amos@taux01.UUCP (Amos Shapir) (05/08/89)
I also find the high number of reader somewhat exaggerated. I suspect that it includes all those who typed 'rn' instead of 'rm' once in the past 3 months... -- Amos Shapir amos@nsc.com National Semiconductor (Israel) P.O.B. 3007, Herzlia 46104, Israel Tel. +972 52 522261 TWX: 33691, fax: +972-52-558322 34 48 E / 32 10 N (My other cpu is a NS32532)
vnend@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (D. W. James) (05/09/89)
In article <3209@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes:
)With talk about the relative size of USENET, I took a look at the new
)number Brian has added to his arbitron reports, namely the number of
)newsreaders at the reporting sites. Here are the biggest ones:
)
) phoenix.princeton.edu 2137
)Now I, for one, find some of these numbers amazing. While I realize
)that sometimes these are actually combined reports for a network of
)machines, I find it hard to believe that there are over 10,000 net
)readers (not users, net readers) on 2 sites in Pittsburgh.
Nope, those numbers are users, not readers. Look at your
arbitron script Brad. (You don't run arbitron? Why not?) phoenix
has 2137 accounts, not all of which are used. We actually have
about 350 newsreaders.
Be glad that VM Netnews doesn't have an arbitron equivalent,
or the numbers would really be inflated...
)Where are these numbers coming from? Are they wrong? Or are they counting
)huge numbers of people who use netnews for local conferencing but don't
)read groups from the outside world? Some places, like the Well, which
)sells timesharing and Usenet access, I can understand. And big companies
)like Apple and Sequent belong up there.
Did you read the posting? It explicitly states that they are
generated by arbitron, what it is and how you can get it (and, hence, find
out how it gets its figures.) Your third question doesn't follow, since it
is based on an incorrect assumption.
)If it's not confidential, it would be interesting to see the individual
)arbitron reports from those six sites with over 2,000 readers.
I'll see. Yes, most of the top 50 groups locally are local groups.
Maybe I'll see about modifying arbitron enough to give me figures on how
many of our local readers only read local groups. But none of the sites
claimed 2000 readers, you are just misreading the data.
Note, also, that phoenix's figures are skewed *down* by our short
expiration time (now down to 5 days for most groups, but a month for local's,
which helps explain our local group's high ratings.)
--
Later Y'all, Vnend Ignorance is the mother of adventure.
SCA event list? Mail? Send to:vnend@phoenix.princeton.edu or vnend@pucc.bitnet
Anonymous posting service (NO FLAMES!) at vnend@ms.uky.edu
Love is wanting to keep more than one person happy.steved@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu (Steve Dempsey) (05/09/89)
> > With talk about the relative size of USENET, I took a look at the new > number Brian has added to his arbitron reports, namely the number of > newsreaders at the reporting sites. Here are the biggest ones: > > [#5] longs.lance.colostate.edu 2405 That's me (us)! > Now I, for one, find some of these numbers amazing. > Where are these numbers coming from? My arbitron script does something like this: nusers=`ypcat passwd | grep -v olduser | wc -l' to get ACTIVE users: people still enrolled here. Unless specifically requested, accounts are deactivated shortly after a person graduates, then completely purged much later. Without this, we would get even more spectacular results like this: % ypcat passwd | wc -l 3225 > Are they wrong? Within a factor of +/-100% :-) > Or are they counting > huge numbers of people who use netnews for local conferencing but don't > read groups from the outside world? I must admit that we have many folks who only read csu.* and ignore the rest of the net. These huge numbers are people who have access to news, not those who actually read it. The numbers posted for active readers of each group better reflect the actual readership. > If it's not confidential, it would be interesting to see the individual > arbitron reports from those six sites with over 2,000 readers. I'll mail mine to Brad and anyone else who cares. Statistics such as these should be taken with a grain of salt. After all, numbers can say anything you want them to if the appropriate math is applied. Steve Dempsey, Center for Computer Assisted Engineering Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523 +1 303 491 0630 INET: steved@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu, dempsey@handel.CS.ColoState.Edu UUCP: boulder!ccncsu!longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu!steved, ...!ncar!handel!dempsey
nagel@paris.ics.uci.edu (Mark Nagel) (05/09/89)
