🚀 go-pugleaf

On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 16:33:27 -0000, "Richard"
<absolutelynogood_email@ntlworld.com> wrote:

> About 10?

Do you mean posters or subscribers ?

If the former, Mark Goodge publishes details every month. If the
latter, how on earth would we know?
--
Mitch

On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 16:33:27 -0000, Richard put finger to keyboard and
typed:

>About 10?

For people who post to the group, see any of the posts headed "Monthly
Stats". If your news spool doesn't have a good enough retention to get
the most recent one, hang around a few days and there will be another
shortly after the weekend.

As for people who read but don't post, no-one knows how many there
are.

Mark
--
--> http://www.FridayFun.net - jokes, games and ringtones! <--
"And so we're told this is the golden age"

On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 18:21:01 +0000, Mark Goodge
<usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:

>On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 16:33:27 -0000, Richard put finger to keyboard and
>typed:
>
>>About 10?
>
>For people who post to the group, see any of the posts headed "Monthly
>Stats". If your news spool doesn't have a good enough retention to get
>the most recent one, hang around a few days and there will be another
>shortly after the weekend.
>
>As for people who read but don't post, no-one knows how many there
>are.

Isnt there some common theory that there are probably 2 (or3, 4,5,6?)
times as many "lurkers" as posters at any one time?

Richard Emblem

"God loves you and there's not a thing you can do to change that."
(Rev Tom Van Culin, Honolulu)

On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 08:52:25 +0000, Richard Emblem put finger to
keyboard and typed:

>On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 18:21:01 +0000, Mark Goodge
><usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 16:33:27 -0000, Richard put finger to keyboard and
>>typed:
>>
>>>About 10?
>>
>>For people who post to the group, see any of the posts headed "Monthly
>>Stats". If your news spool doesn't have a good enough retention to get
>>the most recent one, hang around a few days and there will be another
>>shortly after the weekend.
>>
>>As for people who read but don't post, no-one knows how many there
>>are.
>
>Isnt there some common theory that there are probably 2 (or3, 4,5,6?)
>times as many "lurkers" as posters at any one time?

Up to 10 x posters has been quoted. But I suspect this is a statistic
from the early days of Usenet, when not only could such things be
measured quite easily (by viewing access logs) but there were far
fewer groups and users, and most people read everything and only
posted to what they were interested in. I would be surprised if there
were many "pure" lurkers (ie, people who have never posted at all) in
most groups.

Mark
--
--> http://www.FridayFun.net - jokes, games and ringtones! <--
"I believe in the kingdom come, then all the colours will bleed
into one"

On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 10:34:21 +0000, Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:

> On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 08:52:25 +0000, Richard Emblem put finger to
> keyboard and typed:
>
> >On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 18:21:01 +0000, Mark Goodge
> ><usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> >Isnt there some common theory that there are probably 2 (or3, 4,5,6?)
> >times as many "lurkers" as posters at any one time?
>
> Up to 10 x posters has been quoted. But I suspect this is a statistic
> from the early days of Usenet, when not only could such things be
> measured quite easily (by viewing access logs) but there were far
> fewer groups and users, and most people read everything and only
> posted to what they were interested in. I would be surprised if there
> were many "pure" lurkers (ie, people who have never posted at all) in
> most groups.

We will probably never be able to verify the numbers of lurkers. But I
wonder if the usage patterns of mailing lists (Yahoo Groups for example)
are really that different from Usenet usage. One problem with such stats
is that the readership can change; lurkers can slip away without anyone
noticing their escape. When a regular poster quits it is noticable but
lurkers no one misses.

Regards, Trevor

<>< Re: deemed!

Mark Goodge wrote:

> I would be surprised if there
> were many "pure" lurkers (ie, people who have never posted at all) in
> most groups.

Perhaps we should have a 'call for lurkers' to make one post, perhaps an
in an innocuous thread like this one, to show themselves, so we have an
idea.

Dave

--
Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge
West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9BS
http://www.cus.cam.ac.uk/~djg39/

> Mark Goodge wrote:
>>I would be surprised if there
>>were many "pure" lurkers (ie, people who have never posted at all) in
>>most groups.

Dave Goode wrote:
> Perhaps we should have a 'call for lurkers' to make one post, perhaps an
> in an innocuous thread like this one, to show themselves, so we have an
> idea.

That would be difficult. I think there's a pretty big psychological
barrier between lurking and posting. I suspect a lot of people are
interested in discussions but have no wish to reveal themselves to
anyone, and such a call would be asking them to cross that line.
There's also issues to do with, eg. people reading on the web who would
have to register to post.

Also, do you include all those people who, 2 years down the line, happen
to have picked this thread up from searching for something in the google
archives?

