In article <d1hmpq$gei$1@bent.twistedbits.net>, josh@omg-stfu.com ("Josh
Battles") writes:
> If we're a "family," we're pretty a disfunctional one. I see where you're
> going with this though, it seems that the DML is always there because
> there's such a large member base and everything is all voluntary. If you
> don't make it to a meet that's cool, eventually you'll make it to one (or
> not) and get to meet the people you've gotten to know through the online
> part of the club. As far as structure goes though, we're all slackers who
> can (and do) sit around shooting the breeze all day tossing back a few cold
> ones. The shenanigans make the DML what it is, it wouldn't be as fun if we
> didn't have them. I think that any new attendees to the BBQ this year will
> probably be able to tell us that one of the reasons they're going to attend
> is because of all the fun (read: shenanigans) that we have/do while we're
> there.
>
> The first BBQ that I made it to I thought about something... The only
> person in attendence that I had met before the BBQ was going to be Barry,
> and that was only because I'd met him at earlier DML meets. I thought about
> this and came to the conclusion that while we may not know eachother IRL, we
> definately know eachother over the internets, and by the time a BBQ rolls
> around, most of the members have had enough time to actually get to "know"
> eachother so that when they're there together there's always lots to talk
> about. Of course it helps that we're all geeks and gearheads too, not to
> mention that some of us have "been there done that" or maybe even designed
> something that'll "do that" or make "that" better.
>
> The broad member base that we have here is what makes the DML so successful.
> Well, that and the email format. Any yahoo can join an internet message
> board and post nonsense but you have to really want to be a memeber, to be a
> member of an email list. Granted, we may not stay on topic all the time (or
> ever) but there's a definate sense of community here that I've yet to find
> on another list/board of this type. I do belong to a few private
> messageboards that have the sense of community we have here, but those are
> all very small by comparison - 20 or 30 members to the DML's hundreds.
Mary and Patty had things going very well. We had about 20 to 30 members,
that is true, but most of the things we did, we had about 75% or better
participation.
Hey, if things don't go well with the gang, I will just have to be a DMLer.
Dean
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Apr 01 2005 - 00:13:21 EST