[net.misc] Why articles are read ?

mem (11/05/82)

c
I thought it might be interesting to present and perhaps discuss
why particular articles are read.  Here is my list of determining
factors, in decreasing order of importance (most effective first):

- who it is from.  If the sender is known to have interesting
  articles, any article by that person is read.

- The newsgroup it is in.

- The subject line.  A "Re: " often gets a negative rating.  An 
  original and interesting subject line attracts attention.

- Length of the article.  Even if I'm not interested, I'll read
  a 3-line article.

- Total amount of recent sleep.

I can't think of any others, I'm too sleepy.

Mark Mallett

ARPAVAX:UNKNOWN:conde (11/06/82)

I agree with you. I tend to not be satisfied unless I page through all
the articles I am "supposed" to read, but whenever I am out of time,
I just tend to have them continuously scroll through the screen. Good
Subject lines are the ones that catch me the most, but when people
are flaming on the same subject for a while, I tend to skip over a
hashed over issue, and therefore miss some good ones. The issue,
I believe, is hopeless. We are all drowning in so many artices, that
we won't read them.
dan