In article <3209@looking.UUCP>, brad@looking (Brad Templeton) writes: |With talk about the relative size of USENET, I took a look at the new |number Brian has added to his arbitron reports, namely the number of |newsreaders at the reporting sites. Here are the biggest ones: [deleted] | bonnie.ics.uci.edu 944 [deleted] |Now I, for one, find some of these numbers amazing. While I realize |that sometimes these are actually combined reports for a network of |machines, I find it hard to believe that there are over 10,000 net |readers (not users, net readers) on 2 sites in Pittsburgh. |Where are these numbers coming from? Are they wrong? Or are they counting |huge numbers of people who use netnews for local conferencing but don't |read groups from the outside world? Some places, like the Well, which |sells timesharing and Usenet access, I can understand. And big companies |like Apple and Sequent belong up there. You're interpreting the numbers incorrectly. Those numbers are the result of the arbitron programs "Number of Users" result, not the "Number of Netreaders" result. I'm sure that number is smaller at the other sites. I run the news for bonnie and can safely say that while we may have 944 passwd entries, we have only 185 users reading news: Host bonnie.ics.uci.edu Users 944 NetReaders 185 ReportDate Apr1989 SystemType news-arbitron-2.4 Mark Nagel @ UC Irvine, Department of Information and Computer Science +----------------------------------------+ ARPA: nagel@ics.uci.edu | Six plus six equals fourteen for large | UUCP: ucbvax!ucivax!nagel | values of six -- Dave Ackerman |
brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (05/09/89)
Yes, I realized my mistake (that the counts in the summary posting are user counts and not reader counts) shortly after making my posting and cancelled it. (That doesn't stop the followups) I got confused by the fact that the numbers given for some local sites seemed like the reader counts and not the user counts. UW, for example, is 8000 'users' and 990 'readers.' and the counts seemed to be in the reader range. Several people have written to confirm my belief that at a typical large site, almost all the top groups are local groups. So most of the readership of Usenet is local subnets, and by a wide margin it seems. It does not surprise me a lot. In spite of the 'world community' aspect that computer nets drive towards, people are still most interested in things local. The local groups are popular because, in most of them, you can still carry on a real discussion. They are smaller (per group) but there are more of them. I also suspect that local groups have a few other factors in their favour. If you actually live in the same city as somebody, or work at the same site, or attend the same school, you are far less likely the flame them. The emotional distancing of netnews doesn't apply as much. I wish there were some way we could get the emotional distancing out of worldwide netnews. (Actually, in the future, I believe WorldNet postings will probably consist of compressed video. [If you have the time to process, you can compress video quite a lot.] I wonder what this will do...) Some local groups are exceptions. Stanford's 'su.etc' has a volume that rivals talk.bizarre, and has flamefests. The flamefests there don't quite match real net flamefests, though. -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
rmtodd@uokmax.UUCP (Richard Michael Todd) (05/09/89)
In article <3209@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: >With talk about the relative size of USENET, I took a look at the new >number Brian has added to his arbitron reports, namely the number of >newsreaders at the reporting sites. Here are the biggest ones: > .... > uokmax 1278 Well, I'm a user at uokmax, and I know darn well there aren't that many netreaders here. There are roughly that many total users, but a quick run of the arbitron program shows that only 21 of the people read news. I suspect the other figures are similarly bogus--looks like Brian's counting total number of users at site, not total netreaders. >As a sidebar, I believe that a large majority of the '500,000' netreaders >reported in the survey only read local news. I have seen arbitron reports >from some large sites, and the local groups often make up the entire top >10, if not the top 20. The odd netwide group will sneak in, but by >and large the local groups are most of it. So remember, USENET is >mostly local groups, even though most of what you *see* is netwide groups. Frankly, I'm not sure I believe that. Maybe it's just a local phenomenon, but around here nobody reads just the local newsgroups; they get into netnews because of the (inter)national groups. Of course, this may be in part because ok.* goes to a grand total of 4 sites and rarely hits more than 1 message/month; other places may differ (e.g. DFW, which has enough Usenet sites to support its own set of high-traffic newsgroups). Still, it seems to me that the main appeal of Usenet to people is the globally-distributed groups, *not* the local ones. -- Richard Todd Fido:1:147/1 USSnail:820 Annie Court,Norman OK 73069 Try one of these: rmtodd@chinet.chi.il.us, rmtodd@killer.dallas.tx.us, rmtodd@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu or ...!sun!texsun!uokmax!rmtodd.
