Re: On splintering the list

[P3D John W Roberts <roberts@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Date: Sun, 12 Jan 1997 17:29:39 -0600
>From: P3D Marvin Jones  <72657.3276@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: On splintering the list

>I don't care much for the idea of splitting up the P3D list into one or 
>more mini-lists. 

Agree.

>As someone, I think it was Dr. T, said, you're not forced to read all 30K
>of a digest (or every individual message) just because it's sent to you.

How do you conveniently read some messages in a digest and not others?
(I wouldn't know - I get ACK mode). How do you conveniently reply? Don't
you have to type in the subject line, edit the whole digest to extract
quotes, etc.?

>Now, for the idea of an "intro-3D" list. I think this does address a need,
>but a need that I think would be better served by a good "intro FAQ". 

The reason I suggested intro-3d is that it would serve a fundamentally
different purpose than splitting up the list for any other reason. The
people I know who are interested in getting into 3D are all very busy people.
When I mention P3D to them, the first question they ask is "how much traffic
on the list?" -- and when I answer "maybe one or two hundred messages a day",
they answer that they couldn't possibly spare the time to even check it out.
I think a very simple ASCII (or HTML) intro-FAQ would be great, but it
doesn't provide a simple way for readers to ask questions - to do that they
have to jump into the raging torrent of P3D. There are people on this list
who derive great pleasure from explaining things to beginners - I expect
some of them would sign up to an intro-3d list, to see what questions
beginners post. (Remember - because of economies of scale in manufacturing,
distribution and marketing, a large customer base is of benefit to those
of us who buy 3D gadgets, not just those who sell them. :-)

I would recommend (if such a list is created) that the simple FAQ be posted
periodically to intro-3d. Even better would be breaking it up into a
series of 5 or 6 parts, with one part posted per week, in a continual
cycle. The FAQ could include pointers to more sophisticated stuff, such as
this list, the P3D FAQ, and so on.

To summarize, an intro-3d would provide the following benefits:
 - very low traffic (so new people won't be turned off by the time
     investment required to read it)
 - periodic doses of information especially useful for beginners
 - a chance for beginners to ask questions without having to commit to
     reading all of P3D first
 - a chance to accelerate the pace of educating the public and building up
     enthusiasm for 3D.

John R


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