[Tango-L] Tango-L Survey Part 4: What Tango fora ARE people using now?

[Shahrukh Merchant]

On the question as to what other Tango fora people were using (or had in 
the last 3 years), about 1/2 the respondents had one and just under half 
of those had two. Here is the breakdown of the groups by number.

Here is the breakdown along with a "quality" designation by the 
respondents (Active(+)=Active and interesting, Active(-)=Active but 
uninteresting or annoying, Light=Light Traffic, Dead=Essentially Dead)

23 Facebook Total - Breakdown below
	4 Tango Dinosaurs on FB - Light(4)
	2 Terpsi on FB - Active(+)(2)
	2 Fifi on FB - Light(1), Active(+)(1)
	2 Tango Reformation Party on FB - Light(1), Active(+)(1)
	1 Asociation Internacional de Tango on FB - Active(+)
	1 New Generation Tango on FB - Active(+)
	1 Flor de Tango on FB - Active(-)
	1 El Corte on FB - Light(1)
	1 Tango Revolution - Active(-)
	9 Various/unspecified on FB - Dead(2), Light(3), Active(-)(1), Active(+)(3)
7 TangoDJ - Dead(1), Light(5), Active(+)(1)
2 ATOF - Light(2)
2 Tango Lyrics - Dead
2 Danceforums - Active+(2)
1 Tango Connections - Dead
1 Tango-A - Light(1)
1 Couchsurfing - Light(1)
1 Google+ unspecified - Active(+)

(5 listed local groups, but since the instructions requested excluding 
them--most Tango dancers would be on their local groups to find out 
about stuff going on--these are not listed above.)

Nothing emerges as an obvious candidate to recommend for people seeking 
a (written) Tango fix somewhere, but some of you may wish to try these 
out. The most active individual group was TangoDJ, which now seems to be 
essentially inactive as well. Facebook altogether had 23 respondents, 
but no individual group had more than 4. No group was rated "Active and 
Interesting" by more than 2 people.

The overall "quality" ratings were as follows (but probably the 
individual ratings above are more useful).
	30% Active and Interesting
	10% Active but boring/spammy/annoying
	45% Light Traffic
	15% Dead

My own opinion is that Facebook groups are useless for anything like a 
discussion. They are fine for publicity or as a blog alternative if 
there is one primary poster, but responses tend to be superficial at 
best, with 1- or 2-line commentary, invariably without any meaningful 
content. But that is the design of Facebook: quantity of "connections" 
(rather than quality of content). You're supposed to feel good that 
someone responded, however trivially, or even just "liked" your post. 
This may well be a good model, but it's not one conducive to discussion, 
intelligent or otherwise (nor, of course, designed or intended to be so).

The other most active and popular groups seem to be blog-like in nature, 
with postings largely by one person. This is fine and could be 
interesting, though it is hierarchical and limited in the sense that 
there is just one main poster. Tango discourse seems to have disappeared 
(which is perhaps just a reflection of the maturity of the genre).

Shahrukh