lane]

On Sun, 2003-12-07 at 16:11, J.A. Terranson wrote:
> On Sun, 7 Dec 2003, Tim May wrote:
>
> > I have several theories/conjectures about what is happening to mailing
> > lists.
> >
> > First, a lot of the younger folks--who used to be some of the fresh
> > blood for lists like ours--are not users of mailing lists. I expect
> > some of them don't even know such things exist. For them, IM is the
> > norm. (And IM is mostly an interpersonal, chat format.)
>
> Not true.  I personally run several mailing lists with heavy political
> bents.  One in particular, "antisocial" (the name is a play on a post
someone
> made a long time ago) is vibrant and continually growing.  But they need to
> be nurtured - this is the failing of this list.  We no longer take care to
> bring in new blood.  We have failed utterly to encourage new ideas.  And
any
> new blood which may test the waters with a posting that doesn't follow
median
> doctrine is likely to find themselves and their deviant ideas under heavy
> attack, rather than discussion.
>
> People won't post ideas that conflict with the mainstream (which obviously
is
> different in each unique forum) if these ideas are either dismissed out of
> hand or attacked ad hominem.
>

Clay Shirky has some good thoughts on this in his essay 'The Group Is
Its Own Worst Enemy', found at
http://shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html

[big snip]

I've been on and off the list for years, mostly as a lurker,
occasionally as a poster. Up until last month (or so) I thought the list
had died. I remember that the S/N radio went way down and toad.com was
going to drop the list a few years back.

Some of the list 'goals' have been achieved, we now have good solid
crypt that we can use. We have operating remailers (although they really
need to be more user friendly). For me personally the biggest obstacle
is time. As I've gotten older I don't seem to have the time to focus on
following discussions in 10 different lists, or work on dozens of
projects.

Brian

---[Office 72.2F]--[Fridge 34.4F]---[Fozzy 90.3F]--[Coaster 63.4F]---
Linux Software Developer http://www.brianlane.com

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