smithrd@gc49.UUCP (Randy D. Smith) (03/12/86)
Well, I guess it's time to post the results of my "Poll on Polls", an attempt to find out what type of response is typical for a netnews poll. The results aren't too surprising (if you've ever taken a poll). I've included the most interesting info below. To summarize, we're a generally apathetic group of readers, unless someone is trying to take away a newsgroup we like. Responses to the seven polls mentioned were 400, 150, 60, 45, 30, 30, 20, for an average of 105. Not enough data points to show anything really significant, I guess, but I found it to be yet more evidence that the net as we know it is quickly becoming a failure. Let's hope Brian Reid's arbitron measures will give us some encouragement; perhaps there is a silent majority out there somewhere who really gains from the nets existence. =============================================================================== >From: mark@cbosgd.ATT.UUCP (Mark Horton) I've done several polls, but I don't keep the details of the numbers around for long. I have one going on Stargate right now. The one where I got overwhelming response was the MAC poll, and it was something like 400 responses. Typical is a few tens. It depends on where you post and how important the poll seems. The MAC poll appeared to threaten the existence of net.sources.mac so many frightened people responded. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >From: ulysses!allegra!phri!roy (Roy Smith) > (1) Briefly, what was the question? "Should net.general be deleted?" > (2) What newsgroup(s) did you conduct the poll in? net.news.group, with a preliminary announcement in net.general (only because it was the group being considered for removal) > (3) How many responses did you get? So far (the deadline was today, but I'm waiting a few more days to let votes dribble in) about 150 votes total. > (4) If possible, could you tell me what the geographic distribution > of the responses was? Havn't really looked at it, but the "lower-48" seems to be fairly well covered and I saw an occasional vote from Europe... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >From: Tom Haapanen <ihnp4!watmath!watrose!tohaapanen> > (1) Briefly, what was the question? A survey on film usage. Included questions on camera equipment, film quantity and types of film. > (2) What newsgroup(s) did you conduct the poll in? net.photo > (3) How many responses did you get? ~ 45 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >From nyssa remote from abnji Two polls: In net.tv.drwho a general dw poll with ~20 responses, no known distribution In net.news.group a poll for/against mod.politics, ~30 responses (10 from Europe). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >From: ulysses!amdahl!gam (G A Moffett) > (1) Briefly, what was the question (or what was he nature of the > questions)? "Should the Usenet/UUCP maps have extended expiration dates?" > (2) What newsgroup(s) did you conduct the poll in? net.news and net.news.config > (3) How many responses did you get? Approx 30. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >From: Mukesh Patel <ihnp4!seismo!mcvax!epistemi.ed.ac.uk!mukesh> I conducted a poll late last year mainly to find out whether my postings were reaching North America. It was confined to net.nlang.india readers. I got about 60 replies over a period of a couple of weeks. The first, and the largest, number came from the east coast of the states and calfornia. About 10% came from Canada mainly Toronto. The rest came from all over the state where the message had been distributed. I reckon about 10 times the number of responders must have read my posting in North America. Worldwide is anybody's guess! -- Randy D. Smith (919) 279-5312 AT&T Technologies, Guilford Center, NC ....!{ihnp4,burl}!{gc49,gc3ba}!smithrd