In my last email, I posted only the survey responses and kept my
comments to a minimum.
My own observations, tweaked by the survey responses, are as followed:
There are, in theory, 1000 members on Tango-A (slightly less than the
1200 on Tango-L). If we guess that 1/2 of active membership responded to
the survey, the 77 survey responses would imply about 150 active members
(a guess).
More than 1/2 of the respondents wanted the list to stay and would
resubcribe if it moved.
However, in terms of fulfilling its original purpose, I think it is fair
to say that "a small handful or organizers use it" to reach "an even
smaller handful of tango dancers."
My own thoughts echo two of the comments received in the survey:
"I'm afraid times have changed. Social networking now plays a much
larger role in connecting people and events than it did when the Tango-A
list was initially established. And there are so many events nowadays
that people sometimes just track favorite instructors schedules or pick
geographic locations they's like to visit and then follow up with social
media or local community website links and resources to learn about and
register for events they'd like to attend. The utility of Tango-A, once
very useful, does seem to have diminished."
and
"The list is only useful if people use it, not only to post events but
to find them. There are so many events these days and so relatively few
posts on Tango-A that I suspect people now are finding information in
other ways."
These two comments cover the crux of the matter, I think. If the list
covers such a small subset of possibly interest, and with no common
theme amongst the postings either (other than that the posters have
historically used Tango-A for ages), it's of limited use as a resource
since it's far from comprehensive. Of course, I picked these two
comments since they agree with my own point of view. But that point of
view is supported by the numbers.
For example, in the last 6 months, posting volume has been between 15-25
per month. In May 2006, it was 189 (averaged about 200/month in that
time period). So we have a 10-fold decrease from 200/month to 20/month,
during a 9-year period in which the number of Tango events has surely at
doubled. So it's more like a 20-fold "inflation adjusted" decrease.
At this point, I think the that the Tango-A list no longer makes sense
as a standalone list. So there are two possible outcomes:
1. If the Tango-L list continues (which is still up in the air, but to
be decided in the next few weeks), then Tango-A will be merged back with
it (that's kind of how they started out, actually), and maybe the
combined volume will justify its continuation.
2. If Tango-L is discontinued, then Tango-A likely will be as well.
"But isn't that backwards?"
From the current activity (20/month on Tango-A vs. essentially 0 on
Tango-L except for the recent flurry owing to the survey), this seems
backwards, since Tango-A actually *has* activity. But Tango-A has a very
specific purpose of letting tangueros worldwide know about Tango events
worldwide which it is no longer fulfilling except in a miniscule way
(Google and pages with Festival calendars, etc., are way better for this
now). From being a mainstream announcement list, it is now a niche based
largely on inertia.
Tango-L, on the other hand, really has no equivalent or obvious
replacement even now, but has rather been pushed aside by various
factors that I expounded on in my recent post on Tango-L. So one is more
reluctant to eliminate it, though of course the bottom line ultimately
is whether anyone continues to use it.
Stay tuned ... and feel free to comment.
Regards,
Shahrukh
