Re: Whatever happened to the nanogirl?
- From: Jim Logajan <JamesL@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 30 May 2005 05:32:52 -0000
Kirk Reiser <kirk@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> It used to be we were inundated with people or organizations putting
> out a weekly news letter or digest of all the happenings they knew
> about in the nanotech world. I don't believe we have had any such
> digest/news letters in many months. I myself am particularly fond of
> the nanogirl news letter but in the land of none would be sated by
> any.
I believe Gina Miller moderates the following Yahoo group, where it
appears she still posts her digest:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nanotech/
She says she also has a "news digest only" group, which she mentions on
that page.
I'll ask her if it is okay if we can copy her digests to this group. I'd
understand if she declined.
> Some folks spend time browsing various web sites or subscribing to
> paper based magazines but I have always found that with a busy life
> unless it will fall, crash into my mailbox/news reader with a thud, I
> don't find the time to do the web grazing necessary to stay on top of
> what is going on.
I'm among those who spot-check a handful of sites on an extremely
irregular basis. None of them does a very good job, IMHO - but that is a
discussion for another thread, I think (if anyone is interested).
> It has also been discussed here recently that we have not enough
> traffic to keep a poor lonely moderator or two busy approving and
> denying articles. I would like to posit that partly that may be
> because we don't have any news drifting across our desks, virtual
> anyway to provoke discussion and information passing. I believe to
> have conversations about any subject you must have a source of
> inspiration which I think the digests used to supply to some degree.
>
> Lamentation mode off!
In order to locate Gina's Yahoo group (it's been a while) I searched for
the keyword "nanotechnology" and Yahoo returned 172 groups that dealt
with nanotechnology in one form or another - and I estimate that the
charters of about two thirds of them call for discussion of
nanotechnology exclusively!
Gina's group appears to be the largest, with over 2000 members, and has
averaged ~92 posts a month the last 12 months (versus ~74 for Usenet's
sci.nanotech for the same period[*]). But in looking at the raw posting
numbers, it looks to me like both the Usenet sci.nanotech and the Yahoo
nanotech groups peaked around 2000 and 2001. Hmmm.
Anyway, it appears that the large number of forums on Yahoo and other web
sites - most of which have only a handful of members, has probably
diluted the impact of everyone's voice. In my humble opinion, the
nanotech-only news sites and nanotech-only blogs that allow readers to
post comments really don't qualify as discussion forums, since only the
site owner can start a new "thread".
[*] http://groups-beta.google.com/group/sci.nanotech/about
.
- References:
- Whatever happened to the nanogirl?
- From: Kirk Reiser
- Whatever happened to the nanogirl?
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