Eric said:
"There are too few people who post the majority of the content. The opinions of eleven (11) people do not, IMHO, fairly represent the ideas and beliefs of more than 2,000. I am hoping these few people understand this and will moderate themselves accordingly."
A few random thoughts on this:
1. I know at least one thing that probably keeps some people from contributing to the list...the sometimes harsh tone of disagreements between some regular posters. I've been involved in e-mail list management for 20 years, and I know that harsh criticism puts off a lot of people. It's one thing to disagree respectfully. It's a completely different thing when the disagreements get personal (or are perceived as personal). In my experience most people won't post if they think there's a chance they'll be treated rudely.
2. Having said that, on just about all the library lists I'm on there's only a small percentage of members who post to the list. I think that's a fact of life with e-mail lists. I'm a list owner on several lists, and I've studied the archives of these lists, and at least 95% of the people on these lists rarely, if ever, post anything.
3. Be careful what you wish for. :-)
* You want broader participation by list members. If just one of four list members takes you up on this and posts just one message a week, that's 500 postings a week. :-)
* You want the regulars to show a little restraint and "moderate themselves accordingly". I'm assuming that means posting less frequently, among other things. I'm one of the owners of a list with 1,000 members. There is no group of hard-core posters on this list, and guess what. No one picks up the slack. There's been a grand total of 85 posts over the past 12 months. Most of these 85 posts are announcements that are regularly cross-posted to multiple library lists. There is about zero discussion on the list. The membership keeps slowly growing, and hardly anyone ever unsubscribes, but no one contributes. It's almost as if a list with no core of regular contributors is a list with very little discussion.
Just a few thoughts on a Monday morning...
Bernie Sloan
--- On Fri, 6/25/10, Eric Lease Morgan <emorgan_at_ND.EDU> wrote:
> From: Eric Lease Morgan <emorgan_at_ND.EDU>
> Subject: [NGC4LIB] mailing list administratativa
> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Date: Friday, June 25, 2010, 11:45 AM
> This is some NGC4Lib mailing list
> administratativa.
>
> First, the purpose of the NGC4Lib mailing list is to
> discuss all things "next generation library catalog". From
> it's home page one can subscribe, unsubscribe, and access
> any one of the many archives. [1]
>
> Second, there are about 2,000 subscribers. We are from all
> over the world. (Wow?!)
>
> Third, I have done a bit of text mining against the list's
> 2010 archives [2], and I believe the NGC4Lib mailing list
> needs more balance. It needs more balance in a couple of
> ways:
>
> 1. There are too few people who post the majority of
> the content. The opinions of eleven (11) people do not,
> IMHO, fairly represent the ideas and beliefs of more than
> 2,000. I am hoping these few people understand this and will
> moderate themselves accordingly.
>
> 2. The discussion is too much focused, IMHO, on
> traditional library cataloging. There is so much more to the
> catalog than metadata. We need to be asking questions about
> what it contains, how that stuff is selected and how it gets
> in there, what the stuff is used for, and how all of this
> fits into the broader, worldwide information environment. We
> need to be discussing issues of collection and
> dissemination, not just organization. In retrospect, I wish
> I had not used the word "catalog" in the name of the list
> because I think the word brings along too many connotations
> and preconceived ideas.
>
> What to do? I'm not sure. Your suggestions sent to me
> offline or your comments posted on the blog would be greatly
> appreciated. If I get any input, then I will try to
> summarize and share the result with the list.
>
> Thank you.
>
> [1] NGC4Lib home page - http://dewey.library.nd.edu/mailing-lists/ngc4lib/
> [2] text mining against NGC4Lib - http://tinyurl.com/34g4qvo
>
> --
> Eric Lease Morgan
> Head, Digital Access and Information Architecture
> Department
> Hesburgh Libraries, University of Notre Dame
>
> (574) 631-8604
>
Received on Mon Jun 28 2010 - 12:22:28 EDT