I have to agree with Chris Lerch and the few others who have bemoaned the splitting of the lists and pointed to that as a contributing factor in the decline of posts. for those who missed it, Chris said: [calling] >This and other posts of this nature ( "off-topic", "wrong place" , > etc.) seem rather ironic to me because, in my opinion, splitting > HOCKEY-L into pieces is the main (but not only) reason for the decline You got that right, Chris... Setting up separate lists may seem like a good idea "on paper", but the real world doesn't operate "on paper", folks. After 30 years in the Marketing/Advertising/Media business I have learned that the more complicated you make anything, the fewer responses you will get. And after managing people for 23 of those years, I have discovered that maxim applies across all areas of life: the more complicated you make _anything_, the smaller will be the number of people who will accept those complications. Most will just tune out, be quiet, not communicate their disappointment and eventually go away. I think that's one of the main causes of the posts shortage. These list divisions are too complicated, ill-defined and ill-promoted. Which list do I send my thoughts to? What's the list address? Where did I file that one? If I make a mistake by posting to the wrong list how many flames will I have to deal with? Oh hell, should I really bother with it at all? People don't want to deal with complications. You want more participation? Remove the obstacles. Hockey-L, Hockey-3, Info-Hockey-L, Meta-hockey-L -- Hey! Who wants to subscribe to four lists to discuss college hockey? Combine them all into one list. Make it simple. That's the way to encourage greater participation. Chris Lerch went on to say: > in the volume and quality of postings to HOCKEY-L. I strongly voted > against splitting the list because I felt then and still do now that > most of the really good discussions build on each other, and any > attempt to stifle that hurts more than it helps. Kudos to you for that statement, Chris. Who is to say that a post to hockey3 can't be relevant to Hockey-L, or won't contribute value to the discussion of college hockey in general. As Chris pointed out, people process information in strange ways. Ask any "creative thinker" and he'll tell you that totally unrelated ideas frequently create a synergy to spark something entirely unique and valuable. To be honest with all of you, I debated about whether I should post this at all to any list. Is it really worth my time? I don't know. Assuming the moderators don't bounce it for being "off topic" I may get a few dozen flames for my opinions and if so, that will prove that it wasn't. But if it does help clarify someone else's thinking, then perhaps the time wasn't wasted. After all, isn't sharing ideas the purpose of a discussion? And if discussing the manner and content of our college hockey discussion is off topic, then I guess my view is much too broad. Perhaps I'll have to narrow my mind to conform. Or perhaps the moderators should take another poll (now that the season is here and there are more people on the list) to determine what the list participants want. cheers! -- Bob Gaskins <[log in to unmask]> HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.