"Altruon Zardephax" <altruon7@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:718df89f.0311061717.11ddf2ea@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> jstevh@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(James Harris) wrote in message
news:<3c65f87.0311040928.7264e743@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>...
>
> > One thing that helped me out a while back is the realization that MOST
> > readers on newsgroups are not posters!!!
>
> Is this true? What is the source of your information? Admittably, I
> tend to read a lot more posts than I write,
I would guess that almost everyone in Usenet reads far more
posts than he or she follows-up. If you actually try and imagine
someone going through a newsreader and following up every
post read, you come up with a pretty weird picture of a human
being.. I like to follow up posts that challenge me, and there are
all sorts of ways that can be done. Because I am so well known
as the result of my Usenet performance art, I have far more posts
addressed to me than most posters ever will, but just mentioning
my name or alluding to me does not--contrary to nonsense often
bandied about--guarantee anyone a response.
but one thing I like about
> usenet posts is that you can cut out assumed factoids and question
> wheather they have validity.
I have no idea where he got his information, but I have seen some
surveys discussed in news. hierarchy groups a few years back
suggesting that, on average, there is one poster for every ten readers.
That would vary from group to group, of course. A writing group might
well have more posters in pro****tion to readers, while some other group
might not even have one poster for twenty readers. It seems to me that
groups focusing on highly-technical matters might have far fewer posters
in relation to readers, since you would likely have more people reading
the group to acquire information.
You might have one person asking a very common question about al\stonomy,
and you might--and of course I am only guessing--have fifty or even one
hundred who access that post in Google for an answer, because, after all,
more and more people are learning how easy it is to get information based
on a few well-chosen keywords.
(THAT is what I call "keywording skills," though when I used the term the
other day, the Hope-dunce pounced and fell on his BUTT, making an terrible
fool of himself, but THAT is another story. He tried to explain his
foolishness
away by saying that terms that "research skills" should be used. That is
nonsense, of course, "research skills," is far too broad to be very
helpful
regarding the specific matters we were referring to in that other
discussion.
Being far more precise regarding our context on that particular thread,
"keywording skills" was an ideal expression for one of the many things the
Hopeless One lacks, naturally, hence his peevish fit.. But, I digress.
Whee...
Of course there are other factors, too, which could affect the
poster-to-reader
ratio. alt.flame, I suspect, has a great many readers for whom reading
mud
ball fights is a guilty pleasure and who of course are far too
hoity-toity
to post
in that low-brow group. The ironic thing is, the identical
hoity-toities will often
engage in the same sort of flaming in more "respectable" groups, like
misc.writing! Sort of like, it is okay to post "F.Y" in alt.writing, but
you are a
cretin if your post that in alt.flame. NO. It is NOT okay. People
who
make
crude little posts which could have been spit out by dumb software are
ALWAYS acting in a cretinous fa****on, regardless of group. But they won't
listen.
It is exactly as I observed before, they are like little kids who have
just
learned
their "spitting skills.". That's it: they don't post, they spit a few
crude syllables
and marvel at their "extraordinary writing talents." What they are
really
saying is
"Gee Ma and Pa, I can spit, I can spit, isn't that great!" What makes
adults act
like that? Are their minds so tv-damaged that they think posting their
little
crudities is writing these days? It is a dreary spectacle they make of
themselves, that's all I can say. Well, it's not really "all" I can
say,
now that I
think about it...Whee...)
>
> And get more than the 'duh' or 'idanow' response that you get when you
> speak with someone (which is often uttered even when they do know,
> because they do not want to spend time to respond).
>
> Or trying to talk back to a book, radio, or television (which is
> mostly pointless).
>
> I do not think it is impossible that this factoid could be true.
> Still, what is the source of your information. Is it an
> unsubstantiated blurb, or does it come from some viable net traffic
> figures?
accept no cheap imitations:
the alt.genius.bill-palmer.whee
--firing posts at passersby at random from a window in
the office above rec.arts.prose.
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