Re: [UG-ADMINS] Mailing lists

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I figured I'd chime in late and mention a few things based on =
experiences over the years=E2=80=A6

In my responses below, =E2=80=9Cwe=E2=80=9D means Nashville PHP. :-)

> I'm curious - and no, I'm not going to ask you to mail something to =
your
> mailing list for me - how often do you mail to your mailing list?

Very, very rarely. We usually just rely on Meetup.com to automatically =
email our members to remind them about meetings.

> Is your list  discussion list (meetup.com) or a broadcast list =
(mailchimp)?

When we do mail all our members, we use the =E2=80=9Cannouncement=E2=80=9D=
 list functionality on meetup.com. I turned off the discussion =
functionality (more about that below).

> If your list is a discussion list, how many emails per week? (aprox)
>=20
> Aprox how many do you have on your list?

According to meetup.com, 1098 of our 1183 members have opted to receive =
messages from the organizers (more on that below).

> Last one. What is the one thing you've done in the past year that has =
had
> the biggest impact on yuor list? (an email that you sent out that =
generated
> discussion, a rule you put in place, whatever)

Nothing sticks out in my mind that we=E2=80=99ve done in the past year, =
but I did want to write a few lines about experiences using mailing =
lists.

TL;DR: I can=E2=80=99t get group members to participate in mailing list =
discussions. So, I=E2=80=99ve just given up and disabled group mailing =
lists.

The best experience I had with discussion lists was 14 years ago when =
Atlanta PHP was just getting started. Hans at New York PHP had a =
super-active discussion list running on ezmlm. At the time, the PHP =
general mailing list was also extremely active; it=E2=80=99s where most =
people I knew went to ask questions for help (in the days before Stack =
Overflow, etc.). Atlanta PHP reached out to Hans and he offered to host =
discussion lists for Atlanta PHP on the same servers that hosted the New =
York PHP lists.

Back then, we had a fair amount of discussion on our lists. Over the =
years, I kept hearing complaints about not having forums, so I set up =
FUDforum because it had the ability to integrate with a listserv, =
allowing you to use web-based forums and mailing lists without =
separating the communication (before the days of Google Groups). A lot =
of good discussion continued there for a while.

Somewhere along the way, it just fizzled out though. (Chris Spruck can =
probably pick up the story as it relates to Atlanta PHP from here.)

After rebooting the Nashville PHP group in 2010, I set up a Google =
Group. We had a little bit of discussion there over the years, but I was =
always bothered by something: We had 1000+ members on meetup.com who had =
opted-in to receive emails there, but we had only 300 members on the =
Google Group. Each time I sent out an announcement, I had to send it to =
both lists. Over time, the only posts to the Google Group were my =
announcements and recruiter job postings, which were very few and far =
between (and also very light on information, despite instructions =
detailing how to post).

Eventually, I decided to close the Google Group, close the forums on =
meetup.com, and just stick to the meetup.com mailing list, which I left =
open for all to post, but no one ever did=E2=80=A6 until recently.

A few months back, a recruiter posted something (the only post ever from =
someone to this list besides my announcements), and then a member posted =
a snide comment back to them (and the entire list), and several heated =
messages were exchanged. I then received private messages from a few =
people saying that if the list was going to be open to recruiters, they =
were just going to leave the group (of course, these are people who =
never attend meetings anyway). I decided to close that list, as well, =
thus ending my long experiment with user groups and mailing lists.

Email is the most important means of communication to me, so it pains me =
to disable these forms of communication, but I don=E2=80=99t see the =
value in maintaining them any longer, when they aren=E2=80=99t important =
communication channels to the majority of our members.

Right now, the most important communication channel for the majority of =
our members is Slack. I=E2=80=99m horrible about keeping up with things =
there, so I often get left out of a lot of the decisions being made by =
the group, but it=E2=80=99s what the rest of the group wants, and I=E2=80=99=
ve learned to be okay with that. :-)

Cheers,
Ben


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