Simon
http://www.simonrobinson.com

"Dave Goode" <djg39@cam.ac.nospamformethanks.uk> wrote in message
news:33iajqF3vb2utU1@individual.net...
> Mark Goodge wrote:
>
> > I would be surprised if there
> > were many "pure" lurkers (ie, people who have never posted at all) in
> > most groups.
>
> Perhaps we should have a 'call for lurkers' to make one post, perhaps an
> in an innocuous thread like this one, to show themselves, so we have an
> idea.

I am not a "pure" lurker in the sense that Mark is using since I have posted
here before.  However, my postings have been infrequent and will continue to
be so. OTOH, I do read quite a large number of the posts in the group and in
particular try to look at at least the first post in each thread, except
where the thread title (or occasionally the author) makes it pretty clear I
wouldn't be interested.  Given the ratio of posting to reading, I am
therefore effectively a lurker.

I shall probably continue to lurk since I find a lot of the discussions
interesting, and perhaps more particularly because there are a lot of very
knowledgeable people in the group.  There are a number of reasons why I
shall probably not post any more frequently, which I suspect apply to a lot
of other people also.

- There are so many vocal people in the group that in almost any discussion
sooner or later someone else will probably say roughly what I might have
said.

- Similarly, on most topics, at least the divisive ones, almost everything
that can be said is said sooner or later.  (Unfortunately, this rarely
appears to affect anyone's views.  I would be very interested to hear of a
reasonably seasoned denizen of this newsgroup who has changed his or her
mind on an important issue as a result of discussion here.)

-uk.r.c is something of a community which is a little difficult to become a
real part of.  This is nothing to do with the attitude of the regulars: it's
a very civilized, welcoming and friendly group on the whole.  It's more that
so many have been around for so long and have had so many conversations that
without posting a similar volume of material one is inevitably much less
well known and therefore less a part of the group.  It is of course
self-reinforcing.

- And the main reason: I don't have time to engage in lengthy
debate in lots of places, and I have one or two other communities of
interest on the net, mostly lower volume where one has a chance to
participate more regularly.

I think the most interesting (not necessarily the most profitable) part of
lurking here is to see at first hand just how common it is to find
diametrically opposed views on important moral issues[1] from people who are
Christians, who presumably take seriously the outworking of their faith
in their lives and thoughts, and (mostly) take scripture as authoritative,
even if not necessarily the only or the prime source of authority.  Or
course, this is not in a surprise - the group is to a certain extent the
Church in microcosm - but to see it so clearly is striking, not to say
depressing.  One would have hoped that Christians, guided by God's
revelation and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, could speak with a
more united voice than appears to be the case.  Perhaps I'll start a
meta-discussion along these lines ...

[1]All moral issues are arguably important.  I'm thinking of those that take
centre stage at present: abortion, euthanasia, war, h***s**uality, capital
punishment, etc.

Hope that's useful, enlightening or something.  But I don't suppose there
are any great surprises in it.
Nicholas.
--
"Macbeth" is ... by a playwright who ought, at least on this occasion, to have
written a story, if he had the skill or patience. - JRRT, _On Fairy-Stories_
To email me, use vnicholasv@vinchbare-yv.vfsnetv.co.uk,
removing all occurrences of the letter "v".

Dave Goode wrote:

>
> Perhaps we should have a 'call for lurkers' to make one post, perhaps an
> in an innocuous thread like this one, to show themselves, so we have an
> idea.

It still involves showing themselves!

If our highly esteemed moderator didn't mind, they could perhaps one-off
email to her (with the standard subject 'lurker') so that she could get a
idea of numbers and tell the rest of us.  I suggest the moderator since
that status does in some sense provide a degree of confidence which might
not apply to all of us posters, but if Debbie doesn't want to be the
'target', I could provide an email address here for the exercise (not the
one this post is coming from).

Of course, many lurkers may prefer to remain deeply lurked anyway......

--
David Aldred

Nicholas Young wrote:

> Hope that's useful, enlightening or something.  But I don't suppose
> there are any great surprises in it.

That's all very useful. Thanks. If you fancy following up on the 'Holy
Spirit/one voice' idea at some point, I'd be interested to see how that
goes.

You might as well have a jelly-baby while you're de-lurked; there'll be
plenty of brussels-sprout flavour left, I expect.

Dave

--
Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge
West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9BS
http://www.cus.cam.ac.uk/~djg39/

In message <69m7t0p66dgqfqf4iu737j6fvp3d790v0e@news.markshouse.net>
          Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:

> I would be surprised if there
> were many "pure" lurkers (ie, people who have never posted at all) in
> most groups.

A difficult question to answer, because as soon as someone writes in to tell
you he is a lurker, he becomes a poster.

God bless,
Kendall K. Down

-- 
================ ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIGGINGS ===============
|    Australia's premiere archaeological magazine      |
|             http://www.diggingsonline.com            |
========================================================

"Richard" wrote:

> About 10?

