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  • From: Lee Flier <lflier AT mindspring.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] The death of a list
  • Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2012 13:23:46 -0500

Yep, I sure am!

We have 179 members - not sure how many actually have active email addresses.

I've been a part of many online communities over the years, and in my experience, most of them do seem to have a life cycle. It might be a vital and vibrant group for 5 to 10 years, but eventually it starts to resemble a clique - the established folks talking amongst themselves in a way that discourages new people from participating, or if a newbie does show up, the senior members get irritated with them asking questions that have already been discussed to death (not the newbie's fault, of course). Meanwhile the senior members have run out of things to talk about and, in the absence of new blood or new subject matter, the group often just dies out.

That was beginning to happen with this group anyway, and Tvo's death was a particularly tough blow. But for awhile, instead of just dying out, the group became completely dominated by political discussion. Any small suggestions I made to the effect that this might not be good for the health of the group were greeted by an avalanche of hostility from a couple of long time members who apparently thought the merest attempt to steer the conversation in a different direction was "censorship" and abuse of my moderating privileges.

I found this a truly bizarre attitude, and I'm not at all interested in being a babysitter. I felt that if this type of discussion was what most of the established community wanted, I wasn't going to interfere - I would simply withdraw from discussion (since I had no interest in participating) and do nothing except keep the lights on and the spam cleared. I'm not really able to turn over control of the list to someone else - this server space is here because of a personal connection of mine, and frankly I did not want to draw attention to what this group had become. Had the host seen what was going on here he would have just shut the list down immediately. So, eventually it simply died out and I figured that if anyone else was that interested in re-kindling the list, there are plenty of other places to do it (Yahoo and Google groups, Facebook, etc.)

Of course I'd be happy if the good discussions started up here again. I do miss the old days of the list, and it's nice to hear from some of you folks that I have not been in touch with elsewhere. :)

On 12/29/2012 5:29 PM, Robert Walton wrote:
So is there a way to find out how many subscribers are on this list?
Lee???? You out there by any chance?


On Sat, Dec 29, 2012 at 2:44 PM, Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com> wrote:

On Dec 29, 2012, at 12:45 PM, Robert Walton wrote:

The political talk seemed the cause of the final throes of this list,
but I
think that it ran deeper and maybe was a symptom and not the cause. There
was a time when this list was a place to ask questions and discuss
answers.
At some point, the answers were "that's been discussed" or "did you
bother
to google that topic before you asked"?

Somehow we stopped getting pleasure out of discussing homesteading.
That is fair, Rob. After one answers the same basic questions many times,
it becomes tedious and time-wasting. That is one of the advantages of
books: the author is highly motivated to write the material and get it out
there to the readers. Then they go on to the next subject.

I'm guess I'm showing my age. Perhaps it is simply generational.

I very much enjoyed the back-and-forth with Tvo.

Gene

I'm not sure the list is dead. Can it be revived? I have no idea who is
on
this list for starters. The www and other more modern means of
communication may have taken something away form the listserv, but I'd
say
that's not the issue here.

It's a shame we can't seem to get our discussion on. The thing I always
like about this list is that it was hard core, straight-forward
discussion
of homesteading with no censors.

Rob - Va


On Sat, Dec 29, 2012 at 12:20 PM, Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>
wrote:
On Dec 29, 2012, at 9:04 AM, Rob wrote:

I woke up this morning wondering what happened to the homestead list.

An e-mail list is (was?) a new type of community, a group of people
with almost instant written communication drawn together around a
common theme. In this case a the concept of homesteading.

For many years this was an active & vibrant place to be and then it
wasn't....
Did everybody give up the homestead dream? Did the world change so
much that the group was not necessary? I think "not" to both of
those, there are still active groups in the internet world and
somewhat on facebook. The dream (or necessity) of doing it yourself
is still there.
A lack of leadership? Maybe, leadership on a list is hard to pin
down. The leader could be a knowledgeable regular poster or a list
owner who both posts & keeps order it is rarely the totalitarian who
rules with the iron fist, lists have to be at least a little fun to
keep people.
Did one person manage to poison the well? That is possible, people
left the list rather than deal with the poison.

I think enough people left (for whatever the reason, I'm guessing
poison & no leadership) that the dynamic of the list fell apart and
the community that was people, their words and ideas collapsed & is
gone. Sad.

Rob, I agree with all you have written above. Lee was the owner but she
did not care enough to manage. The unrestrained political garbage
posted by
two members repelled me.

Gene

_______________________________________________
Homestead list and subscription:
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Change your homestead list member options:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/options/homestead/waltonrp%40gmail.com
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_______________________________________________
Homestead list and subscription:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/homestead
Change your homestead list member options:

http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/options/homestead/genegerue%40ruralize.com
View the archives at:
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/homestead



_______________________________________________
Homestead list and subscription:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/homestead
Change your homestead list member options:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/options/homestead/waltonrp%40gmail.com
View the archives at:
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/homestead



_______________________________________________
Homestead list and subscription:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/homestead
Change your homestead list member options:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/options/homestead/lflier%40mindspring.com
View the archives at:
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/homestead








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