[MUD-Dev] META: Making the list public?

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <33cdb185.852381069 at neptune>, on 07/16/97 
   at 08:36 AM, alexo at bigfoot.com (Alex Oren) said:

>JCL wrote:

>} For a variety of reasons and with considerable encouragement I'm
>} considering taking the list public.  Mainly this will consist of
>} advertising it in r.g.m.announce and setting up a supporting web page. 
>} I'm interested in arguments for, against, and surrounding this motion. 
>} I'm especially interested in concerns, predicted problems, or possible
>} ideas for heading off problems.

>Case against #1: r.g.m.*

Agreed.  We'd lose the psychics immediately.  The rest has me
concerned.

>Case against #2: the moderation efforts to keep the list from
>succumbing to case #1 will overwhelm you and the list will go down.

This is the crux of my concern.  We have a good thing here.  I don't
think we have enough of a good thing that its self-sustaining.  Quite
simpley we don't have enough membership, and most importantly we don't
have enough actively posting membership.  The danger is that there
will be a long enough gag in message flow that the list becomes
forgotten as a place to hold this form of discussion (no traffic ==
nothing to spark memory == email address forgotten == no idea who is
there anyway).  This is especially a concern with membership attrition
over time.

>} A)  Should the archives be requestable or browsable by non-members? 
>} Note that this effectively makes every poster's email address open.

>I dunno.  There is a difference between sharing ideas with a small
>group of people and putting them in the public domain.

Note: membership is currently around 50.  Its not so small anymore. 
Active (ie posting) membership is in the teens to low twenties
(guess).  My gut feel is that we need to at least double both figures
before the lit could be considered as stable and self-supporting (the
traffic levels that that implies raises other concerns).

Side question:  Outside of anything to do with archives, should I make
the membership list open to members?  This could be as crude as
posting the membership list to the list once a month, or some other
much more controlled form.

>} B)  Should the list be echoed (one way) to a newsgroup?  If it is
>} echoed to a newsgroup should that group be a private group on a
>} private newsserver, or should I create a moderated alt.mud.development
>} group?

>I'm firewalled from external newsservers and cannot persuade the
>sysadmins to make *any* group that does not directly relate to my
>work available.

Note: I could externalise that private newsgroup to a web page.  That
web-page could be private to list members or public.

>} C) Should the list be split into seperate lists, divided by topic? 
>No.
>} D) How should the list be publicised?
>It should not.
>} E) How should new membership be handled?
>I'd say - keep it invitation only.

A vote for no change on any count here then.

--
J C Lawrence                           Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                           Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------------(*)               Internet: clawrenc at cup.hp.com
...Honorary Member Clan McFUD -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...