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]>
 
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