... and various people replied in various ways, telling
Richard how to find out about regular posters and observing
that there are probably more readers than posters. One thing
no one has yet remarked (unless my ISP is being more than
averagely useless) is that the number is certainly much
bigger than 10.

--
Gareth McCaughan
.sig under construc

On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 18:56:50 GMT, Kendall K. Down put finger to
keyboard and typed:

>In message <69m7t0p66dgqfqf4iu737j6fvp3d790v0e@news.markshouse.net>
>          Mark Goodge <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> I would be surprised if there
>> were many "pure" lurkers (ie, people who have never posted at all) in
>> most groups.
>
>A difficult question to answer, because as soon as someone writes in to tell
>you he is a lurker, he becomes a poster.

Indeed. But that's why I think there are very few out and out lurkers.
Most people will only read a group if they are interested in its
subject matter; if they are interested in its subject matter then it's
likely that they will - even if only very occasionally - have
something to say about it. Someone who only posts once a year is not a
lurker, even though they may not be a major contributor.

Mark
--
--> http://photos.markshouse.net - see my world! <--
"I scare myself to death, that's why I keep on running"

On 31 Dec 2004 00:47:43 +0000, Gareth McCaughan
<gareth.mccaughan@pobox.com> wrote:

>"Richard" wrote:
>
>> About 10?
>
>... and various people replied in various ways, telling
>Richard how to find out about regular posters and observing
>that there are probably more readers than posters. One thing
>no one has yet remarked (unless my ISP is being more than
>averagely useless) is that the number is certainly much
>bigger than 10.

How does your ISP tell you that Gareth?

Richard Emblem

"God loves you and there's not a thing you can do to change that."
(Rev Tom Van Culin, Honolulu)

On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 17:03:35 -0000, "Nicholas Young" <from@spam.trap>
wrote:

>I am not a "pure" lurker in the sense that Mark is using since I have posted
>here before.  However, my postings have been infrequent and will continue to
>be so. OTOH, I do read quite a large number of the posts in the group and in
>particular try to look at at least the first post in each thread, except
>where the thread title (or occasionally the author) makes it pretty clear I
>wouldn't be interested.  Given the ratio of posting to reading, I am
>therefore effectively a lurker.
>
<snip>
>
>Hope that's useful, enlightening or something.  But I don't suppose there
>are any great surprises in it.

Thanks Nicholas, it was very interesting. Please help yourself to some
of these "lurker" jelly babies (transparent and nearly invisible, but
very valuable).

Richard Emblem

"God loves you and there's not a thing you can do to change that."
(Rev Tom Van Culin, Honolulu)

Richard Emblem <remblem@aol.com> writes:

> On 31 Dec 2004 00:47:43 +0000, Gareth McCaughan
> <gareth.mccaughan@pobox.com> wrote:
>
> >"Richard" wrote:
> >
> >> About 10?
> >
> >... and various people replied in various ways, telling
> >Richard how to find out about regular posters and observing
> >that there are probably more readers than posters. One thing
> >no one has yet remarked (unless my ISP is being more than
> >averagely useless) is that the number is certainly much
> >bigger than 10.
>
> How does your ISP tell you that Gareth?

By delivering uk.r.c articles to me, wherein I can
read the "From" lines and the signatures and so on
and see that there are a lot more than 10 people
who contribute fairly regularly to uk.r.c.

For instance, I have the following in my current
list of unread (or at least still needing consideration)
articles: Simon Crouch, Andrew Criddle, Tim Whittingham,
Phil Saunders, David Ould, Mike Davis, Ken Down, Martin
Biddiscombe, me, Dave McGrogan, Steven Kitson, Doug C.,
Victor Reppert, David Chapman, Richard Emblem, "Bedouin",
Charles W., Charles Lindsey, Al, George Russell, Simon
Robinson, Mark Goodge, Paul Hardy, Marc Rasell, Dave Goode,
Paul Dean, Paul Roberts, Richard the surnameless Mormon,
Jet Wood, Nick Milton, Steven Carr, Colin Bell, Philip
Hetherington, Simon Woods, Peter Rodda, Debbie Herring,
Alan Zanker, Mike Williams, Bernard Hill. That's 39, and
I've not included infrequent posters in that list or
frequent posters who happen not to have any articles
pending right now.

--
Gareth McCaughan
.sig under construc

On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 10:34:21 +0000, Mark Goodge
<usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:

>On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 08:52:25 +0000, Richard Emblem put finger to
>keyboard and typed:

>>Isnt there some common theory that there are probably 2 (or3, 4,5,6?)
>>times as many "lurkers" as posters at any one time?
>
>Up to 10 x posters has been quoted. But I suspect this is a statistic
>from the early days of Usenet, when not only could such things be
>measured quite easily (by viewing access logs) but there were far
>fewer groups and users, and most people read everything and only
>posted to what they were interested in. I would be surprised if there
>were many "pure" lurkers (ie, people who have never posted at all) in
>most groups.

