[HPFGU-Feedback] Re: Welcome to HPFGU-Feedback

[Christian Stubø]

--- Jen Reese wrote:
[snip]
> Hebby Elf: 
> > If past experience is any guide, we'll be getting a surge of new 
> > posters next June when the PoA movie premieres. How should we deal 
> > with it? 
X-Original-Yahoo-Groups-Redacted-X-Sender: pengolodh_sc at ...
X-Original-Yahoo-Groups-Redacted-Return-Path: <pengolodh_sc at ...>

As a comment of my own - I am not certain there is much which can be done apart from what
has been done earlier.  Possibly the idea about letting people subsribe only to the
movie-list for a limited time-period has merit, but there *will* be people who will
resent that, as some subscribers will be interested in discussing the books as well, and
some new subscribers will only be interested in discussing the books.  I recall the great
debate back when the first movie was released, which resulted in the decision to create
the separate list for movie-discussion.  I think that by making certain new members know
where to go for what sort of discussion, a lot will be achieved in smoothing things.

[snip]

> 3) I've always wondered about the many members who never post.
> How about offering a limited time to lurk (say 3-6 months) and
> if a person doesn't post they are taken off the list? This might
> turn into an administrative nightmare, though.

I do not really see how this deals with surges of new *posters*, as differentiated from
new *members*.  What happens after each release of a new movie or book in this series, is
that we have large numbers of new members, many of whom post a lot.  This causes a lot of
additional mail-volume, sometimes needlessly so, as answers are duplicated,t riplicated,
etc., as people do not check if someone else has said the same thing already.  This, over
time, settles down, until the next release of a book or a movie.

To purge the list of lurkers really does nothing to reduce email-volume on the list,
since lurker don't contribute to email-volume in the first place.  Also, if this policy
becomes known, then you will see all the nominal lurkers make a single post within a
small timeperiod - it would result in a short period (say a couple of weeks) with
5000-8000 emails in addition to the normal list-colume, which I think would be a rather
frightening prospect for many members.  It would also be nigh-on impossible to keep track
of those persons that do not post very often, but on occasion find an interesting topic -
average list-volume tends to be 1500-2000 posts monthly, with peaks around releases of
books and movies.

> 4) My other thought was cleaning out the member list by having a 
> link on the homepage for say 2 months, where everyone who wants to 
> continue being a member has to click on that link. Anyone not 
> registering by a certain date would be taken off (but could re-
> enroll).

This also seems to me a bad idea.  For one thing, it will annoy many members that they
have to opt-in again when they already have done so once, by subscribing.  Those that
didn't catch the announcement will be even more annoyed - angry, even.

 --- Potterfanme wrote: 
> Hebby: 
> > If past experience is any guide, we'll be getting a surge of new 
> > posters next June when the PoA movie premieres. How should we deal 
> > with it? 
> 
> Susan:
> I don't know how these things work but would it be possible to have a 
> group for each of the books?  I realize that there would still have 
> to be a general (main) list for those that meld their ideas through 
> the entire epic, but a lot of the posts only pertain to one book.  Do 
> you think this would be a significant enough reduction from the main 
> list to be feasible?  [...] And maybe a Tbay/FILK list.  

I think this would serve mainly to increase email-volume for thsoe subscribed, as well as
increasing confusion and workload on the admin-team.  Many posts are applicable to more
than one book, and so may find themselves posted to mroe than one list.  The admins would
also need to keep an eye on the specific book lists, ands trike down posts that are about
the wrong book, and in addition one would see a lot of emails from lists about the
specific books copied to the general list.  People replying to a post which has appeared
mroe than one place then amy end up replying to the wrong list.  New members will tend to
subscribe to all lists, and so will need moderation on all lists, greatly increasing
workload on the elves.

 --- KathyK wrote: 
> Hi Everyone,
> 
> I am excited about this trial Feedback forum.  I'm very interested 
> in hearing what other listmembers think about different subjects 
> pertaining to this list, if only to gauge if my thoughts are out in 
> left field somewhere and to see if I need to reevaluate them.  
> Thank you, List Elves!
> 
> Question from the List Elves:
> 
> >>If you could change one thing about HPfGU, what would it be?<<
> 
> KathyK:
> 
> I'd like to echo the sentiments of Annemehr and wish that some of 
> the older listmembers who haven't been posting would come back and 
> do so.  If only because I'm so new, I feel I've missed out on a lot 
> of the fun.
> 
> Also, I have noticed a lot of rule breaking going on these days (and 
> I have also noticed the Onlist Admin responses, which I very much 
> appreciate).  For instance, in the last couple days there's been an 
> increase in the number of posters using the "Now Me" approach in 
> their responses rather than using their name.  This could be a cause 
> for some of the improper attibutions going on lately.  
[snip]

Confusion is best avoided by simply using the existing Internet norm for quoting - which
norm exists for the express purpose of avoiding confusion.  Shaun laid out that norm in
an earlier mail - by using that norm, combined with appropriate snipping, and indicating
the name of the person quoted at the top of the quote (as I have done here), it will be
very clear who is saying what.

=====
Best regards
Christian Stub
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