[Reader-list] What ails the Sarai Reader List?

[Kiran Jonnalagadda]

On 07-Sep-05, at 11:08 AM, punam zutshi wrote:

> I thought I was gamely offering feedback ... Many thanks for
> classifying me as more or less resistant to virtual progress!!

Dear Punam,

My apologies if I made you appear to be a restraint. That was not my  
intention. There are several email lists I participate in that I  
would not be happy to see in another form. Earlier this year I had a  
fallout with a list maintainer when he hopped between free mailing  
list providers, unable to decide which one he wanted to use,  
requiring us to post to both and sending everyone two copies of all  
mail. And then he did it again with services for organising real life  
meetings, and at that point I just had to quit. What's the point to  
adopting a better system if it only annoys people?

> You have not actually shared what seems classified information about
> the critique of the list.Why the flood of other names of sites?Social
> Networking, what's that?? I thought we were also speaking of reader
> lists with a specific aim.

There is no classified information. I do not have quotes to reproduce  
simply because it didn't occur to me to ask anyone for one. The other  
sites I mentioned are all community sites in one form or the other,  
places where people talk to each other. Some of them are more  
successful than the others. The task is to understand why, and then  
see if the same lessons can be applied to the Reader List *without*  
disrupting its current form. I've had several people complain to me  
about having trouble keeping up with the volume of the list, but  
nobody seems to be able to explain it better than "too much mail". I  
feel this too, and in the past I've quit mailing lists when the  
volume became too much to bear. Yet, some of these other (non-email)  
communities are able to sustain higher volumes without feeling like a  
burden. So how do they do it? That is why I'm studying them.

-- 
Kiran Jonnalagadda
http://www.pobox.com/~jace