On Thu, 8 Feb 1996, Danny R. Faught wrote:
> Can this sort of response have any long-term affect, or do you have to
> continually educate a stream of new readers? If I had any hope of
> building critical mass, I'd be more motivated to hold people's hands
> for a while.
Critical mass?? Ha! Not until every citizen of this planet is well-versed
in Usenet--then you'd have all the new babies! ;>
Yes, you will ALWAYS have new readers. And as hosts or guardians of your
newsgroup, you can take it upon yourself to help educate them. As for
long-term effect, I think the answer is a definite yes! Without the
nudging and the guidance, you are likely to have a very bad traffic/noise
ratio. In rec.arts.bodyart for example, the potential for trolls and
B1FFS are horrendous (just think--we talk about tattoos and body
pierces). But we've been religious about getting the FAQs out to them.
It's beginning to pay off. We very rarely have "where's the FAQ?"
or "does it hurt?" questions--and now, we have a significant number of
regulars who are professional tattooists and body piercers, themselves on
the cutting edge of their profession by setting up computers in their
small businesses--contributing to serious debates and discussions about
various legal and technical issues regarding bodyart. This for us is
something of a dream come true. For us, our usenet has truly created a
new virtual community--being able to benefit someone in a small town in
Tennessee who might have never been able to learn about sanitation
requirements for body piercing shops, for example.
* This is Lani Teshima-Miller, posting live from Honolulu, Hawaii on LAVA *
* Today in Hawaii 2/9: Cloudy, humid and warm. Probably in the mid-80s now*
* lani@lava.net--fun stuff; teshima@hawaii.edu--work. 1996 UA M+ Premier *
* Rec.arts.bodyart Tattoo FAQ maintainer...FDC Walkaround Mr. Potato Head *
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