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From: reid@pa.dec.com (Brian Reid)
Newsgroups: trial.newgroups
Subject: arbitron
Message-ID: <1991May20.014357.24101@pa.dec.com>
Date: 20 May 91 01:43:57 GMT
Article-I.D.: pa.1991May20.014357.24101
Sender: news@pa.dec.com (News)
Organization: DEC Western Research
Lines: 22

You are right that arbitron no longer measures what it used to measure, but
it does still measure something. I'm just not quite sure what that something
is.

When the NNTP spec was first circulated 6 years ago, I pointed out that this
protocol would make reader measurement impossible and asked them to change
it. They ignored this request, and the current NNTP spec makes it virtually
impossible to measure readership accurately. I guess they didn't share my
belief that readership was important.

Stan Barber and Brian Kantor tell me that the new NNTP spec will have in it a
protocol that will permit readership measurement. I would be delighted to
retire the 7-year-old arbitron technology in favor of this more modern
technique just as soon as it becomes workable.

About Spaf and the rules: it is definitely past time to apoint a new King of
USENET. It was past time 5 years ago, but not very many people noticed.
Spaf became King more or less because he announced that he was King. I think
that if enough people offer their fealty to a new USENET King, he or she
could be duly crowned.

Brian