Theos-Talk Archives (May 1996 Message tl01357)

Lynn Oelgart wrote

>I dropped Theos-l because it was a very tight group that did not open up to new
>posters. Also, constant arguing about esoterica made for a tedious read and I
>was gaining no new knowledge.

This set me thinking about the "not opening up" feeling, and what might be
behind it.

The nearest thing to it I experienced when joining theos-l etc a year and a
half ago, was the feeling of dead silence when I tentatively posted
something and there was no response. Not that this always happened, and I've
noticed that in recent times, almost every first-timer has been answered by
somebody, and always encouragingly. Being replied-to, even if only briefly,
makes a big difference to feeling part of the group.

And it is certainly daunting to see a long-standing discussion (make that
argument sometimes) between two people who are obviously expert in the field
they share. The sheer degree of knowledge and the temporary focussing of the
relationship can feel like a barrier that you can't reasonably or politely
penetrate.

However, even when the main contributors seem to be just focussed on each
other, it is pretty clear they are aware of the audience. Not beyond playing
to it as well, at times ... :-)

I think that sorting out the dynamics that work best is quite a trick. The
way these lists work seems to be that you can address the whole group, or
dialog with just one person but, if you do the latter, the understanding is
that it is public to the group and anyone can join in or make comments.
Perhaps this needs to be made more obvious from time to time. I've noticed a
few different expectations on this from different people.

But the sheer economics of time and energy play perhaps the single biggest
role. It takes time to write a message, time to read the messages, and
there's clearly a self-limiting process here. As the group gets bigger, it
becomes more difficult for those who wish to participate to do so, just
because all of us have limited budgets of time. Imagine if the group
contained 1000 people, all as prolific in writing as we are. You'd end up
tuning in to only a small fraction of the people and discussions, with
e-mail filters running red hot. I have felt a lot of frustration over the
last few months about not being able to participate as much as I wanted to,
because of lack of time to do so.

So the tendency towards fragmentation and formation of new groups has quite
a natural basis in addition to whatever personal factors arise, even though
there may be some pain in the process. It's not just a sign of badness or
failure, whatever lurking unhappy feeling it tends to generate.

I am sorry to see disappointment amongst several people but, as I said
elsewhere recently, I believe we're seeing some of the dynamics of families
here, and they're not always comfortable. Everybody can do something about
keeping them away from being pathological, though, and as a Buddhist friend
of mine says, "uncomfortable is OK", taken in the right sense.

I'm glad you spoke up, Lynn, and the others who have. A breath of fresh air
that should give contributors a bit to think about.

And just for the record: I really, really do like to hear from new people!

Murray