Some musings on list volume (was Just out of curiosity...)

[davewitley]

> Iggy here:
> 
> I can't help but ask this question, since I'm kinda curious about 
it...
> 
> Did anyone happen to see my answer to the Harry's detention 
question,
> and the following post by me?

The following may seem a bit tedious, but the phenomenon of posting 
and not getting any response gets mentioned here regularly, so I 
thought I'd talk about it.

First, a personal response: No, I didn't see it, until 24 hours 
after you asked that question, itself 6 hours after the 'Warp' 
post.  That sort of time lapse is quite normal for me, and, I get 
the impression, many other list members.

For me, the lesson from this is to continually seek to slow the 
lists down.  Judging by the way people apologise when they come late 
to a thread, many list members feel pressured to respond within a 
few hours or not at all.  Quite honestly, I think this is ridiculous.

There is no shame whatsoever in responding a week or two, or even 
more, after a post has been made.  Let me repeat that.  There is 
*no* shame *whatsoever* in taking a long time over responding to 
threads.  It's not a symptom of unpunctuality, or rudeness, or 
sociopathy.  It merely shows there is life outside the internet, and 
that our thought processes are not instantaneous.

Second, a temporal point.  I have not analysed this weekend's list 
volume (a single weekend is hard to deduce much from anyway), but in 
the run-up to OOP release I tracked main and OT list volume on a 
daily basis.  There is a very definite weekly cycle.  Thursday 
evening through Friday (GMT) is usually the busiest time on the 
lists; Sunday and Monday are the least busy.  I think this just 
reflects people's commitments.  Towards the end of the working week 
people are unwinding more in the late afternoon and evenings, 
whether at work or at home, and lurk and post more.  During the 
weekend, they organise RL things away from the internet, and 
disappear offline.  Also, some people join the chat and put their 
energies into that.  As a consequence, if you post on a Saturday or 
Sunday, you will get a slower response.

All the above said, however, it's worth thinking about the 
underlying dynamics of the lists.  Suppose there are about 50 of us 
who post regularly to OTC here - I think that number's not far off.  
If all of us are posting equally, then we are presumably getting 
about 2% of people's attention.  That feeds through to the number of 
replies you can expect.  It's not physically possible for me to 
respond to every post that in theory I'd like to.  If we all 
suddenly got more time to post, we could all respond more.  Result: 
more posts to respond to, and the proportion of posts that get a big 
response remains exactly the same.

A similar kind of calculation ultimately limits offlist interaction, 
too.

The only ways to increase your share of people's attention is to 
have a smaller list, or to somehow get yourself into a privileged 
position, as an administrator, or as a particularly funny, creative, 
or prolific poster.

I believe personally that the desire on the part of the individual 
listie to increase 'market share' of list attention lies behind the 
bulk of list dynamics.  It's what drives flame wars, administrative 
falling-outs, inspired posting, drive-by posting, bursts in list 
volume, the rise and fall of 'big name fans', the creation 
of 'intimate' new lists, and much else.

All of us, in our hearts, aim at that desired end state where we can 
bask in a circle of admiration and affection.  And all of us, if we 
could, would like to be in the situation where admiration and 
affection transmitted are less - often much much less - than that 
received.  And, put like that, it can't happen.  The only question 
is whether we choose to deny that desire for the sake of the common 
good, or have it denied for us by the chaos that results when we 
give way to it.

Here endeth the sermon.

David