Text 22543, 152 rader
Skriven 2011-10-07 11:59:23 av Richard Webb (1:116/901.0)
  Kommentar till text 22542 av Janis Kracht (1:261/38)
Ärende: FidoNews Vol. 28 No. 40 Sustainability IV
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Hi Janis,

On Thu 2011-Oct-06 21:47, Janis Kracht (1:261/38) wrote to Richard Webb:

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

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

INdeed, goes all sorts of places, or used to quite a bit
when that was a very popular echo.  WE've got a few who log
onto a board once in awhile and drop in a msg.
I struggled with that instrument too as a kid, small
fingers, I knew where the notes were, I just had trouble
with the hand contortions.

<snip again>
> 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.

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

RIght, and a lot of the newsgroups related to the various
professional sports teams are mainly spam from what I've
seen.

>> 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.

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

Indeed, and why I asked Marc to co-mod binkley with me when
SEan asked me to take it on.

>> 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.

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

YEp have heard about those.  sOmetimes they just develop
naturally.

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

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

DOn't think so, but the same thing has happened to political discussion areas
on FIDonet has happened to our politics
nationally, and that's not a good thing.  THe level of civil discourse isn't
what it was, which accounts for some of it.
I have no desire to get involved in that.

> 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.

JK> Those can be handy.. and I'm glad to see we have such good FAQs in
JK> echos like the BINKD echo.
YEp, I see that with binkd, which I'm sure is helpful.

>  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.

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

INdeed, but the quality of the people who remain has a lot
to do with whether an echo or newsgroup thrives.  Even the
rec group I mentioned has lost many good people who got fed
up, who probably would have enjoyed a fIdonet echo on the
same topics, but some of them were well respected folks in
the business who could get the resources together to put up
their own web forums.  A lot more fragmentation, and lots of competition. 
That's why we've got to get better at what we
do, although our FTSC chairman says it's all a waste of
time.  NO it's not a waste of time, if we sharpen up our
game a little bit.  That means we still need the technical
innovators helping us find the new ways to draw the user in, and once we've
drawn the attention get that user to come
back.

> 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>.

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

True, and the way I look at it, if you're suddenly faced
with acquiring sound reinforcement equipment or services for your church or
community group, you've got somewhere to ask
questions.  There are a couple of us there, and I'm sure
with some actual topical conversation others will come out
of the woodwork.  YOu can't use it if it ain't there.

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

YEp, I've seen small groups try to keep that one alive in
the ham radio world oto.  trouble with that one is they were too late, the
communications revolution has already by
default pretty much made English the international language. WOuld esperanto
have been better?  DOn't know, never learned it.

Regards,
           Richard
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 * Origin:  (1:116/901)