Too much electronica

One of the more cogent points raised in the flurry of activity on the Baronial Facebook page over the past day or two was that we are too splintered -- that our profusion of mailing lists for the various activities has wound up worsening the atomizing of the Barony.

Here's another aspect of that: we have *way* too many different electronic media that we're split among. I was just realizing that, when I posted to the Carolingian LJ about running for Baron, that I'd better also post to the Baronial mailing list, so I did so. And then I realized that maybe I should post to the Facebook group. And my own LJ, and Google+, and and and.

Not quite sure what to do about this. Everybody's got their own preferences online, and the War Of Facebook is pretty serious: some people completely live on it, and some hate it with a burning passion. I think the Baronial mailing list is still the most central organ we have, but in practice we haven't been using it enough, not least because mailing lists are a mediocre way to have deep discussions. But the fragmenting means that, even if I post something to all of the different media, it means that the Barony winds up having half a dozen *separate* conversations about the topic, instead of one unified one.

All a reminder that online social media are a two-edged sword. They're useful in many ways, and I don't really regret having them available, but I often long for more genuine face-to-face conversations among the Barony...

Too much electronica

One of the more cogent points raised in the flurry of activity on the Baronial Facebook page over the past day or two was that we are too splintered -- that our profusion of mailing lists for the various activities has wound up worsening the atomizing of the Barony.

Here's another aspect of that: we have *way* too many different electronic media that we're split among. I was just realizing that, when I posted to the Carolingian LJ about running for Baron, that I'd better also post to the Baronial mailing list, so I did so. And then I realized that maybe I should post to the Facebook group. And my own LJ, and Google+, and and and.

Not quite sure what to do about this. Everybody's got their own preferences online, and the War Of Facebook is pretty serious: some people completely live on it, and some hate it with a burning passion. I think the Baronial mailing list is still the most central organ we have, but in practice we haven't been using it enough, not least because mailing lists are a mediocre way to have deep discussions. But the fragmenting means that, even if I post something to all of the different media, it means that the Barony winds up having half a dozen *separate* conversations about the topic, instead of one unified one.

All a reminder that online social media are a two-edged sword. They're useful in many ways, and I don't really regret having them available, but I often long for more genuine face-to-face conversations among the Barony...