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[OFF TOPIC] Re: Will someone rid me of this troublesome priest!?



Hi everyone,
It seems that the Linux-IL group and mailing list has entered a new phase 
of its life.

On Mon, 13 May 1996, Marc A. Volovic wrote:

[... snipped ...]
> > If you sufferd from child abuse please find yourself a psychotherapist - don't use
> > this mailing list as an outlet for your consequent aggressions, in what seems like
> > the transcripts of a coprolalia patient's monologue.
> 
> Do make your lines shorter, eh. As for my psychotherapy - ten years of 
> aversion therapy backfired and I am now, more than ever, a pugnacious 
> bastard.
> 
> At least, you did not accuse me of coprophilia.
[... snipped ...]

I apologize for my lack of fluency in Latin, which forces me to resort to 
more primitive and blunt words.

First of all, it seems that the group entered phase 5 of the natural life 
cycle of mailing lists (see below).  One of the characteristics of this 
phase is that some participants wake up and notice the smell of the shit 
of other participants.  They do not have the enlightened attitude of 
letting people shit in peace and accuse their fellows of coprophiliac 
tendencies and make all sorts of threats in an attempt to dispell the smell.

Eventually, the more sensitive people will leave and the others will 
continue to live, and live also with that smelly part of life.

(Yeechhhh!)
                                              --- Omer

The natural life cycle of mailing lists
---------------------------------------
Every list seems to go through the same cycle:

1.  Initial enthusiasm (people introduce themselves, and gush a lot about
    how wonderful it is to find kindred souls).

2.  Evangelism (people moan about how few folks are posting to the list,
    and brainstorm recruitment strategies).

3.  Growth (more and more people join, more and more lengthy threads
    develop, occasional off-topic threads pop up).

4.  Community (lots of threads, some more relevant than others; lots of
    information and advice is exchanged; experts help other experts as
    well as less experienced colleagues; friendships develop; people tease
    each other; newcomers are welcomed with generosity and patience;
    everyone -- newbie and expert alike -- feels comfortable asking
    questions, suggesting answers, and sharing opinions).

5.  Discomfort with diversity (the number of messages increases
    dramatically; not every thread is fascinating to every reader; people
    start complaining about the signal-to-noise ratio; person 1 threatens
    to quit if *other* people don't limit discussion to person 1's pet
    topic; person 2 agrees with person 1; person 3 tells 1 & 2 to lighten
    up; more bandwidth is wasted complaining about off-topic threads than
    is used for the threads themselves; everyone gets annoyed).

6a. Smug complacency and stagnation (the purists flame everyone who asks
    an 'old' question or responds with humor to a serious post; newbies
    are rebuffed; traffic drops to a doze-producing level of a few minor
    issues; all interesting discussions happen by private email and are
    limited to a few participants; the purists spend lots of time
    self-righteously congratulating each other on keeping off-topic
    threads off the list).
OR

6b. Maturity (a few people quit in a huff; the rest of the participants
    stay near stage 4, with stage 5 popping up briefly every few weeks;
    many people wear out their second or third 'delete' key, but the list
    lives contentedly ever after).

This pattern is typical of that outlined in group formational stage theory.

                            ----====*====----


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