I have some empirical evidence on lurkers, but as it was gathered as
part of a PhD project, I doubt the original poster would want to know
:-)


--
Debbie posting as Debbie

"Richard" <absolutelynogood_email@ntlworld.com> wrote:

| About 10?

FWIW the moderbot's list of known addresses is about 450 in length,
but that is addresses used at least (only?) once in the last year. If
anything that shows how many posters don't stay.

--
Patrick Herring, http://www.anweald.co.uk/ph.html

Debbie wrote:

> I have some empirical evidence on lurkers, but as it was gathered as
> part of a PhD project, I doubt the original poster would want to know
> :-)

But some others of us, including me, would be very interested
to know more. Is there anything written up that we can see?
(I don't remember: is your PhD done yet?)

--
Gareth McCaughan
.sig under construc

On 01 Jan 2005 03:18:03 +0000, Gareth McCaughan
<gareth.mccaughan@pobox.com> wrote:

>Debbie wrote:
>
>> I have some empirical evidence on lurkers, but as it was gathered as
>> part of a PhD project, I doubt the original poster would want to know
>> :-)
>
>But some others of us, including me, would be very interested
>to know more. Is there anything written up that we can see?
>(I don't remember: is your PhD done yet?)

The absence of the children for 4 days is my cue to start the New Year
finishing the final revision.   Some of the early findings from the
project are in a book chapter due out any time now, in "Religion &
Cyberspace" Ed. Morten Thomsen Højsgaard & Margit Warberg, but as I
recall there's nothing significant about lurkers in that.   There's a
second chapter in some publisher's pipeline which discusses ukrc
lurkers specifically.   From the data gathered, it looks like a
minimum of one lurker for every poster.   If somebody who understands
statistics would care to have a look at the raw figures, I'd be
delighted for some more competent analysis than I've been able to do,
on the understanding that it's unpublished material that belongs to
Sheffield University and therefore needs handling confidentially.


--
Debbie posting as Debbie

On Sat, 01 Jan 2005 10:28:09 GMT, Debbie put finger to keyboard and
typed:

>On 01 Jan 2005 03:18:03 +0000, Gareth McCaughan
><gareth.mccaughan@pobox.com> wrote:
>
>>Debbie wrote:
>>
>>> I have some empirical evidence on lurkers, but as it was gathered as
>>> part of a PhD project, I doubt the original poster would want to know
>>> :-)
>>
>>But some others of us, including me, would be very interested
>>to know more. Is there anything written up that we can see?
>>(I don't remember: is your PhD done yet?)
>
>The absence of the children for 4 days is my cue to start the New Year
>finishing the final revision.   Some of the early findings from the
>project are in a book chapter due out any time now, in "Religion &
>Cyberspace" Ed. Morten Thomsen Højsgaard & Margit Warberg, but as I
>recall there's nothing significant about lurkers in that.   There's a
>second chapter in some publisher's pipeline which discusses ukrc
>lurkers specifically.   From the data gathered, it looks like a
>minimum of one lurker for every poster.   If somebody who understands
>statistics would care to have a look at the raw figures, I'd be
>delighted for some more competent analysis than I've been able to do,
>on the understanding that it's unpublished material that belongs to
>Sheffield University and therefore needs handling confidentially.

I'm not a statistician, and so I'm not particularly qualified to offer
any competant analysis of your data. But I am *very* interested in
your methodology for obtaining it, as that directly relates to one of
the main reasons behind this whole thread. Is a reasonably detailed
account likely to be available in a published work anytime soon?

Mark
--
--> http://www.FridayFun.net - jokes, games and ringtones! <--
"If this world makes you crazy"

On Sat, 01 Jan 2005 12:34:14 +0000, Mark Goodge
<usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:


>I'm not a statistician, and so I'm not particularly qualified to offer
>any competant analysis of your data. But I am *very* interested in
>your methodology for obtaining it, as that directly relates to one of
>the main reasons behind this whole thread. Is a reasonably detailed
>account likely to be available in a published work anytime soon?

That depends if I can drag myself away from usenet long enough to
finish the thesis revision :-)   I can email you some of it when I've
done, though - in the next day or two, I expect - with the usual
caveats about unpublished theses being copyright etc etc.


--
Debbie posting as Debbie

Peter Rodda wrote:

[me:]
>> For instance, I have the following in my current
>> list of unread (or at least still needing consideration)
>> articles: Simon Crouch, Andrew Criddle, Tim Whittingham,
>> Phil Saunders, David Ould, Mike Davis, Ken Down, Martin
>> Biddiscombe, me, Dave McGrogan, Steven Kitson, Doug C.,
>> Victor Reppert, David Chapman, Richard Emblem, "Bedouin",
>> Charles W., Charles Lindsey, Al, George Russell, Simon
>> Robinson, Mark Goodge, Paul Hardy, Marc Rasell, Dave Goode,
>> Paul Dean, Paul Roberts, Richard the surnameless Mormon,
>> Jet Wood, Nick Milton, Steven Carr, Colin Bell, Philip
>> Hetherington, Simon Woods, Peter Rodda, Debbie Herring,
>> Alan Zanker, Mike Williams, Bernard Hill. That's 39, and
>> I've not included infrequent posters in that list or
>> frequent posters who happen not to have any articles
>> pending right now.

[Peter:]
> Hmmm...that implies that I am frequent poster!?

Fairly. And a longstanding one. Is that bad? :-)

--
Gareth McCaughan
.sig under construc

Debbie wrote:
> On Sat, 01 Jan 2005 12:34:14 +0000, Mark Goodge
> <usenet@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>
>>I'm not a statistician, and so I'm not particularly qualified to offer
>>any competant analysis of your data. But I am *very* interested in
>>your methodology for obtaining it, as that directly relates to one of
>>the main reasons behind this whole thread. Is a reasonably detailed
>>account likely to be available in a published work anytime soon?
>
>
> That depends if I can drag myself away from usenet long enough to
> finish the thesis revision :-)   I can email you some of it when I've
> done, though - in the next day or two, I expect - with the usual
> caveats about unpublished theses being copyright etc etc.

That would be handy, at least for information purposes. What I really
need, though, is something in published form that I can quote and cite a
reference for.

Mark

There don't appear to have been any serious attempts to provide
estimates of newsgroup readership statistics since Brian Reid of
Stanford University stopped doing so in July 1995. This group was not
one of those that he analysed, but I suppose it might be possible to
obtain some sort of wild guess from looking at the ratio of readers to
other stats in similar newsgroups. There's a revised copy of the last
few reports at <http://www.tlsoft.com/arbitron/>.

The data is nearly 20 years out of date and many people seem to believe
that there are significant statistical errors, but it's the best data
that exists.

--
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure

Debbie wrote:
>
> ...   From the data gathered, it looks like a
> minimum of one lurker for every poster.

How would one know?  What is the nature of the data?

On Sat, 1 Jan 2005 18:47:06 +0000 (UTC), George Cox
<george_coxanti@spambtinternet.com.invalid> wrote:

>Debbie wrote:
>>
>> ...   From the data gathered, it looks like a
>> minimum of one lurker for every poster.
>
>How would one know?  What is the nature of the data?

When my PhD is finally done, the data will be available for review for
anyone who cares to review it.


--
Debbie posting as Debbie

"Gareth McCaughan" <gareth.mccaughan@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:87ekh6bf99.fsf@g.mccaughan.ntlworld.com...
> Richard Emblem <remblem@aol.com> writes:
>
>> On 31 Dec 2004 00:47:43 +0000, Gareth McCaughan
>> <gareth.mccaughan@pobox.com> wrote:
>>
>> >"Richard" wrote:
>> >
>> >> About 10?
>> >
>> >... and various people replied in various ways, telling
>> >Richard how to find out about regular posters and observing
>> >that there are probably more readers than posters. One thing
>> >no one has yet remarked (unless my ISP is being more than
>> >averagely useless) is that the number is certainly much
>> >bigger than 10.
>>
>> How does your ISP tell you that Gareth?
>
> By delivering uk.r.c articles to me, wherein I can
> read the "From" lines and the signatures and so on
> and see that there are a lot more than 10 people
> who contribute fairly regularly to uk.r.c.
>
> For instance, I have the following in my current
> list of unread (or at least still needing consideration)
> articles: Simon Crouch, Andrew Criddle, Tim Whittingham,
> Phil Saunders, David Ould, Mike Davis, Ken Down, Martin
> Biddiscombe, me, Dave McGrogan, Steven Kitson, Doug C.,
> Victor Reppert, David Chapman, Richard Emblem, "Bedouin",
> Charles W., Charles Lindsey, Al, George Russell, Simon
> Robinson, Mark Goodge, Paul Hardy, Marc Rasell, Dave Goode,
> Paul Dean, Paul Roberts, Richard the surnameless Mormon,
> Jet Wood, Nick Milton, Steven Carr, Colin Bell, Philip
> Hetherington, Simon Woods, Peter Rodda, Debbie Herring,
> Alan Zanker, Mike Williams, Bernard Hill. That's 39, and
> I've not included infrequent posters in that list or
> frequent posters who happen not to have any articles
> pending right now.
>
> --
> Gareth McCaughan
> .sig under construc


Hmmm...that implies that I am frequent poster!?

