Post in Online Communities of Practice

Apr 22 16:09 UTC

Agree with pete on this one, i've personally never got on well with
email based lists, and on more than one occasion i've taken a group
across from an email list form of communicating to an online forum
and seen a huge increase in participation. The main factor people
found beneficial with email lists was the ability to download emails,
rather than having to stay online to discuss things. The advent of
fixed cost broadband seems to have done away with this problem for a
great many though. There's definitely an element of quaintness in
email lists too.

Would be interested to know if it is a generational thing (certainly
the places where forums have worked better are with young people) or
if it's something else. There are communities of practice out there
working forums really, really well, but just not in this field it
seems. Suspect it's something to do with the huge amount of work
getting forums to work requires, email based lists probably take
less. There's also the factor that other areas often hold a greater
initial attraction to their target membership than does public
policy, so the issue of keeping people engaged and re-engaged is
significantly smaller.

Anyone know of any comparative studies on these two areas?