Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!rutgers!cbmvax!snark!eric
From: eric@snark.UUCP (Eric S. Raymond)
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.misc
Subject: Re: Statistics by article (was: A request for a new news feature)
Message-ID: <267@snark.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 10-Nov-87 09:38:32 EST
Article-I.D.: snark.267
Posted: Tue Nov 10 09:38:32 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Nov-87 04:43:19 EST
References: <1381@cartan.Berkeley.EDU>
Organization: Somewhere in Hyperspace
Lines: 29
Summary: No, it's not that hard
Xref: mnetor news.admin:1371 news.misc:1124
Discussion: <33321@sun.uucp>


In article <1987Nov6.124824.20374@sq.uucp>, msb@sq.UUCP writes:
> This is an intriguing idea, but there are technical problems.
> The basic problem is that you can't tell, just because the image
> remains on the screen for a long time, that the reader is really
> reading that article.

I finessed the problems you point out by not recording reading time, only the
fact that you've seen the text of an article and whether you praised or
condemned it.

> Besides that, admins might not care for the extra system load...
> if I was in that position, I'd be inclined to turn if off, just like
> other accounting logs.

Not necessary. It's really cheap. My news readers keep a trail of where-you've
been locations (the '-' command works to *arbitrary* depth). At the end of the
session I run through the trail, appending a small record to a logfile with
write(2) (for atomicity, and to avoid the buffering overhead). It all happens
so fast you don't even notice the delay after typing 'q'.

As for space...I suppose the file could get large if you had lots of readers
reading lots of stuff -- but that's why you want to run an abstract generator
on it every night, truncating the logfile when you do it. Once a month you
optionally ship your results off to a central collection point. It's ll very
painless, really.
-- 
      Eric S. Raymond
      UUCP:  {{seismo,ihnp4,rutgers}!cbmvax,sdcrdcf!burdvax,vu-vlsi}!snark!eric
      Post:  22 South Warren Avenue, Malvern, PA 19355    Phone: (215)-296-5718