[Foundation-l] The state of Foundation-l (again) was: Recent firing?

[phoebe ayers]

On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 6:56 PM, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> --- On Mon, 11/2/09, wjhonson at aol.com <wjhonson at aol.com> wrote:
>
>> From: wjhonson at aol.com <wjhonson at aol.com>
>> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Recent firing?
>> To: foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> Date: Monday, November 2, 2009, 4:55 PM
>> Personally, I process about two or
>> three hundred emails per day (yes per day), so the small
>> amount of noise the Foundation list creates is negligible to
>> me.
>>
>> If someone is so annoyed by a thread, that they can't even
>> bother to DWR (delete without reading) based merely on the
>> subject title, I would think we need to question whether
>> that person has the right temperament for the internet
>> whatsoever.  I delete at least two or three dozen
>> emails every day without reading them, if I already know the
>> subject is not going to be of "interest" to me.
>>
>> I would submit the real issue here, is not that people are
>> doing that or could, but rather that they have a compulsion
>> to *keep reading* the thread.  Sort of a, "I don't want
>> to be left out, or I want to keep watching the train wreck"
>> or something.  I'm not a psychologist.  I do know
>> however, that the entire issue of "let's close this thread",
>> "let's moderated these people", " this is too noisy" and so
>> on, is endemic to the entire email world.  Not merely
>> this list.
>>
>> I can't think of any list I'm on (and I'm on a few dozen),
>> where the issue does not come up with regularity.  It
>> is merely part of the way internetlife is, in my opinion.
>>
>
>
> "The right temperment for the interner?"
>
> Maybe you would have a point if this was and email list targeted at people who spend every waking hour plugged into the internet.  I realize some of come close to that.  But that is not the target audience of this email list.  Nor the Wikimedia movement.  And if those of you who have the temperment and lifestyle for such participation do not control yourselves enough so that this forum might succeed in included more than just those participants similar to yourselves, Wikimedia will be sorrier for it.
>
> On a personal note, last week I have gone to having the responsibilities of three people jobs, instead of only those two I have been handling for most of the past year.  Maybe I will resubscribe when I can hire people again.  Good luck with making sure this list is worth re-subscribing too.  I truly hope you all succeed with that.
>
> Birgitte SB

Hear hear. And even people who do spend a heck of a lot of their time
on Wikimedia might not want to spend it all reading F-l. And no, they
don't have to -- but if you want to keep up with general discussion
about the Foundation, you actually *do*. This is the main forum.
Dominating it is as rude as being that guy in a classroom who won't
shut up, to the detriment of all the other students who can't get a
word in edgewise; only in this case, there's no professor to maintain
order. If you're that guy, it's not like you're more brilliant than
everyone else; you're just more talkative and don't have any social
skills, and you are adversely affecting everyone else that has to
share the space with you.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Improving_Foundation-l is still up but
hasn't gotten any new traffic in the last few weeks. Suggestions
included:
* starting a forum
* starting an announcements list
* limiting posting

others?
-- phoebe