The Natural Life Cycle of Mailing Lists

["Shaw, Robert" <Robert.Shaw@itu.int>]

(This article was posted to the mailing list "The Psychology of the
Internet" 
which is administered by John Grohol. The original author of this article is

unknown)
 
Every list seems to go through the same cycle:
 
1. Initial enthusiasm (people introduce themselves, and gush a lot about how

wonderful it is to find kindred souls).
 
2. Evangelism (people moan about how few folks are posting to the list, and 
brainstorm recruitment strategies).
 
3. Growth (more and more people join, more and more lengthy threads develop,

occasional off-topic threads pop up).
 
4. Community (lots of threads, some more relevant than others; lots of
information 
and advice is exchanged; experts help other experts as well as less
experienced 
colleagues; friendships develop; people tease each other; newcomers are
welcomed 
with generosity and patience; everyone -- newbie and expert alike -- feels 
comfortable asking questions, suggesting answers, and sharing opinions).
 
5. Discomfort with diversity (the number of messages increases dramatically;

not every thread is fascinating to every reader; people start complaining
about 
the signal-to-noise ratio; person 1 threatens to quit if *other* people
don't 
limit discussion to person 1's pet topic; person 2 agrees with person 1;
person 
3 tells 1 & 2 to lighten up; more bandwidth is wasted complaining about
off-topic 
threads thais used for the threads themselves; everyone gets annoyed).
 
6a. Smug complacency and stagnation (the purists flame everyone who asks an 
'old' question or responds with humor to a serious post; newbies are
rebuffed; 
traffic drops to a doze-producing level of a few minor issues; all
interesting 
discussions happen by private email and are limited to a few participants;
the 
purists spend lots of time self-righteously congratulating each other on
keeping 
off-topic threads off the list).
 
OR
 
6b. Maturity (a few people quit in a huff; the rest of the participants stay
near 
stage 4, with stage 5 popping up briefly every few weeks; many people wear
out 
their second or third 'delete' key, but the list lives contentedly ever
after).

--
Robert Shaw <robert.shaw@itu.int>
Head a.i., IED/Advisor, Global Information Infrastructure
International Telecommunication Union <http://www.itu.int>
Place des Nations, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland