Once upon a time I started and co-moderated an invite- and recommendation-only mailing list that drew its members from a few public lists, totalling 1500-2000 members. I think most of the people involved felt it was good at solving the problems you describe. One thing that we meant to set up (but never got around to) was a set of publically-searchable archives. The list wasn't meant to deprive the wider audience of the benefits of our discussions, just to prevent them from destroying the conversations with noise.
In retrospect I think restricting if and how much someone can post, based on the quality of their contributions, is a workable approach in many cases.
And yes, we had to deal with all the "you're being elitist" issues surrounding this. In many peoples' eyes, yes, we were. Some people we invited declined to join for that reason, and I respect that. But we were also sick and tired of seeing the most experienced and knowledgable memebers of those forums annoyed into silence and non-participation by noisy newbies.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-12-31 11:14 pm (UTC)In retrospect I think restricting if and how much someone can post, based on the quality of their contributions, is a workable approach in many cases.
And yes, we had to deal with all the "you're being elitist" issues surrounding this. In many peoples' eyes, yes, we were. Some people we invited declined to join for that reason, and I respect that. But we were also sick and tired of seeing the most experienced and knowledgable memebers of those forums annoyed into silence and non-participation by noisy newbies.