Welcome, Guest. Please Login or Register. 2024-05-08 19:02:52 CoV Wiki Learn more about the Church of Virus News: Check out the IRC chat feature.

Church of Virus BBS   Mailing List   Virus 2004   virus: Meta--on keeping list traffic interesting « previous next » Pages: [1]      Author  Topic: virus: Meta--on keeping list traffic interesting  (Read 458 times) hkhenson@rogers... Adept Gender: Posts: 130 Reputation: 7.90 Rate hkhenson@rogers... back after a long time virus: Meta--on keeping list traffic interesting « on: 2004-06-18 09:13:58 » I have been thinking about this for years. Interesting traffic on a list is an "edge of chaos" problem, critically dependant on "gain."  List traffic consist of original postings and replies.  Over time and for a particular thread "gain" goes below one and the thread dies so there is a requirement for original "seed" postings. Continued (non abusive) exchanges among a relatively small number of people (~10) are often the most interesting. "Interesting" is a difficult metric.  You can't measure it from responses because saying something really stupid will get a lot of responses. There are limits on how much posting traffic a list can have before people just delete it or sign off. The material is there on Usenet and elsewhere for some studies of the metrics of posting.  (Any PERL programmers in the audience?) I have noticed that my postings get relatively few responses and often end a thread or a branch of a thread.  But I know from other feedback paths that people do read what I write. Comments? Keith Henson --- To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l> Report to moderator   Logged David Lucifer Archon Posts: 2642 Reputation: 8.93 Rate David Lucifer Enlighten me. Re: virus: Meta--on keeping list traffic interesting « Reply #1 on: 2004-06-18 10:51:01 » ----- Original Message ----- From: "Keith Henson" <hkhenson@rogers.com> > There are limits on how much posting traffic a list can have before people > just delete it or sign off. That seems to indicate a problem with (or lack of) filtering capabilities. I've run dozens of mailing lists over the last 10 years and I've noticed that subscriber levels usually stabilize around 400. At least 90% of all subscribers are lurkers which means that a list can have maybe 40 active participants before the traffic drives away new subscribers as fast as new ones sign up. With good filtering technology such as the ability to un/subscribe to individual threads, I speculate that any given list can grow much larger. The apparent fact that web-based BBSes can support much larger user bases seems to add some evidence to this conjecture. David --- To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l> Report to moderator   Logged Pages: [1]   Jump to:Please select a destination: ----------------------------- General ----------------------------- =>Announcements =>Evolution and Memetics =>FAQ =>Church Doctrine =>Science & Technology =>Society & Culture =>Arts & Entertainment =>Philosophy & Religion =>Humor & Satire =>Creative Endeavors =>Serious Business =>Virian Book Club =>Second Life =>Free For All =>Infections =>Suggestion Box =>Test Area ----------------------------- Mailing List ----------------------------- =>Virus 2006 =>Virus 2005 =>Virus 2004 =>Virus 2003

Church of Virus BBS | Powered by YaBB SE © 2001-2002, YaBB SE Dev Team. All Rights Reserved. Please support the CoV. RSS feed