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From: robs@uottawa.UUCP (Robert Stanley Cognos Projec)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: 1% of the readers post 80% of the news
Message-ID: <214@uottawa.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Jun-87 10:56:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: uottawa.214
Posted: Thu Jun 18 10:56:40 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 19-Jun-87 03:37:07 EDT
References: <2952@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Reply-To: robs@uottawa.UUCP (Robert Stanley)
Organization: University of Ottawa, CSI Dept., Canada
Lines: 35
Summary: here and elsewhere too

In article <2952@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> mangler@cit-vax.UUCP writes:
>Everybody knows that relatively few people contribute most of
>the news articles....

What I find even more interesting is that these same few people appear to
fill the same role in almost all on-line fora.  The same signatures are to
be found across most of the major networked services, such as CompuServe,
Delphi, Genie, etc.  I suspect (but from a very restricted personal sample)
that these same people are major players down to the local BBS level.
However, the BBS also attract the 'amateur' world, who are only computer
users in the privacy of their own homes, and not as their major source of
income.

>It looks like about 1% of the readers are "regular" posters, and
>everybody else either never posts, or only posts requests for info.

By inspection this would appear to be so, but this is similar to other
forms of social intercourse and technological gatekeeping.  In all areas of
human endeavour there are single voices which are heard as the definitive
word.  What is interesting in netland is that these voices are truly
divorced from all social prejudices other than those they choose to reveal
in their own words.  The two obvious common characteristics of the members
of this 1% are that they are professional users of computers, and that they
devote a great deal of time to being on-line.

>The posters ultimately determine the character of Usenet.  It may
>behoove us to know something about their demographics.

The demography would be interesting, but more the social and physical
environments than the geographical, which for perhaps the first time in
human history has been transcended absolutely.  Speaking for myself, a
low-sleep, batchelor, computer addict (with a 20+ year habit), I wonder how
many of these 1% voices share at least two of these properties? :=}

Robert_S