[net.general] Message Clutter

dan (07/28/82)

Message clutter is indeed a problem, however, Greg Guthrie's analysis
was a little simple.  An analysis of HIS message yields the following.

   MESSAGE AND HEADER      MESSAGE ONLY
     #  per cent  char       #  per cent  char
   --------------------    --------------------
   188  26.075%   < >      179  29.833%   < >
    22   3.051%   <\n>      18   3.000%   <\n>
 total  29.126           total  32.833%

lines          bytes        contents
-----          -----        ----------------
    4 (18%)    121 (17%)    header
   18 (82%)    600 (83%)    message
   22          721          message & header

Therefore, the actual message content was 67.167% of 600 bytes, which
is 403 bytes, or only 56% of the total size of the article!

Waste, is unaviodable, even in medium sized messages.  Therefore,
Mr. Guthre has a good point: that every message could contain some
significant information, and that chatter be minimized (as my grandpa
used to say, "Remember, nothin's free.").

					Dan Ulrich
					pur-ee!dan