> On Dec 23, 2024, at 2:54 PM, Dennis Brasky via groups.io
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Isn't there one woman available to serve?
The answer is no, and please pardon my previous, glib response to you, Dennis.
Some context might be helpful since we have been working on demographically
expanding the list for the past two years.
Les posted https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/21135 about the problem on 27
Dec 2022:
"conclusion: the list is dominated by a very very few subscribers.
"the moderation team has been discussing possible ways to re-invigorate the
list. we hope to kick off discussion on the future of this list by way of this
statistical snapshot.
"Next August will be two years since Lou died. I expect some change -- be it
in moderation or new energy -- by the end of the next year. I do think we need
a few more people on the moderation team, people who have ideas and energy to
make the list more dynamic in some way. We need more people posting on more
topics, and the list needs to be re-invigorated.
"if you are not comfortable posting on this list for one reason or another,
contact myself or one of the co-moderators offlist and let us know your
thoughts regarding list rules and practice, and what might be done to improve
the list."
The moderators met and discussed the problem early in 2023.
https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/21725 solicited participation in "working
groups" but we got no response besides one person publicly quitting with no
explanation. Anthony Boynton noted that we have a primarily New Left
subscriber base that shrinks yearly and suggested ideas like video chats and a
forum series. We continue to lose regular contributors to retirement or death,
but we have managed to attract a couple of new voices. In 2022-23, however, it
was mostly the moderators talking among ourselves and posting about the issue
until John Reimann suggested a forum, and this inaugurated the marxmail forum
series. When we announced the forum series, another regular subscriber publicly
quit with no explanation. So none of this has been without controversy though
it's hared to tell what controversial about it.
Over the past year, marxmail.world has hosted seven forums ranging from a
couple of dozen to five dozen participants; the views have grown to a few
hundred from a few dozen. The forum series over the past year did engage new
people with more gender and age diversity though we're still primarily white.
Interestingly, the marxmail mailing list and the marxmail.world forum lists
remain largely disjoint: Most of the forum participants don't belong to the
mailing list and only a handful of people from the mailing list attend the
forums. But this is very much a work in progress and changing as we host more
forums. When the moderators met last fall to discuss the forums series, we
decided to keep working on marxmail.world forums and expand it to whatever
extent possible. The next forum will be on Syria and feature Michael Pröbsting,
Chris Slee, and Michael Karadjis. We have approached a couple of female
moderators to round out the panel and are still looking.
Mark
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