Hi fever,

I've been away for some time - though I have popped in now and then to see how things are going - so I'm not really informed on recent happenings - but I thought it might be relevant to mention John Suler's Life Cycle of Mailing Lists...

Final state of an online discussion is either...

6a. Smug complacency and stagnation (the purists flame everyone who asks an 'old' question or responds with humor to a serious post; newbies are rebuffed; traffic drops to a doze-producing level of a few minor issues; all interesting discussions happen by private email and are limited to a few participants; the purists spend lots of time self-righteously congratulating each other on keeping off-topic threads off the list).

OR

6b. Maturity (a few people quit in a huff; the rest of the participants stay near stage 4, with stage 5 popping up briefly every few weeks; many people wear out their second or third 'delete' key, but the list lives contentedly ever after).
(from http://www.rider.edu/users/suler/psycyber/lifelist.html)

In other words, these things are absolutely normal from time to time. As long as the monastery is closer to (b) than (a), there isn't too much to worry about... though your post seems timely and certainly contains much good advice.

IMHO, the solution for those who're getting wound up is simply to drop out for a few weeks - somehow everything'll seem to be at a much lower emotional pitch when you return.

All the best,
andye

In reply to Re: Ceasefire by andye
in thread Ceasefire by djantzen

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