Mike Lyle wrote:
BoyPete wrote:
Mike Lyle wrote:
[...]
My theory about rec.ponds, if that's the wrecked group you meant, was
that its user base was too small to swamp the trolls, and that was
because it was too specialised.

I would disagree with 'specialised' I have a garden with a pond, I'm not a
Koi person who spends thousands of pounds on their setup. It is for people
like me, and I susoect several others here, that I want this forum created.
[...]

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I didn't mean "for specialists", but simply "too
narrow in focus". I don't know how many UK gardeners who use newsgroups
also have ponds, but I'd guess that it was too small a number to
sustain a newsgroup. I don't know what the "critical mass" for a group
is, but an example which comes to mind is Iceland. I've recently
visited, and adored it; I also have interests in the language issues,
environmental questions, and wildlife; and as soon as I got home I
searched for newsgroups on Iceland. Nothing worth a moment's mousing.
That must simply be a question of numbers: Iceland has a pop. of about
280 thousand, and I suppose the real foreign devotees like me probably
number a few thousand at most. So a population of, let's guess, 300
thousand may not be enough to support an intelligent newsgroup. I know
my stats are highly suspect: there will be good ones in Icelandic, of
course; but they'll probably be based around the university or special
interest groups. How many UK gardeners are there? And how many of them
have even _heard_ of newsgroups, let alone want to join in? Divide that
by pond-owners, and you see where I'm going.

The main reason why you do not find any Icelanders writing in
newsgroups is not a lack of online Icelanders, Icelanders are
per-capita among the biggest net users in the world, it is because
newsgroups is not used by Icelanders in general any more, nowadays
everyone (almost) have their own blog site and if anyone wants to air
his views of gardening he does so on the blog.