Peter R

Dave Goode wrote on 30/12/2004 12:28:
> Perhaps we should have a 'call for lurkers' to make one post, perhaps an
> in an innocuous thread like this one, to show themselves, so we have an
> idea.

<wave>

I don't often have much to add to anything so I tend to just watch and
listen. I'm not a lurker in the purest sense of the word though - I will
poke my head over the parapet if I feel like it. Like many people,
though, I just don't feel I have time to spend reading all threads and
all groups thoroughly - so my participation tends to come in waves...

So, greetings to all here :-)

Regards

Peter

<><

On Sat, 1 Jan 2005, Mike Williams wrote:

> There don't appear to have been any serious attempts to provide
> estimates of newsgroup readership statistics since Brian Reid of
> Stanford University stopped doing so in July 1995.

I seem to remember those stats being posted I suppose if you had
access to data from newsproviders one would be able - at least - to
have a stab at the number of lurkers - at least in the days when you
didn't have so many home machines also with their own private
newsserver


Robert
--
He is our homeliest home and endless dwelling - Julian of Norwich

On Sun, 02 Jan 2005 16:06:12 +0000, Peter Scandrett
<peter-usenet@scandrett.net> wrote:

>I don't often have much to add to anything so I tend to just watch and
>listen. I'm not a lurker in the purest sense of the word though - I will
>poke my head over the parapet if I feel like it. Like many people,
>though, I just don't feel I have time to spend reading all threads and
>all groups thoroughly - so my participation tends to come in waves...
>
>So, greetings to all here :-)

And to you Peter

Robert Marshall wrote:

> On Sat, 1 Jan 2005, Mike Williams wrote:
>
>>There don't appear to have been any serious attempts to provide
>>estimates of newsgroup readership statistics since Brian Reid of
>>Stanford University stopped doing so in July 1995.
>
>
> I seem to remember those stats being posted I suppose if you had
> access to data from newsproviders one would be able - at least - to
> have a stab at the number of lurkers - at least in the days when you
> didn't have so many home machines also with their own private
> newsserver
>

I expect newsgroups to gradually die out.  Most of my friend have
never heard of newsgroups, and in spite of my enthusiasm they lose
interest as soon as they hear they have to set up something in their
software to access them directly.  (Yes, one can read groups through
google, but not as easily)

Nicholas Young wrote:
> - Similarly, on most topics, at least the divisive ones, almost everything
> that can be said is said sooner or later.  (Unfortunately, this rarely
> appears to affect anyone's views.  I would be very interested to hear of a
> reasonably seasoned denizen of this newsgroup who has changed his or her
> mind on an important issue as a result of discussion here.)

It's only a partial, not a complete change of mind, but following the
Calvinism debate a year ago, I decided that free will was a more complex
issue than I'd previously thought, that our free will is quite
restricted and that having extensive free will perhaps doesn't matter
that much anyway.

It wasn't I'm afraid any particular posts or argument that made me
change my mind, just lots of thinking inspired because of the discussion
- so I'm not sure if that really counts as an example that answers your
question.

Simon
http://www.simonrobinson.com

Simon Robinson wrote:
> Nicholas Young wrote:
>
>> - Similarly, on most topics, at least the divisive ones, almost
>> everything
>> that can be said is said sooner or later.  (Unfortunately, this rarely
>> appears to affect anyone's views.  I would be very interested to hear
>> of a
>> reasonably seasoned denizen of this newsgroup who has changed his or her
>> mind on an important issue as a result of discussion here.)
>
>
> It's only a partial, not a complete change of mind, but following the
> Calvinism debate a year ago, I decided that free will was a more complex
> issue than I'd previously thought, that our free will is quite
> restricted and that having extensive free will perhaps doesn't matter
> that much anyway.
>
> It wasn't I'm afraid any particular posts or argument that made me
> change my mind, just lots of thinking inspired because of the discussion
> - so I'm not sure if that really counts as an example that answers your
> question.
>
> Simon
> http://www.simonrobinson.com

Similarly, not so much change of mind, as (1) hearing alternative ways
to approach some issues that broaden my awareness of the depth of an
issue, (2) finding encouragement that I'm not alone in some of the
conclusions I've drawn from years of interaction with God and prayer,
and learning some supporting data for those conclusions which helps me
present them to others as ideas to consider, (3) learning that I can
delightedly agree with a person on one point and be utterly dismayed
by their position on another, which is helping me be more relaxed with
people in my non-virtual life who hold some disturbing-to-me beliefs.

I guess one could say "change of mind" in the sense that over the
several years I lurked on this group, some things I thought I was
"wrong" to believe ("I must be a bad Christian since I disagree with
what the preacher is saying"), I now accept as right to believe - not
the belief changing but my willingness to publicly admit to my beliefs
even if they aren't always mainstream USA popular Christianity.

Which makes me a bit of a gadfly in the Bible study group sometimes,
when they mouth pious nonsense without really thinking about what they
are saying.

