I see that my original message concerning dropping MoPo membership
has either been misunderstood, or I clearly did not make my thoughts clear!
I was NOT being "snide" in noting the dropping membership, but
stating that I thought it alarming that membership had dropped so
much recently, and a significant amount over the past year.
I attribute this to six factors:
1) The ratio of For Sale e-mails to "informative" e-mails has been
steadily growing. It seems that several days sometime go by without
an e-mail that contains substantive information about MOVIE POSTERS,
and those new members you all seem to want so badly likely value
those e-mails above all others (and also likely hate For Sale e-mails
that are deceptive as to what is being offered).
2) There clearly ARE a lot of technical problems with the way MoPo
e-mails are delivered. I have no idea if it is caused by spam filters
from Internet providers, but many e-mails TO MoPo clearly don't reach
all the members, and many e-mails FROM MoPo clearly don't reach all
the members. Add to this technical problems with people having their
messages rejected by the MoPo server, and people being accidentally
un-subscribed, and it is easy to see that these technical problems
might be causing people to un-subscribe for real.
3) There are of course the regular blow-ups between (and among) the
usual suspects, and many genteel people may not find these exchanges
something they want to look at (even if only to delete them) and that
too might be causing people to un-subscribe.
4) There are lots of "off-topic" discussions that might also turn off
some people. It is one thing to mention famous actors who died
recently, but going on and on about politics is unlikely (in my
opinion) to win MoPo many new members.
5) There are lots and lots of "old-timers" who used to post a lot,
but who now rarely post at all. Some who come to mind are Kirby,
Freeman, Claude, etc. Maybe they feel that just about everything
worth discussing has been hashed over before (and they may be right),
but I for one greatly miss these former frequent posters, and I feel
MoPo would be greatly improved by their return. Some people like Sean
and David K used to post a lot with VERY informative long e-mails,
and now they mostly just pop up to make a correction to what has been
posted. I am glad for these posts, but miss their older, longer ones!
6) I would think the other forums have siphoned off a lot of
discussion that would otherwise have been taking place on MoPo. Those
forums use the now standard online forums, where you can
instantaneously post and see replies, and you don't have to download
bunches of e-mails, or wonder if yours ever got through. I KNOW that
MoPo has a website where the e-mails are posted, but that ISN'T the
same (for instance, yesterday I posted a message about two-sheets,
and the responses it received are on the website, but I don't believe
my original e-mail ever made it there).
So I personally think the talk of sending out a flyer to help MoPo is
"putting the cart before the horse"! FIRST fix what is wrong here,
and THEN try to sign up new members! It won't help if you somehow get
a hundred new people to join, if they all soon un-subscribe due to
the above factors.
This is NOT idle speculation on my part. Several times I have
strongly recommended MoPo in my e-mail club (formerly 3,000 members,
now 2,000) and each time it caused SOME new people to sign up, but
before long the membership was back to where it had been or lower.
I would guarantee that if you all pitch in and work to make MoPo a
more interesting place to be a member of, and if you all work to
refrain from angry exchanges that accomplish nothing, you will soon
have LOTS more members. And I don't think there would be any need of
flyers at all (and once MoPo becomes more like it once was, I gladly
WILL again strongly recommend it to my e-mail club).
To me, the question is, does MoPo exist so that a group of dealers
can e-mail each other (and get in fights on a regular basis), or is
it a place where sellers can reach buyers AND also answer their
questions in a friendly fashion? Is it the former, then nothing
should change at all!
Finally, does anyone have a clue as to how many remaining MoPo
members are NOT dealers? One easy way to find out would be for those
who AREN'T to post one time stating that they aren't dealers (and
perhaps suggest what would make them enjoy MoPo more). I have a
feeling the number of non-dealer MoPo members is under 100, but that
is a sheer guess.
Bruce
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