On Wed, 07 Feb 2001 21:34:07 -0800
Chuq Von Rospach <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 2/7/01 8:25 AM, "J C Lawrence" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> time the average level of clue among list moderators has not only
>> fallen severely over recent years, but the awareness that they
>> need clue has dropped as well. Not only in the dark, but blind.
> And who's taken a lead to teach these people how to be admins? And
> if nobody's setting up systems to teach them and convincing them
> that it's in their best interest to learn -- why should they? This
> place is the hermit on the mountain, somehow expecting everyone
> down in the valley to know to come up here for instruction, but
> nobody's gone down into the valley in so long the villages don't
> even hear rumors of the hermits any more...
I can't comment on this list -- I'm a new comer here as well. I'm
inheriting its history. I have been a member of and active in
several other list moderator lists, lists popularised and targetted
for Egroups and Topica. My comments were written more about those
lists and their member's stated expectations and behaviour than
here.
> I really wish list-managers was an active, vibrant group, taking
> new admins by the hand, leading by example, and blazing new trails
> as the whole e-mail universe morphs around us. But this list
> hasn't shown any interest in new techniques or technologies,
> hasn't shown any tolerance of newbies, and isn't really interested
> in doing much of anything -- which is fine. I'm not saying it
> should be different than it is. But it's too bad that, given the
> knowledgebase of people here, we aren't more actively attempting
> to evangelize "how it ought to be" to those that are receptive to
> learning.
Very true. Instead I find the old timers who would do that have
either been worn out by endless assault or been turned into hermetic
curmudgeons as they were outnumbered. Building and running such a
list is a very possible thing to do. I did it for most of a year
with the EGroups list owners list, watching membership grow and a
pleasant culture of professional expectation build. It wasn't easy,
and in the end I simply gave up under the endless onslaught of noise
(the fact that the actual list owner had more of a
mosh-pit/free-chat goal for the list didn't help).
--
J C Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED]
---------(*) http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/
--=| A man is as sane as he is dangerous to his environment |=--
