Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!shadooby!samsung!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!oz.cis.ohio-state.edu!jgreely From: jgreely@oz.cis.ohio-state.edu (J Greely) Newsgroups: news.misc Subject: Re: Articles most often cited in comp.all Message-ID: Date: 15 Nov 89 11:33:45 GMT References: <9200@elsie.UUCP> Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Reply-To: J Greely Organization: Ohio State University Computer and Information Science Lines: 52 In-reply-to: news@elsie.UUCP's message of 12 Nov 89 18:45:38 GMT In article <9200@elsie.UUCP> news@elsie.UUCP (news) writes: >Here are ranks, counts, and Message-IDs (and subjects, authors, and >newsgroups if available) of the articles that appeared most often in >comp.all References: lines in articles received here over the last two >weeks. I think I'm going to have to ask how you do your counting, since your statistics don't jibe with mine at all. My first guess is that elsie.UUCP expires news in less than two weeks, and my second is that your program has a bug or three. I was initially suspicious because the counts felt wrong for groups that I read, and after taking a few hours and rolling my own program (in Perl, naturally), I pretty much confirmed it. My number one article in comp.all for the period between October 29 and November 12 (midnight to midnight) isn't even in your list: 1 33 comp.sys.atari.st TT's VME-slots Interestingly, all but two of the 33 articles counted arrived here during the first seven days of the period, which reinforces my impression that you're expiring early. Moving on, your number one is my number three, and I've got six more references: > 1 24 <17707@watdragon.waterloo.edu> 3 30 comp.arch Unsafe at any speed <17707@watdragon.waterloo.edu> So, just how are you going about producing your figures? And how long does a run take? And do you plan on posting the code to alt.sources? I ask because I've actually grown to like the idea behind your actions, and see potential for it on a personal level, as a watchdog over newsgroups I don't normally read. I'll probably set my program to run automatically every few days and mail me the output. My trial runs found several threads in misc and rec that I want to check out (and there is a mild curiosity brewing about "Harmless Revenge" in soc.singles...). "They *are* a nasty looking bunch!" "We might need some help." "I've got the Swiss Army Knife..." "Ah, then we're all set." -=- J Greely (jgreely@cis.ohio-state.edu; osu-cis!jgreely)