On 11/14/05, Delirium <delirium(a)hackish.org> wrote: I would like that. In fact, I would go so far as to say that proliferation of mailing lists is a positive thing, when done the right way... but that we do not currently do it the right way. One model which has been successful for other large online communities is to spin off smaller topical lists when an active topic arises (especially when the same set of people are always responding to threads on that topic), with some simple structure that passes summaries back to a parent list. Example : the list carries out initial discussing, produces summaries of fixed-time topics, and periodically summarizes ongoing threads. Someone is responsible for passing summaries onto a parent list, and for bringing discussions back to the parent list when they are more relevant there -- e.g., when ther eis some discussion being made that the whole community should take part in.. Right. It would be useful to have a new- and minority-languages list. The people who chime in on those There is already that dnager -- only a self-selecting group bothers to read the relevant threads, and sometimes people delete even important new-language announceemnts or ideas because the occasional floods of debate make them trigger happy. Starting discussions on a small, focused mailing lists can be efficient; especially when there is at the same time too much traffic on large lists (a common reason for unsubscribing), and too little serious discussion of important topics (another common reason for unsubscribing). SJ