On Sat, Jan 10, 2009 at 12:04 PM, Rony gnulinuxist@gmail.com wrote:

Ravindra Jaju wrote:

...

Instead of dividing or partitioning the group, form your own group as per the requirement. Why break someone else's creation.

I'd like to point out some examples which support my point. A school has many grades, and multiple divisions per grade. As an analogy - not all students use the same classroom.

You might suggest that each thread is a 'virtual classroom' of its own - but that's not true IMHO. Since it's all mixed, the extra effort it takes to filter out the interesting from the not-so-interesting (all this is very subjective - we are not saying these are good and bad respectively) - makes people really interested in specific causes lose interest.

Moreover, the list is fairly open - not moderated by draconian power-clingers. Many new people keep joining, and not all are well-versed with list etiquettes and/or the levels are wildly varying.

IMHO, again, I believe a community can thrive when there are clear paths for people to *grow* systematically along some well-defined paths (rather than people left fending for themselves) - this is suggestive, and of course people are always allowed in an open community to set their own standards and paths, and ask for/earn support.

High noise-to-signal ratios can reduce efficiencies and over a period of time make people disinterested. I can certainly vouch for the fact that about 8 years ago, the level on this list was much better than what it has been in the small duration now that I've been a part again.

My 2 paise.

Thanks, jaju