Quasin

In message <41DD5136.6020203@netscape.net>
          Quasin <Quasinerd@netscape.net> wrote:

> Which makes me a bit of a gadfly in the Bible study group sometimes, 
> when they mouth pious nonsense without really thinking about what they 
> are saying.

Oh well, praise the Lord for that.

God bless,
Kendall K. Down

-- 
================ ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIGGINGS ===============
|    Australia's premiere archaeological magazine      |
|             http://www.diggingsonline.com            |
========================================================

On Thu, 06 Jan 2005 14:56:17 GMT, Quasin <Quasinerd@netscape.net>
wrote:

>Simon Robinson wrote:
>> Nicholas Young wrote:
>>
>>> - Similarly, on most topics, at least the divisive ones, almost
>>> everything
>>> that can be said is said sooner or later.  (Unfortunately, this rarely
>>> appears to affect anyone's views.  I would be very interested to hear
>>> of a
>>> reasonably seasoned denizen of this newsgroup who has changed his or her
>>> mind on an important issue as a result of discussion here.)
>>
>>
>> It's only a partial, not a complete change of mind, but following the
>> Calvinism debate a year ago, I decided that free will was a more complex
>> issue than I'd previously thought, that our free will is quite
>> restricted and that having extensive free will perhaps doesn't matter
>> that much anyway.
>>
>> It wasn't I'm afraid any particular posts or argument that made me
>> change my mind, just lots of thinking inspired because of the discussion
>> - so I'm not sure if that really counts as an example that answers your
>> question.
>>
>> Simon
>> http://www.simonrobinson.com
>
>Similarly, not so much change of mind, as (1) hearing alternative ways
>to approach some issues that broaden my awareness of the depth of an
>issue, (2) finding encouragement that I'm not alone in some of the
>conclusions I've drawn from years of interaction with God and prayer,
>and learning some supporting data for those conclusions which helps me
>present them to others as ideas to consider, (3) learning that I can
>delightedly agree with a person on one point and be utterly dismayed
>by their position on another, which is helping me be more relaxed with
>people in my non-virtual life who hold some disturbing-to-me beliefs.
>
>I guess one could say "change of mind" in the sense that over the
>several years I lurked on this group, some things I thought I was
>"wrong" to believe ("I must be a bad Christian since I disagree with
>what the preacher is saying"), I now accept as right to believe - not
>the belief changing but my willingness to publicly admit to my beliefs
>even if they aren't always mainstream USA popular Christianity.
>
>Which makes me a bit of a gadfly in the Bible study group sometimes,
>when they mouth pious nonsense without really thinking about what they
>are saying.
>
>Quasin

Thanks to both Simon and Quasin for their posts.
 I too have benefitted in many ways over the years from my
participation in ukrc though it is hard to pin down details. Perhaps I
could just say that it has broadened my appreciation of the width and
depth of christianity.

Richard Emblem

"God loves you and there's not a thing you can do to change that."
(Rev Tom Van Culin, Honolulu)

"Quasin" <Quasinerd@netscape.net> wrote in message
news:41DD5136.6020203@netscape.net...
> Simon Robinson wrote:
> > Nicholas Young wrote:
> >
> >> [...] I would be very interested to hear of a reasonably
> >> seasoned denizen of this newsgroup who has changed his or
> >> her mind on an important issue as a result of discussion here.)
> >
> > It's only a partial, not a complete change of mind, but following the
> > Calvinism debate a year ago, I decided that free will was a more
> > complex  issue than I'd previously thought, that our free will is quite
> > restricted and that having extensive free will perhaps doesn't matter
> > that much anyway.
> >
> Similarly, not so much change of mind, as (1) hearing alternative ways
> to approach some issues that broaden my awareness of the depth of an
> issue, (2) finding encouragement that I'm not alone in some of the
> conclusions I've drawn from years of interaction with God and prayer,
> and learning some supporting data for those conclusions which helps me
> present them to others as ideas to consider, (3) learning that I can
> delightedly agree with a person on one point and be utterly dismayed
> by their position on another, which is helping me be more relaxed with
> people in my non-virtual life who hold some disturbing-to-me beliefs.

Thanks both for these - interesting observations.  As Simon implied, they're
not quite what I had in mind, which was a full-blown change of mind on a
significant point, but interesting and encouraging nonetheless.

Presumably quite a large number of people in the CoE must have changed their
minds on the question of the ordination of women between say 50 years ago and
20 years ago in order for the change to have occurred.  I wonder whether
discussion of the type one finds here played any part in it?

Nicholas.
--
"Macbeth" is ... by a playwright who ought, at least on this occasion, to have
written a story, if he had the skill or patience. - JRRT, _On Fairy-Stories_
To email me, use vnicholasv@vinchbare-yv.vfsnetv.co.uk,
removing all occurrences of the letter "v".