tale@pawl.rpi.edu (David C Lawrence) (05/10/89)
In article <3216@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
writes a lot about how local groups are really what most netters read
and analyzes why that might be so.
I don't think it is so; I think it is a matter of Arbitron reporting
statistics as it sees them without any regard for the real reasons
behind them.
I don't read any soc groups, for example. I read mostly comp, gnu and
news with some exceptions. There are, however, people here who
conversely read mostly only soc groups. We all tend to read rpi.*,
capdist.* and ny.*, though, because there simply isn't any traffic in
these local groups (excepting rpi.talk) and the minimal effort to
unsubscibe from the one article a month or so in a lot of these
groups, just isn't even bothered with. My thumb is resting on SPC,
not U. It's just easier to skip right past it.
Arbitron though (if it were running here, it is not yet) sees that
nearly everyone at our site reads rpi.ral when I make a single posting
to it. Groups which are really being read don't get quite the showing
because they are split amongst people like me who read USENET for the
research and development aspects, and people like my flatmate who reads
USENET for the social aspects.
The situation might be entirely different in other regions. I can
only speak for our region as I observe it and capdist.* and ny.* are
really just dead.puppies.
Dave
--
tale@rpitsmts.bitnet, tale%mts@itsgw.rpi.edu, tale@pawl.rpi.eduvnend@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (David James) (05/10/89)
In article <3216@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes:
)It does not surprise me a lot. In spite of the 'world community' aspect
)that computer nets drive towards, people are still most interested in
)things local. The local groups are popular because, in most of them,
)you can still carry on a real discussion. They are smaller (per group)
)but there are more of them.
)I also suspect that local groups have a few other factors in their favour.
)If you actually live in the same city as somebody, or work at the same
)site, or attend the same school, you are far less likely the flame them.
)The emotional distancing of netnews doesn't apply as much. I wish there
)were some way we could get the emotional distancing out of worldwide
)netnews.
)Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
I've observed the phenomena, but not the reasons that Brad gives.
Local groups seem to read for their *news* value, and their higher subscription
rate follows since local news impacts us more than national or international.
Discussions, in general, are few, short and to the point, with long gaps
between them. Most people subscribe to them because these are the groups
that systems people are most likely to have installed as default groups
to go into .newsrc's when they are created (the case here at phoenix), and
the volume is low enough versus the value of the information that they
aren't worth unsubscribing to... much like news.announce.important.
Also, the most violent verbal abuse I've seen was in a local group.
Rather than decreasing emotional distancing, it adds in personal factors
while keeping the feeling of distance. People seem to be willing to call
so-and-so across town a yaahoo even more willingly than they are to call
someone across the country, simply because they feel safe doing so from
across town, and they *want* to. An unpublished student paper back at
UK supported this. (Paper by Marty Hale, then a senior in Telecommunications.)
I agree, it would be nice if we could increase the emotional empathy
of the net, but I think we need to do it for the entire race to see any
imporvement on the net.
--
Later Y'all, Vnend Ignorance is the mother of adventure.
SCA event list? Mail? Send to:vnend@phoenix.princeton.edu or vnend@pucc.bitnet
Anonymous posting service (NO FLAMES!) at vnend@ms.uky.edu
Love is wanting to keep more than one person happy.