On Fri, 05 Jul 2002 21:58:32 -0700
Chuq Von Rospach <chuqui@plaidworks.com> wrote:
>>> We have taken topic-based lists and forked a salon to go with them,
>>> and found the main list's traffic reduced by 20-50% and the salon's
>>> traffic at anywhere from the difference to 2-3x the difference.
>> Simply, I'm amazed. I've never seen this work in the 40 or so
>> attempts I've witnessed. I wonder if the critical difference is that
>> I've primarily followed technically oriented lists (math, science,
>> compsci, literary analysis, game design, aquaculture, etc) rather
>> than the softer more humanistic lists such as the support lists
>> you've often referenced.
> I don't think it's topic as much as audience. If you have people
> who've gotten comfortable with email, it's hard to switch them.
While its not clear, you appear to be splitting the population into list
users and web forum users for the purposive/chat divide. While there is
an obvious and glaring generational gap for web forum users (eg I loathe
web forums and avoid them almost religiously), I'm not so clear that the
same gap applies to purposive versus chat lists.
> To some degree, I think it's generational -- us older types grew up
> with email and are comfortable there.
<nod>
> What it sounds like is that Roger created two environments for two
> different groups of people, and they migrated to the form they were
> comfortable with. The traffic moved probably was caused by people who
> preferred the salon but used the email because it was available, not
> because you had email types who were swayed to use salons by their
> intrinsic goodness....
Unless I've grossly misunderstood, Roger has been referring to forking a
chat list off a purposive list and having both survive well.
--
J C Lawrence
---------(*) Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas.
claw@kanga.nu He lived as a devil, eh?
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/ Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.
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