brad@looking.UUCP (10/02/87)
While scanning the recent news readership surveys, I noted that a number of groups have readership popularity figures that far outstrip their propogation. These are groups that are either a) recent, b) controversial or c) not fully propogated due to network losses during their creation. What prompted this was examination, of course, my own group, "rec.humor.funny" which only has a propagation figure of 60% in spite of the fact it has existed for two months. I note that when I divide readership by propagation, this group actually ranks third in net popularity. (plug, plug) I did a further check to see if any other groups were getting good readership, but poor propagation. If you are a site administrator, please make sure those groups below, marked with a "*" are making it to your machine. (In some cases, for example, "alt.flame", you may not wish to carry the group no matter how popular it is amongst readers.) I have marked a star on those groups whose "share" -- readership on those machines that get the group -- is way out of line with the actual readership ranking that was posted to news.lists. +-- Rank, full net predicted readership | | +-- Full net predicted readership (predicted readership / propogation) | | | | +-- Rank, existing predicted readership | | | | | | +-- Newsgroup | | | | V V V V 1 37113 1 news.announce.conferences 2 31111 3 misc.consumers.house * 3 30000 20 rec.humor.funny 4 28571 2 comp.sources.unix 5 25842 7 rec.humor 6 25806 5 misc.jobs.offered 7 25510 4 comp.sources.misc 8 23958 6 comp.sys.ibm.pc 9 23595 9 misc.forsale 10 22727 15 soc.singles 11 22222 8 comp.unix.wizards 12 21212 11 comp.sources.d 13 21212 10 comp.sources.wanted 14 20618 13 comp.lang.c 15 20618 12 comp.unix.questions 16 20202 14 news.groups * 17 19583 86 alt.sources 18 19387 18 comp.sources.bugs 19 19387 17 comp.sys.mac 20 19387 16 comp.sources.games 21 18750 21 comp.misc 22 18367 19 misc.wanted 23 17346 22 sci.med * 24 17333 228 alt.flame 25 16666 24 comp.graphics 26 16666 23 comp.arch * 27 16562 160 comp.lang.postscript 28 16494 25 comp.newprod 29 15957 28 comp.ai 30 15789 27 rec.arts.sf-lovers * 31 15200 277 alt.cyberpunk 32 15151 29 comp.bugs.4bsd.ucb-fixes 33 15151 26 news.misc 34 15053 30 misc.jobs.misc 35 14736 33 comp.windows.x * 36 14444 196 comp.theory 37 14432 35 comp.compilers 38 14432 34 comp.unix 39 14432 32 news.announce.newusers 40 14285 37 rec.arts.movies -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
reid@decwrl.dec.com (Brian Reid) (10/09/87)
In article <1002@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: >While scanning the recent news readership surveys, I noted that a number of >groups have readership popularity figures that far outstrip their propogation. >These are groups that are either a) recent, b) controversial or c) not fully >propogated due to network losses during their creation. >What prompted this was examination, of course, my own group, "rec.humor.funny" >which only has a propagation figure of 60% in spite of the fact it has existed >for two months. I note that when I divide readership by propagation, this >group actually ranks third in net popularity. (plug, plug) >I did a further check to see if any other groups were getting good readership, >but poor propagation. Patience, patience. It takes 6 months for any new group to get full propagation. Always has, always will. I've been taking data for several years, and haven't seen a single example of a group whose propagation has reached the 90% mark sooner than 4 or 5 months after its creation. There is no point in fudging the readership statistics to try to account for a transient phenomenon. 60% propagation after 2 months is remarkable. Relax. Everybody loves your newsgroup, even after the vulgar joke about the different kinds of tea, and in a few more months you'll see the 95%+ propagation that you deserve. Brian