Listservs: Online Communities for Grownups

But here’s the big surprise: the civic behavior that we didn’t observe was making and seeking charitable donations. Although we read (OK, skimmed) thousands of e-mails over a three-month period, we observed no calls for general support for this that or the other worthy local cause. We collected no appeals to sponsor anyone’s walk/ride/swim to clean up a river or save some endangered animal. We could count the announcements for benefit concerts, picnics and related events on one hand.