Thanks to Joe King for getting us connected on Madnorski's very own x-c ski listserv!
I asked him how many subscribers we got up to, whether there were any complaints or
problems, and as usual got a quick & thoughtful response back. Here's what Joe had to
say:
"There are 63 subscribers to the XC list and 8 subscribers to XC-DIGEST. Since
December, approximately 270 messages went out over the XC list. There was a regular
stream of condition updates from up north but that was not the bulk of the messages.
This compares to 12 messages posted to the
previously available "Readers' Comments" section of the web site during the 1999-2000
season. As a point of reference, the list BIKIES which is *the* most active list on
DANEnet, has 83 subscribers.
The deepest thread was about 10 and involved skiing on the east of Madison. Where
were enough questions asked, particularly about waxing and the Birkie, that we could
put together a short FAQ based on the responses. If some one in the club wants to
take that on, the archive is here:
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
Complaints:
Early on the group decided to accept regular condition updates from places like Blue
Hills and ABR Trails. No once complained about that decision even though the vote was
close (not what I would have chosen either). As members of XC-DIGEST, places like ABR
Trails were able to send their
reports without getting any messages back. Then, a few weeks ago I got XC-DIGEST
working properly which meant that these posters starting getting the digest message
(at most one message a day). Two complained and dropped off the list. That's all I
can think of.
Actions:
There was one post that was intended to be advertising. As promised in the list
description, this poster was removed from the list. I did extend an invitation for
her to rejoin provided she adhered to the guidelines of the list. I didn't notice if
she did or not.
That's it. It was a surprisingly successful list for its first season. We owe a lot
of the success to getting the word out at meetings and in the newsletter. I saw
subscriptions jump after meetings and after the newsletter went out -- we should keep
doing this, btw. Another surprise for
me, based on previous experience, was there was an amazingly lack of crap. All too
often a thread starts on one topic but suddenly turns into a long discussion about the
list itself or, even worse, the person who posted the original message. None of that
happened on this list. Except for
the one action noted above, I had nothing to do. I guess XC skiers are just a great
bunch of folks!
Cheers,
Joe"
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
madnordski - http://www.danenet.org/madnord/
