On Fri, 05 Jul 2002 21:58:32 -0700 Chuq Von Rospach <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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. [EMAIL PROTECTED] He lived as a devil, eh? http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/ Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.
