Re: META: Dwindling List Membership

Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
11 Jun 1999 15:31:13 +0200

Eugene Leitl <eugene.leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de> writes:

> I suggested to Max creating an extropians-moderated. I think he wanted
> to talk to Greg Burch about it first.
>
> I promise to be a _very_ fashistoid moderator.

I spoke with Alexander Bard after TransVision about list maintenance, and he made some good points. He is running a list for interesting Swedish people of all kinds. It has been running for several years, and despite occasional fluctuations it works. But Bard pointed out that this is due to maintenance: he keeps notes for interesting topics to drop into the list when there is a lull, and tries to moderate it when it gets too busy or there are holidays - so that people are not overwhelmed when they get back. In addition, he keeps a strict control over membership - from time to time he ruthlessly throws out boring, distruptive or silent people ("It is time for the yearly autumn-purge!"). Maybe this is a bit too strict for a moderated extropians list, but he has a very good point about viewing a list as something that needs to be gardened - both nurtured and kept free from weeds.

-- 
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Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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