🚀 go-pugleaf

>I am going to urge a NO vote on comp.binaries.hypercard.  My reasons?
>Basically, two.  First, the volume would be outrageously large - stacks
>aren't small.

This is a value judgement. I'd rather the net create the group and let
individual sites decide whether it's worth carrying. Considering the number
of Mac users on the net, it seems like a worthwhile service.

>Second, the limited applicability of this to the needs
>of the net as a whole.  While there are a lot of Mac owners on Usenet,
>there are also many, many more who do not own Macs, or do not own Macs
>on which Hypercard is usable.

Hmm. According to Brian's stats, 37,000 folks read the largest newsgroup,
news.announce.conference. if we use that value as 1 (the ideal largest
practical population, we see some interesting comparisons). For instance:

	comp.unix.wizards, at 21000, rates a .56
	comp.sys.mac, at 21000, also rates a .56
	comp.sources.games, at 18000, rates a .48
	comp.sources.unix, at 16000, rates a .43
	comp.binaries.mac, at 10000, rates a .27
	comp.sys.mac.hypercard, at 8000, rates a .21

What's this mean? I'll let folks come up with their own general conclusions,
but I find the following things interesting:

	o as many people read the network for Macintosh stuff as for
	  Unix stuff. This implies (and I've said this before, and I'll say
	  it again) that this is no longer a Unix Network, but a Network
	  hosted on Unix machines. A very important semantical difference
	  that people need to keep in mind when they look at the future of
	  the net. It isn't Unix First anymore.

	o This is despite the fact that comp.sys.mac has a heavier traffic
	  level. It is generally considered as a truism (and we can argue
	  this if you want, I'm easy) that the more messages and volume in a
	  group, the more folks who will unsubscribe. volume in
	  comp.sys.mac is something like 5X the size of comp.unix.wizards.
	  This implies that (1) mac folks are a lot more motivated about
	  their material, so they don't unsubscribe as soon, or (2) the Mac
	  population is a LOT larger, potentially, but held down because of
	  the size of comp.sys.mac. We'll see what the splittings that are
	  happening in that area do -- I'd be unsurprised to see the Mac
	  groups have a significantly higher readership than the unix groups
	  in six months.

	o everyone wants to play games. 

	o Half the folks who read unix-wizards bother to look at Unix
	  source.
	
	o only one-third of the Mac folks bother with Mac binaries.

	o 40% of the folks who read the Macintosh group also read the
	  hypercard group (implying they either have or are interested in
	  getting hypercard). That's not a trivial number, especially when
	  you remember that HC is only six months old....

	o Depending on how you skew the numbers, you could claim that (1) a
	  more focused binary group (comp.binaries.hypercard) would let more
	  people rejoin comp.binaries.mac AND there would be a higher
	  percentage of comp.sys.mac.hypercard readers reading
	  comp.binaries.hypercard; or (2) you could claim that because HC
	  binaries are large, fewer people would hassle with them. I
	  personally have no idea which one is right or wrong, so you can
	  choose the one that fits your argument best. But taking
	  comp.sources.unix as a highwater (50%) and comp.binaries.mac as a
	  low-water (33%) we can imply that 
	  comp.binaries.hypercard would be of immediate benefit to between
	  2500 and 4000 people. This excludes any benefit that might accrue
	  to the other binary group by getting the hypercard stuff out of it
	  (which was, in many ways, one of the primary reasons for starting
	  this in the first place).

So, 2500 to 4000 people. Is it worth it? I think it is necessary IF we want
the comp.binaries.{mac,hypercard} stuff to work right. Strictly speaking,
there isn't enough room in that one newsgroup for both sets of files.

If we don't feel that this is the proper way to go, then we should consider
getting rid of binaries completely. We should support them properly, or not
at all. 

Side thought: interesting numbers. If you compare the readers of the group
vs. the readers of the binary group, you get some very interesting numbers.
For Mac's, it's about 35%. For amiga, 40%. For IBM-PC machines, 60%. Which
means that, at best, a binary posted to the net will reach half the folks
who are interested enough to read the main group. That doesn't say anything
about the number that actually download it. It's impossible to get good
evidence on that, but I have one case of empirical data I'll pass along:

	After one posting I made (it was about five parts) I was inundated
	by a dozen requests for parts. I finally put out a call
	saying "Did ANYONE get it whole?" -- and the answer was a definitive
	yes, the famous "I didn't get part 3" messages are a small subset of
	the network (fortunately). But of that, I only got about 50 notes
	from folks who had downloaded it and were able to use it. Now, even
	assuming that back then things were half as large as they are now,
	and not everyone bothered to reply, we can fudge the numbers all day
	and still get maybe 200 of 4000 people using that program. Now, that
	would translate to 400 of 8000, say.

I'd say, thinking about that (I never put those numbers together this way
before....) that you're lucking if you can get 25% of the readers of a group
to download a given program. A better number might be 10%. On something like
Delphi or CompuServe, where there are long-term archives (something USENET
needs desperately and doesn't have, with no practical way of adding them)
and you're still lucky if you can get 10% of the users to download [albeit
at a fee -- USENET is 'free' except to the folks who really pay the bills].

so, 40% of the readers of a support group read the binary group, and 15%
download a given program [yes, I'm rounding numbers all over the place.
Come up with better numbers yourself!] So, out of 21000 comp.sys.mac
readers, a given binary posting, large as it is, is useful to about 1500
people. 

So I'm asking: Is it worth it? Do binaries belong on USENET? This isn't a
rhetorical question, this is the first time I've frankly crunched out the
numbers, and as strong a supporter of these things as I've been, I'm
fascinated by what I'm seeing. And I'm not sure than binaries are
justifiable based on the size/useage tradeoffs. 

Also, we have to remember that with VERY few exceptions, this stuff is all
available elsewhere, too, for the cost of a modem and the time it takes to
access a BBS, or CompuSserve, or GENie, or Delphi, or whatever. Or by going
to user groups. How many of that 1500 people have no other access? Or would
be unable (or unwilling?) to get access to another distribution point if
this one was cut off? I dunno.

Alternatives:

	o Do nothing. continue to allow binaries. Yes, they're worth it.

	o Ban Binaries. Nuke the groups. No, they're not worth it.

	o Archive Servers. Instead of moderators, find people to put up
	  binary archive servers. Post indexes and notes about new programs,
	  let folks who want them have them sent directly, as an automated
	  mailing list type of thing. If usage/interest is really that low,
	  this might drop netwide traffic (and shift traffic to specific
	  high-usage links)

	o something else. Got any good ideas?

I want to run a straw poll. binaries, yes or no, with whatever feedback you
might want to add. I've created binary-poll@plaid.sun.com for this. (also
sun!plaid!binary-poll, or whatever variant works for you). Send me a yes/no
on binaries, just so I can see what people think about it. If you've got
feedback you want to add, pass it along, or post it to news.groups so we can
sit and chew on this a bit. 

Interesting. Isn't playing with numbers fun?


Chuq Von Rospach			chuq@sun.COM		Delphi: CHUQ

     There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.
                               Ken Olson, President, Digital Equipment, 1977