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Well Todd, I guess I can't argue with that! :)
Carry on with your madcap plans for our crazy little hobby. After all, for
the most part, I just read this stuff. It is you who have masterminded a
clean and decisive way for a lot of us to live vicariously through others (I
wish I had as many bricks as xxx@xxx.xxx).
Thanks for your efforts Todd, I sincerely appreciate it. Go ahead and
create subgroups, I will adjust. :)
John Matthews
Todd Lehman <lehman@javanet.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.117effa52fb00dad989858@lugnet.com...
> In lugnet.trains, jmatthew@columbus.rr.com (John Matthews) writes:
> > [...] I would be opposed to splitting off sub topics until the traffic
> > merits it.
>
> I understand that concern. Here are some things to think about though --
>
> Current traffic levels aren't really very accurate predictors of future
> traffic levels after a split. You might have 50 posts/day in some group
> and then after a split it might go down to 35 posts/day. But when you add
> in the 10 or 15 posts/day that the subgroups create, then you not only • have
> more overall but you are serving the subgroups in a much better and more
> focused way.
>
> A case in point -- check out the three .rcx subgroups of lugnet.robotics.
> At the time they were created there was really -no- merit to splitting
> them off into subtopics based on traffic alone. The merit lies entirely
> in the way that the groups can focus in smaller groups, and the groups
> were created not for the benefit of the main group, but solely for the
> benefit of the projects they support. Each of the authors of these three
> projects was strongly in favor of a new group to help them focus, and lo
> and behold, the traffic followed them there. They're not high-traffic
> groups, but that's OK because the purpose of the group is to support the
> project, not to be a 24-hour news channel.
>
> Also, note that there have been days where the combined traffic of all of
> the lugnet.* groups has surpassed daily RTL traffic by a wide margin. The
> lugnet.* newsgroup traffic has roughly doubled in the past 6 months. A
> year or two from now, it may be double or triple what it is today. • Without
> clear understandings of the way group dynamics work and long-term plans in
> place for appropriate expansions, things are too big before you know it.
>
> The healthy long-term way to think of group splits are not as splits per • se
> but as adding new areas for growth that weren't there before due to • natural
> inhibitions and fears of posting too far off-topic or into esoteric • regions.
>
> A subgroup of lugnet.trains called lugnet.trains.clubs may divert a small
> amount of traffic from lugnet.trains and affect lugnet.trains in a • slightly
> negative way, but the gain to the lugnet.trains.clubs subgroup and the
> causes it supported would be very largely positive. It's the net overall
> long-term effects that are the most important ones.
>
>
> > I would hate to miss any news about trains, even if it is the intimate
> > details of how a train club organizes for a show. Actually, I would be
> > very interested in those details. [...]
>
> Have you tried the News-by-Mail and digest features yet for any of the
> groups here?
>
> http://www.lugnet.com/news/mail/
>
> It is possible to stay intimately involved with one set of groups and
> loosely involved -- to varying customizable degrees -- with other groups.
>
> This is really nice because someone who is interested enough in a
> .trains.clubs group to follow along casually -- but not interested enough • to
> participate frequently -- might simply be happiest receiving the group via
> e-mail as a daily or weekly digest. Digests can be rapidly scanned, and • you
> don't miss any news or details that way.
>
> Also, one very important thing that happens with subgroups is that
> discussions start in a subgroup and go into all sorts of crazy details, • and
> then when something is decided, someone makes a crosspost "upward" from • the
> subgroup to the main group, to keep everyone in the loop. This way, even
> if you only read the main group and not the subgroups, you still hear • about
> the really important stuff.
>
> Other things that happen are informational announcements made to the main
> group and a subgroup, with followups set to the subgroup where in-depth
> discussions would be more appropriate than the main group. If there were
> only a main group and no subgroups, the in-depth discussions either never
> happen or degenerate into private e-mail conversations where they languish
> and never have the opportunity to be picked up later by someone else.
>
> --Todd
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: lugnet.trains.org newsgroup?
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| (...) I understand that concern. Here are some things to think about though -- Current traffic levels aren't really very accurate predictors of future traffic levels after a split. You might have 50 posts/day in some group and then after a split it (...) (26 years ago, 15-Apr-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.trains)
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