lampman@heurikon.UUCP (Ray Lampman) (04/18/89)
It seems unanimous! All of the responses, I've received, support the idea of
a Usenet census. No one thought the idea should be abandoned. And about 1/3
of those responding offered to assist in the project.
At this point, I'd like to attempt a definition of the project. A census
is a `complete enumeration of a population'. And Usenet is `an interacting
population of various kind of individuals in a common location', or, in
other words, Usenet is a community. Given constraints on time and resources,
it seems unlikely we'll succeed in a complete enumeration of the Usenet
population. We should, however, be able to carry out a rather detailed survey
of the Usenet community. So, let's define the Usenet Census as, simply,
"a collection of questions the community
would like the community to answer."
If this definition is acceptable, the next order of business becomes designing
the actual census survey. Keep in mind the survey responses must be collected
and summarized in some, hopefully, automatic way. I'm prepared to accept
suggestions for topic areas to be covered by the survey. Better yet, just
email the actual questions you'd like placed on the survey, I'll collect and
summarize for later discussion.
We should be able to distribute the survey to the community sometime near the
end of 1989, and have results collected and summarized by early 1990. The
1990 USENET CENSUS is coming, watch for it in your favorite news groups. :-)
--
I say what it occurs to me to say, when I | Ray Lampman, voice: 608 2763431
think I hear people say things, more I can | Madison, Wisconsin, USA, Earth
not say. Oh, my cat, I call him `Moose'. | uunet!uwvax!heurikon!lampman