On 19.12.2006 07:29, Trans wrote:
> Gavin Kistner wrote:
>> It's just you. :p I've not noticed any such situation. I've seen a rise in new user questions, many of
>> which are being handled by people other than the Top Ten Regulars (a list that exists only in my head,
>> and probably comprises 15 people). Any signal to 'noise' (depending on what you're looking for) ratio
>> will be affected by changes to either signal or noise. I suspect this is what's causing your perception.
> 
> yes. i'm sure that's part of it. i'm just not so sure that's all of it.

I believe that volume went significantly up in the group over the course 
of this year.

> some time ago i can recall long discussions on deep topics. today they
> seem very rare. and the topics themsevles seem pretty basic, yet i
> don't think the overall volume has gone up that much. actually, when's
> was the last ruby weekly news (http://www.rubyweeklynews.org/)? and i
> recall in the few of those, tim mentioning an interesting topic and
> saying "there's been no replys".

Personally, I post less because I lack interest in repeating discussions 
we had in the past.  And since there are more people around and more 
knowledgeable people as well, chances are that someone else has posted a 
reply that I would have; I try to prevent this kind of duplication as well.

Another reason is probably that it's more difficult to find interesting 
topics if overall volume goes up.  I would not call that signal to noise 
ratio because that has a negative connotation.  It is just that the 
ratio of topics that I am interested in went down - partly because of 
the change in traffic here, partly because my interests seem to have 
changed.

As a side note, I actually did not observe an increasing amount of 
heated debate - but then again, I'm probably better at ignoring it now 
and see less of it by my choice of topics. :-)

Kind regards

	robert