Xref: utzoo news.admin:7881 news.groups:15332 Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!looking!brad From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) Newsgroups: news.admin,news.groups Subject: Re: Fixing the unbroken Message-ID: <56804@looking.on.ca> Date: 5 Dec 89 04:12:51 GMT References: <55499@looking.on.ca> <11941@cbnews.ATT.COM> Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd. Lines: 66 Class: discussion In article <11941@cbnews.ATT.COM> wbt@cbnews.ATT.COM (William B. Thacker,00440,cb,1D211,6148604019) writes: >In article <55499@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes: >> >>But I would like to see the "it isn't broken" advocates come out with >>some evidence to support the claim that this system *is* working. > >Usenet continues to grow. People aren't giving it up in droves. >*Somebody* sure seems to think it's doing well. Do you suggest USENET grows because we have such a nice voting system to pick groups with? Sorry, but I fail to see how you drew this conclusion. Anecdotal evidence does say people have left USENET in droves. Of the active netters of the early days, only a very few still take an active role. At places like Usenix and Unix expo I regularly get the chance to ask people if they read USENET, and I very frequently get the answers, "used to," "too noisy" or "don't have the time." Brian's stat, "Percentage of users who are netreaders" isn't all that meanigful, but it has dropped about 2-3% this year. > >Do you still stick with your earlier claim that a group should average at >least one reader per site according to arbitron ? I have never agreed >with this belief. Actually, I would probably require 1/2 or 1/3 reader per site, but I don't know how you can disagree with this, given the assumption of accurate readership measurement. The alternative is to suggest we send groups to thousands of machines where nobody reads them. The question that the guidelines try to answer, don't forget, is, "what groups by default should go to all machines." NOT, "which are the best groups." NOT, "which are the most interesting." NOT, "which have the most technical value." At the very least we should not run around picking groups that will not be read on most machines! > >>My examination of readership from sites that report it says that this system >>has done rather poorly. It has created very few groups that have reached the >>highest levels of readership > >A useless statement. It is a mathematical axiom that no more than 5% of >the sample can be in the top 5%. My analysis said it was far worse than that, and in particular, if you recall, that "alt" groups and groups created against the guidelines (a "control base" if you will) had as good a track record of getting good readership. >I guess I don't understand. Are you saying that there are many >potentially widely-read groups that are somehow being suppressed by the >current guidelines ? If so, why haven't any of the tens of thousands of >interested parties proposed them ? Yes. For example many groups that get created in alt. Many groups that don't get created because nobody wants the messy, time-consuming job of running a net vote. Remember Brian Reid's post of a while ago. "Here's a group that would be of interest, but I have no desire to go through the silly guideline procedure. Would somebody else please do that for me?" He was lucky, Salz did. But what about splitting ibm.pc? It's been suggested at least a dozen times, been done to a degree, in alt, but nobody has seen it through. -- Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473 Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com