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In lugnet.trains, jmatthew@columbus.rr.com (John Matthews) writes:
> [...] I would be opposed to splitting off sub topics until the traffic
> merits it.
I understand that concern. Here are some things to think about though --
Current traffic levels aren't really very accurate predictors of future
traffic levels after a split. You might have 50 posts/day in some group
and then after a split it might go down to 35 posts/day. But when you add
in the 10 or 15 posts/day that the subgroups create, then you not only have
more overall but you are serving the subgroups in a much better and more
focused way.
A case in point -- check out the three .rcx subgroups of lugnet.robotics.
At the time they were created there was really -no- merit to splitting
them off into subtopics based on traffic alone. The merit lies entirely
in the way that the groups can focus in smaller groups, and the groups
were created not for the benefit of the main group, but solely for the
benefit of the projects they support. Each of the authors of these three
projects was strongly in favor of a new group to help them focus, and lo
and behold, the traffic followed them there. They're not high-traffic
groups, but that's OK because the purpose of the group is to support the
project, not to be a 24-hour news channel.
Also, note that there have been days where the combined traffic of all of
the lugnet.* groups has surpassed daily RTL traffic by a wide margin. The
lugnet.* newsgroup traffic has roughly doubled in the past 6 months. A
year or two from now, it may be double or triple what it is today. Without
clear understandings of the way group dynamics work and long-term plans in
place for appropriate expansions, things are too big before you know it.
The healthy long-term way to think of group splits are not as splits per se
but as adding new areas for growth that weren't there before due to natural
inhibitions and fears of posting too far off-topic or into esoteric regions.
A subgroup of lugnet.trains called lugnet.trains.clubs may divert a small
amount of traffic from lugnet.trains and affect lugnet.trains in a slightly
negative way, but the gain to the lugnet.trains.clubs subgroup and the
causes it supported would be very largely positive. It's the net overall
long-term effects that are the most important ones.
> I would hate to miss any news about trains, even if it is the intimate
> details of how a train club organizes for a show. Actually, I would be
> very interested in those details. [...]
Have you tried the News-by-Mail and digest features yet for any of the
groups here?
http://www.lugnet.com/news/mail/
It is possible to stay intimately involved with one set of groups and
loosely involved -- to varying customizable degrees -- with other groups.
This is really nice because someone who is interested enough in a
.trains.clubs group to follow along casually -- but not interested enough to
participate frequently -- might simply be happiest receiving the group via
e-mail as a daily or weekly digest. Digests can be rapidly scanned, and you
don't miss any news or details that way.
Also, one very important thing that happens with subgroups is that
discussions start in a subgroup and go into all sorts of crazy details, and
then when something is decided, someone makes a crosspost "upward" from the
subgroup to the main group, to keep everyone in the loop. This way, even
if you only read the main group and not the subgroups, you still hear about
the really important stuff.
Other things that happen are informational announcements made to the main
group and a subgroup, with followups set to the subgroup where in-depth
discussions would be more appropriate than the main group. If there were
only a main group and no subgroups, the in-depth discussions either never
happen or degenerate into private e-mail conversations where they languish
and never have the opportunity to be picked up later by someone else.
--Todd
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: lugnet.trains.org newsgroup?
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| Well Todd, I guess I can't argue with that! :) Carry on with your madcap plans for our crazy little hobby. After all, for the most part, I just read this stuff. It is you who have masterminded a clean and decisive way for a lot of us to live (...) (25 years ago, 15-Apr-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.trains)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: lugnet.trains.org newsgroup?
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| I read lugnet.trains every day. The traffic here is, well not much traffic at all. I would be opposed to splitting off sub topics until the traffic merits it. I would hate to miss any news about trains, even if it is the intimate details of how a (...) (25 years ago, 14-Apr-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.trains)
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