Re: i am no longer a lurker. i am so proud.
>> The Forum is a better tool; the group is about bringing
>> people together, and The Forum has done a far better job
>> of that than the news group ever did.
>If this is an argument to disconnect it from rec.sport.unicycling, I think
>I’m leaning in favor now.
The Forum is a good tool and viable interface alternative to the
newsgroup or mailing list. It has increased the volume of messages.
A lot of these messages should be private e-mail. There also seems to
be a lot more messages that are essentially the same as previously
posted messages, because it is hard for everyone to read all messages
and thus avoid sending near duplicates of other messages. Some of the
same questions get asked again and again and answered again and again.
Our FAQ should help stop some of this.
If you think you missed a message please look at the mailman archive
first, the newgroup or a newsgroup archive, before requesting a private
copy from the author via private mail. If the message didn’t get posted
at all, the author will resent it when he/she notices that fact. The
mailman archive is also a good way to read the newsgroup messages,
although any response might have to be via your normal e-mail client.
Mailman rsu archive: http://www.unicycling.org/pipermail/rsu/
Basically, in my opinion, the volume of messages has increased, but the
amount of useful content (anything except ME TOO, private e-mail and
basic FAQ questions/answers type messages) has remained the same. The
useful content (anything more than one person might/would want to read)
is starting to get buried by the chatter and I’m a bit concerned about
this. In other words, I think our signal to noise ratio has decreased.
I’m not saying that the forum is causing these problems. As I said
before, it is a good tool. Both the newgroup and mailing list have the
same problems in varying degrees. It could be that the increased volume
of messages magnifies these problems in all three interfaces, newsgroup,
mailing list and forum.
If sheer volume of messages is the main problem, we should consider
adding specialized newgroups such as muni, skills, artistic, hockey,
building, touring (big wheels and geared unicycles), etc. and
corresponding mailing list and forum subgroups.
John and others: If I’ve missed something or totally missed the point,
please respond and let us know.
Sincerely,
Ken Fuchs <kfuchs@winternet.com>
P.S. Those of you who type all lowercase, please do your readers a
favour and capitalize at least the first word of every sentence.
P.P.S. Those of you who know how to write and spell, but are too lazy to
do so in your posts, please don’t post anything. However, if you write
and spell to the best of your ability, please do post no matter how bad
you may think your writing is, most if not all of the content will
probably be understood. If you are sure you will not be understood at
all due to a lack of knowledge of english as a second language, please
post in your native language or a common second language you know well
and someone might repost an english translation of it. Finally, don’t
worry about the occasional typo that slips by; almost all of us make
them at one time or another.