Main List Problems

[Susan Miller]

--- bluesqueak responded to my suggestion about a Quick Questions list

> How do we distinguish between a QwikQ and a thread-provoking short 
> question?

My idea was that it would be the questioner who decides that what 
they have is a quick question. If the Q-list is prominently 
advertised on the HP4GU front page, I think beginners might choose to 
post a quick question there "What is canon?", etc. Especially if they 
thought that they might get an answer that they could actually find 
rather than buried in 300 other messages that day.

-- bboy pointed out that the volume is decreasing.

I've noticed that, too. I've also noticed that the quality seems to 
be increasing. But I don't think the problem will solve itself. For 
one thing, as soon as there is another movie or book, we are right 
back where we started. And don't forget, part of the decreasing 
volume is a result of our best posters having gone silent. Our 
membership is twice what it was a year ago. Expecting the posting 
volume ever to return to what it was back then is wishful thinking, 
IMO.

To summarize, my suggested solution to the Mods would be:

1 - close the list for a short while to regroup
2 - train more mods
3 - establish a q-list for quick questions
4 - put beginners on no-post status at first
5 - have the mature community assist the mods by alerting them to 
poor posts, using some structured format for easy identification of 
duplicate alerts.

I am enjoying this discussion, btw.

Constance Vigilance