Mail Archives: djgpp/1995/08/03/09:32:17
> I wonder about that, too. However, my statistics indicate that there
> wasn't any increase in the number of faq's posted since the newsgroup was
> created. Which is almost unbelievable, given that the number of
> potential posters must have grown significantly. (Btw, do we have
> numbers about how many people read c.o.m.d. now? Maybe it should go
> into the weekly mini-FAQ?)
Statistics on news readers are near impossible to come by, since the
subscription information isn't stored in an accessible location.
What you could do is count the number of unique posters each month and
compare those.
Post rate has held steady for the last few months at around 500
msgs/month. The mini-faq and web page caused a decrease of 10-20%,
and probably helps hold down the faq questions. Since it doesn't hold
down the flames, overall S/N gets worse.
Mailing list subscriptions went from 680 to 270, which is great for
the Clarkson sysops. I suspect that the newsgroup subscription more
than makes up for the drop in readers.
How do we keep the quality up? There are a few ways:
Don't respond to flames or spams by posting to the newsgroup. Keep it
private. Using the newsgroup to respond only degrades quality even
more.
Answer valid questions with good technical information. Test your
answers before posting if you can, to make sure the amount of
misinformation is minimized.
See if someone else answered a question before answering it yourself,
to keep repeat information minimized. Of course, if you have
additional information, post that anyway.
When looking for something, check the mail archives or FAQ first.
Participate in technical discussions without becoming opinionated.
Add information and value to the discussion (and thus djgpp).
"Signal" on c.o.m.d is technical information. If the group maintains
its reputation for good technical content, the noise will remain
low.
DJ
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