Xref: utzoo news.groups:12571 news.misc:3654 Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!mcnc!thorin!unc!oliver From: oliver@unc.cs.unc.edu (Bill Oliver) Newsgroups: news.groups,news.misc Subject: Re: Report Card on the success of the group creation guidelines Message-ID: <9673@thorin.cs.unc.edu> Date: 25 Sep 89 18:42:23 GMT References: <17735@looking.on.ca> <1989Sep20.060201.4473@rpi.edu> <45814@bbn.COM> <4402@ncar.ucar.edu> <18401@looking.on.ca> Sender: news@thorin.cs.unc.edu Reply-To: oliver@unc.cs.unc.edu (Bill Oliver) Organization: University Of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Lines: 26 In article <18401@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes: > >The real figure we want is total readers per 'thing that costs money,' >namely long disk storage and long distance transmission. But that's harder >to figure out. I think that some of these low-readership or low-posting groups are saving resources because their existence decreases traffic to higher-readership groups. For example, in olden time, about every six months or so somebody in soc.women would write in and call for a boycott of male posters, or some modification of that call. There would ensue a good deal of posting and flaming regarding who should or should not be posting and how folk are nice or not nice posters, etc. I have not seen that call for a while, and I think that some of it is due to the existence of soc.feminism -- a nice, moderated place where people are supposed to be polite and socially acceptable. As far as I'm concerned, the primary value of soc.feminism is its effect on soc.women. I'll bet there is quite a net savings in bandwidth even if few people post to or read the group. Bill Oliver