From: Geoff Date: 2006-12-21T07:20:10+09:00 Subject: Re: [OT] where have all the experienced users gone? On 2006-12-19, Eric Hodel wrote: > On Dec 18, 2006, at 18:50, Trans wrote: > >> seems like there's been a steady drop off in experienced ruby users on >> the list. is it me or has there really been some sort of migration >> away? > > In the back-channels I've heard the following reasons for why long- > time readers of ruby-talk cut back: > > a) signal:noise ratio too low. > b) belligerent newbies. > I've been reading quite a bit about these properties of online communities lately. There's a lot of material worth looking into if you happen to have a bit of a deeper interest, like: Clay Shirky's "A Group is it's Own Worst Enemy" http://shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html Clay Shirky's "Group as User: Flaming and the Design of Social Software" http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_user.html Kathy Sierra's "How to Build a User Community: Part 1" http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/12/ how_to_build_a_.html Oh, and I'm definitely a Ruby newb myself, but I'm learning, and this mailing-list/Usenet-newsgroup/forum has proven a fantastic learning resource. I hope that, one way or another, that continues to be the case. Geoff.