Re: ulk lurkers thread

On Tue, 1 Nov 2005 20:17:25 -0000, "Mick" <Mick@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>You've made a good point. But my guess is the problem here was, I say
>was as I think it's faded away recently as new names are appearing weekly,
>that many of the "regulars" had met each other. Bringing a bunch of people
>together who have nothing in common except posts to a newsgroup is a sure
>route to disaster.

I have to say I disagree with that. And I can imagine that for many
people it must be tempting to meet in the real world people with whom
they have grown familiar on usenet. It's often not possible as people
are spread far and wide, but Kent is not far and wide so assuming most
of the participants are indeed from the county in question meeting up
is a real possibility and I would not blame people for wishing to do
so.

In fact the results can be quite the reverse. Due to some freak of
nature, despite having posted on rsc (as detailed before) for some 11
years I have never once met any of the English contributors. I did
however meet one of the Australian contributors in a visit to Sydney
in 1997. We had never got on in exchanges on the group and I thought
it would be fascinating to meet him so I offered to buy him a drink
when I was his city. He took up the offer and we got on very well. I
wasn't in Sydney again for another four years but when I went back he
arranged a meet up of about half a dozen other Aussie contributors and
I had an excellent evening. None of us were planning life long
friendships, it didn't change any of our views on the sport we love,
but we did have a good laugh over a beer or three.

>For example, I don't know you and you don't know me,
>we can only guess what the other is like by our posts. If we met it's
>probable that one of us would be disappointed and then that would
>introduce awkwardness in our future posts.

Again, I disagree. True, you don't know me, and those people who have
met me from newsgroups are generally surprised at what they get. Take
the guy in Sydney, he was expecting someone much older (I was 21). But
it depends on what you want out of a group. If you are strictly going
to stick the newsgroups as a means of escape from the real world then
yes, you would not want to meet people, but if that is not your
intention then why not meet people?

As it is, I stand by my suggestion that the group appears to be such a
members only club because of the low traffic levels and restricted
topics.... and a there being a certain, if not overwhelming, element
of truth to it.
.

Relevant Pages