Text 22542, 105 rader
Skriven 2011-10-06 21:47:38 av Janis Kracht (1:261/38)
  Kommentar till text 22539 av Richard Webb (1:116/901.0)
Ärende: FidoNews Vol. 28 No. 40 Sustainability IV
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Hi Richard,

> actually permissible.  ml_baseball for example I
> figure should be related to baseball.  Emergcom related
> strictly to stuff that's radio and emergency related.

I can see how for those areas, it makes sense.

> Contrast that with guitar, where you know there's going to
> be lots of topic drift.

I'll have to pay that echo a visit.. hehe.. I remember trying to learn guitar
years ago since piano and drumming  were such a love of mine, but ouch.. the
fingers couldn't take it long enough to make much headway.. a shame too, since
my grandfather played beautiful classical guitar.  I used to watch him play,
just in awe of the man :)  Anyway, I can understand why that echo might have a
bit of topic drift :)

>> Sometimes you'll see the "flavor" of the moderator just in how he or
>> she describes the rules of the echo.  I think it's all of these
>> things that can make or break an echo, as far as encouraging
>> participation by users and sysops alike.

> Would agree.  I know i scared off one person a bit who was
> sort of interested in gating usenet traffic into the echo,
>but having looked at related usenet newsgroup it seems to me there's little of
> actual topical value to that echo in those I've seen, hence he'd wish to do
> more handpicking than he
> might like.

Sure, sometimes the gating software available is lucky to be able to filter out
spam, nevermind specific  messages..

>> doesn't develop or encourage topics specifically related to the
>> echo.  The echo becomes just shell of what was intended with no
>> posts, from what I've seen.

> Again agreed.  I adopted artware and comm because I had an
> interest, and got another interested party to co-mod those,
> which helps.

Yes, that's a place (an echo) where two heads can together pull out ideas for
topics to start discussions, or carry on discussions with people.

>> I think of great echos like the COOKING Echo though.. there you have
>> a specific interest from the tagname, but that echo crosses into may
>> related topics of interest.  Reviews of restaurants, menu items,
>> travel, and much more.

> Indeed, that one does well just for that reason.  IF you
> were forced to change the echo tag to food it would still do well for that
> reason.  MEmories does fairly well
> consistently, because there's a dedicated little community
> there.

Yes, MEMORIES does generate a bit of traffic compared to some echos :) I read
through it now and again when I have some time <g>  and you're right about the
community there.  It's similar to the community in nature but always the same
users, as in the cooking echo. The community in the cooking echo is so neat
that they still have at least one get together a year - we hosted it two or
three years ago, perhaps we'll do it again this coming summer.

>Debate has died off over the last few years, but
> politics can be that sort of thing.

Oh yeah, I expect it to pick up eh.. shortly <vbg>  The politics echo used to
have get togethers in the summer as well, not sure if that's happened the last
few years though.

> Echoes and newsgroups seem to develop their little
> communities of interest, some do better than others.
> Contrast the newsgroup rec.audio.pro with
> alt.audio.pro.live-sound for example.  The rec group has a
>dedicated cadre of old hands who help the newbies along, its founder and other
> produced a very extensive faq file to
> help the newbie as well.

Those can be handy.. and I'm glad to see we have such good FAQs in echos like
the BINKD echo.

>  The alt group on the other hand
> has a few of its founders, but very few.  The flamethrowers
> ran off most of the experienced pros, so there's little help for the newbie
> there.  HEnce it limps along.

That's sad.. though from what I've seen a good number of newsgroups have
floundered much in the same way as fidonet echos as people took off for places
like facebook and web blogs, etc.

> I've hoped to draw some of the live sound community to
> live_audio, even posting occasionally a blurb in related
> newsgroups, and gotten a couple to have a look via fidonet
> via nntp, but we haven't gained much traction.  But, it's
> there in case suddenly it takes off <g>.

Sure, you never know.. they might decide to give it a look see.

Over here, I have a user that started an echo for his Mensa friends where the
topic is esperanto.. a language they are intent on keeping alive <smile>

Take care,
Janis

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