Quasin wrote:
> I guess one could say "change of mind" in the sense that over the
> several years I lurked on this group, some things I thought I was
> "wrong" to believe ("I must be a bad Christian since I disagree with
> what the preacher is saying"), I now accept as right to believe - not
> the belief changing but my willingness to publicly admit to my beliefs
> even if they aren't always mainstream USA popular Christianity.

Yeah I've felt that too. In a way it has also helped confirm my faith
that I've realised here that there are Christians around who are willing
to debate and listen to different opinions, something I've not always
found in churches :-(

Simon
http://www.simonrobinson.com

Nicholas Young wrote:
> Thanks both for these - interesting observations.  As Simon implied, they're
> not quite what I had in mind, which was a full-blown change of mind on a
> significant point, but interesting and encouraging nonetheless.

I would suspect that in most cases a full-blown change of mind takes
some years, and requires influence from a number of causes. If I'm
correct then that would mean it's possible that discussions on ukrc
might be in the process of contributing to changes of mind by some
people, but they wouldn't be the only factor.

Simon
http://www.simonrobinson.com

Nicholas Young wrote:

> Presumably quite a large number of people in the CoE must have changed their
> minds on the question of the ordination of women between say 50 years ago and
> 20 years ago in order for the change to have occurred.  I wonder whether
> discussion of the type one finds here played any part in it?

The interval there is long enough that it doesn't require
many people to have changed their minds; *replacement* of
people suffices.

--
Gareth McCaughan
.sig under construc

In message <cropja$q8d$1@news.freedom2surf.net>
          Simon Robinson <lIfYouWantToEmailMe@UseMyWebsite.com> wrote:

> I would suspect that in most cases a full-blown change of mind takes 
> some years, and requires influence from a number of causes. If I'm 
> correct then that would mean it's possible that discussions on ukrc 
> might be in the process of contributing to changes of mind by some 
> people, but they wouldn't be the only factor.

I agree with both your points. Only conversion brings an overnight change of
mind - and usually it still requires years to bring the life into full
consistency with the mental change.

God bless,
Kendall K. Down

-- 
================ ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIGGINGS ===============
|    Australia's premiere archaeological magazine      |
|             http://www.diggingsonline.com            |
========================================================

In message <crokqq$opk$1@news.freedom2surf.net>, Simon Robinson
<lIfYouWantToEmailMe@UseMyWebsite.com> writes
>Quasin wrote:
>> I guess one could say "change of mind" in the sense that over the
>>several years I lurked on this group, some things I thought I was
>>"wrong" to believe ("I must be a bad Christian since I disagree with
>>what the preacher is saying"), I now accept as right to believe - not
>>the belief changing but my willingness to publicly admit to my beliefs
>>even if they aren't always mainstream USA popular Christianity.
>
>Yeah I've felt that too. In a way it has also helped confirm my faith
>that I've realised here that there are Christians around who are
>willing to debate and listen to different opinions, something I've not
>always found in churches :-(

I know, I know! ;-(

I gather a local RCC church not far from here, for some years thought I
was a Baptist, because when I went to meetings (not services) I could
quote from the Bible! ;¬)

Mike
--
Michael J Davis
<>{
"The very man who has argued you down,
will sometimes be found, years later,
to have been influenced by what you said."   CSLewis
<>{

Michael J Davis wrote:


> I gather a local RCC church not far from here, for some years thought I
> was a Baptist, because when I went to meetings (not services) I could
> quote from the Bible! ;¬)
>

And I'm a bit suspect in my group of mostly Baptists because I show up
with a different Bible every month - currently the New American Bible,
one of my favorites, a Catholic Bible.

Quasin

In message <XxuoRyMIeF4BFwuZ@trustsof.demon.co>
          Michael J Davis <?.?@trustsof.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> I gather a local RCC church not far from here, for some years thought I 
> was a Baptist, because when I went to meetings (not services) I could 
> quote from the Bible! ;¬)

Seems an odd version of selective amnesia. How come you couldn't quote from
the Bible when you went to services?

God bless,
Kendall K. Down

-- 
================ ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIGGINGS ===============
|    Australia's premiere archaeological magazine      |
|             http://www.diggingsonline.com            |
========================================================

Quasin wrote:

>> I gather a local RCC church not far from here, for some years thought I
>> was a Baptist, because when I went to meetings (not services) I could
>> quote from the Bible! ;¬)
>>
>
> And I'm a bit suspect in my group of mostly Baptists because I show up
> with a different Bible every month - currently the New American Bible,
> one of my favorites, a Catholic Bible.

What's their preferred translation?

I haven't seen the NAB, but I am fond of the Douay and Jerusalem
translations.

Dave

--
Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge
West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9BS
http://www.cus.cam.ac.uk/~djg39/