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In lugnet.people, "Ed Jones" <edboxer@aol.com> writes:
> I was just looking through the membership list and am astonished at the number
> of names listed that I am not familiar with. In fact, I don't know about 60%
> of the members.
>
> Which makes me wonder: In RTL, I can/could read who posted to any thread, even
> if I had no interest in reading that thread. By sheer frequency of posting,
> names became familiar. And people posted on lots of general topics so it seems
> like you knew almost everybody.
>
> LUGNET, by design, is much more specialized and categorized. Because of that
> categorization, I read only the boards that interest me. Because I have no
> exposure to other boards, it seems that I have missed the opportunity to meet
> lots of people.
Of course you can always step out of your "safe zone" periodically and check
out groups/boards that you don't normally read. That way, you will have
seized the opportunity to meet lots of people, rather than being passive and
missing it. Just a different way of looking at it. You have to work a
little (read more groups) if you want to meet lots and lots more people.
> It almost feels like I've gone from a small school, where everyone knew
> everyone else, to a university, where small cliques are created by finite and
> similar interests with little or no contact with anyone outside of the clique.
Well, first of all, near as I can figure, there are many, many more people
here now today than there ever were in RTL 1-2 years ago. So it's going to
feel like there are more people because there are more people. And the
reason they can get into groups and become closer is because it's now
possible to do that, where it wasn't before.
Second, LUGNET can support far greater overall traffic levels than RTL (it
can have much more traffic without it becoming a problem.) Over recent
weeks, for example, LUGNET as a whole has averaged more than 400 messages
per day on weekdays and about 300 messages per day on weekends. Now
obviously a single group *could* have that much traffic per day all by
itself -- and I've actually seen single groups on Usenet averaging 1800
messages per day! -- but there's no way that a single group getting that
much traffic ever keeps a large number of consistent readers.
Third, a natural byproduct of categorization is smaller groups, since people
can pick and choose what interests them more easily. So each group has a
smaller readership than the whole. But no uncategorized whole could have as
high a readership as the same but categorized whole, because people drop out
when traffic levels become unmanageable. That's why there are always so
many new people coming in. There's lots of breathing room.
Finally, it's an awkward stage we're in at the moment: traffic and posting
levels are still only about 2x what RTL was at its peak in the summer of
1998 -- and that's still small enough to look at it all and say, hey, what's
up with my not meeting more people in the groups I read? But before you
know it, someday there will be 1000 messages per day here, then someday
2000, and someday (maybe a long way off) 5000. When levels reach that
point, now just about *everyone* will be someone you haven't met yet. At
some point in fact it will become literally impossible for any one person to
read every single article posted to the system, and that's a critical-mass
perception issue. I figure it's about another 2x from where we are now
before that happens, which makes it about 8x from where things started a
year ago when things here were still pretty quiet.
> Is anyone else experiencing this? Is this a good thing?*
>
> Ed "Boxer" Jones
>
> *LUGNET is a great thing; the question is are the "cliques" that have formed a
> good thing.
Well, I wouldn't call them "cliques" -- in fact, I haven't actually seen any
real cliques here yet, have you? What we have are special-interest groups,
and that's a different thing. We've got a group of CAD developers, for
example, and a group of Robotics hackers. We've got a group of folks in
Italy speaking 20 messages in Italian every day, and a group of folks in the
UK speaking 15 messages in English every day. Each group has its own
jargon, it's own culture. Many people do venture outside of their favorite
groups, but those who choose not to would not be here in the first place if
the signal-to-noise ratio wasn't acceptable to them.
In other words: If you have a large community of people and you don't break
it down into special interest groups -- and try to prevent cliques from
forming -- then the result is a very low signal-to-noise ratio for your
average participant who's only interested in a few topics (very few people
statistically are interested in *everything*). And as soon as you have a
low signal-to-noise ratio, people start dropping like flies, even as new
people join in. After a while, all you're left with is people who either
enjoy a very wide range of things or can filter out what they consider noise
easily. It turns out that's not too many people. That's why there were so
many familiar names in RTL as it got big. I can't even count the number of
people who dropped out over the years as things got too unmanageable, but I
can easily count the familiar names who stuck it out over the years.
At any rate, it's not a good thing or a bad thing -- it's just a natural
byproduct of a large user population. I guess it's a good sign.
--Todd
[followups to lugnet.people]
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Message has 3 Replies:
 | | Re: Memberships - so many people I don't know
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| (...) Of course I can, although I wouldn't call it a "safe zone". (...) [I wrote]: (...) and (...) clique. (...) That's a definitive given. [major snip - none of which I disagree with] (...) a (...) "Clique" was a poor choice of words. I have not (...) (25 years ago, 28-Nov-99, to lugnet.people)
| | | Re: Memberships - so many people I don't know
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| Todd, have you ever calculated how many people read LUGNET articles vs. how many post articles? I.e. how many are lurking? The rule of thumb that I've seen for most major mailing lists and newsgroups is that 5-10% of the members actually post. I'd (...) (25 years ago, 28-Nov-99, to lugnet.people)
| | | Re: Memberships - so many people I don't know
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| (...) misc.jobs - 102754 unread messages. Download (Y/N)? And indeed, the effect you mention is visible there. There are no human readers anymore. (...) 300 messages per day is highly doable, 600 is a lot but still possible, and for a 1000 messages (...) (25 years ago, 29-Nov-99, to lugnet.people)
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