Stats comp.os.linux.misc (last 7 days)

Michael Heiming · External Since: Apr 04, 2004 Posts: 3526

Stats comp.os.linux.misc (last 7 days)

Top 10 posters for the period:

rank posts kbytes name address
1 16 33.6 Michael Heiming michael+USENET@www.heimin
2 12 25.8 Chris F.A. Johnson cfajohnson.TakeThisOut@gmail.com
3 12 19.4 Grant bugsplatter.TakeThisOut@gmail.com
4 11 23.8 John-Paul Stewart jpstewart.TakeThisOut@binaryfoundry.c
5 10 16.5 Bill Marcum bmarcum.TakeThisOut@iglou.com
6 9 26.5 amitsheth.TakeThisOut@gmail.com amitsheth.TakeThisOut@gmail.com
7 9 14.9 NUPUL nupul.kukreja.TakeThisOut@gmail.com
8 9 12.3 Angel Tsankov fn42551.TakeThisOut@fmi.uni-sofia.bg
9 8 21.2 Dr Balwinder S Dheeman bsd.SANSPAM.TakeThisOut@cto.homelinux
10 8 12.3 Chris ithinkiam.TakeThisOut@gmail.com
--- -----
104 206.4 Total for top 10

Totals for the newsgroup:
175 posters
435 articles
1089.8 kbytes

The top 10 accounted for:
5.7% of the posters
23.9% of the articles
18.9% of the bytes

Averages:
2.5 articles / poster
2.5 kbytes / article
6.2 kbytes / poster

83 people posted for the first time this period.
They went on to post 159 articles altogether

The new posters accounted for:
47.4% of the posters
36.6% of the articles
29.7% of the bytes

Top 10 subjects for the period:

posts kbytes subject
19 53.4 Problem with Mozilla Firefox in Linux.
18 28.9 GUI interface for SSH (putty replacement)
17 41.4 cannot find /dev/console error 432
15 41.4 LILO booting off second IDE disk
15 25.6 redirecting standard output
12 22.7 starting an application....on another desktop!
10 18.4 How to compare algorithms in linux
9 17.7 cron help with cygwin
9 16.8 345 free programming books
9 16.3 Mount a remote filesystem using SFTP?

435 articles on 115 subjects
341 were followups (78.4%)
19 were crossposts (4.4%)

1088.9 kbytes total
headers: 468.3kb 43.0%
quoted text: 150.2kb 13.8%
original text: 446.1kb 41.0%
signatures: 24.4kb 2.2%

Averages:
3.8 articles / subject
2.5 kbytes / article
9.5 kbytes / subject

Postings per weekday:

Day posts
Monday 63 ******
Tuesday 74 *******
Wednesday 55 *****
Thursday 70 *******
Friday 100 **********
Saturday 33 ***
Sunday 40 ****
(*=10 posts)

Top 10 Newsreader used (accumulated):

posts newsreader user
120 (27.6%) g2 61 34.9%
49 (11.3%) slrn 14 8.0%
41 (9.4%) pan 22 12.6%
32 (7.4%) mozilla 12 6.9%
29 (6.7%) thunderbird 12 6.9%
28 (6.4%) microsoft 9 5.1%
28 (6.4%) knode 10 5.7%
25 (5.7%) tin 5 2.9%
16 (3.7%) forte 5 2.9%
14 (3.2%) gnus 7 4.0%

22 different newsreader have been used (versions unaccounted).

DISCLAIMER
Please, take the stats with a dash of salt,
quantity might not always imply quality.

Have a lot of fun...

Aragorn · External Since: Aug 07, 2005 Posts: 1389

On Monday 08 May 2006 00:03, Michael Heiming stood up and spoke the
following words to the masses in /comp.os.linux.misc...:/

> [...]
>
> Top 10 Newsreader used (accumulated):
>
> posts newsreader user
> 120 (27.6%) g2 61 34.9%
> 49 (11.3%) slrn 14 8.0%
> 41 (9.4%) pan 22 12.6%
> 32 (7.4%) mozilla 12 6.9%
> 29 (6.7%) thunderbird 12 6.9%
> 28 (6.4%) microsoft 9 5.1%
> 28 (6.4%) knode 10 5.7%
> 25 (5.7%) tin 5 2.9%
> 16 (3.7%) forte 5 2.9%
> 14 (3.2%) gnus 7 4.0%
>
> [...]

120 posts made from Google Groups, by 61 users... That says it all,
doesn't it...? :-/

--
With kind regards,

*Aragorn*
(Registered GNU/Linux user #223157)

Michael Heiming · External Since: Apr 04, 2004 Posts: 3526

In comp.os.linux.misc Aragorn <stryder.DeleteThis@telenet.invalid>:
> On Monday 08 May 2006 00:03, Michael Heiming stood up and spoke the
> following words to the masses in /comp.os.linux.misc...:/

>> [...]
>>
>> Top 10 Newsreader used (accumulated):
>>
>> posts newsreader user
>> 120 (27.6%) g2 61 34.9%
>> 49 (11.3%) slrn 14 8.0%
>> 41 (9.4%) pan 22 12.6%
>> 32 (7.4%) mozilla 12 6.9%
>> 29 (6.7%) thunderbird 12 6.9%
>> 28 (6.4%) microsoft 9 5.1%
>> 28 (6.4%) knode 10 5.7%
>> 25 (5.7%) tin 5 2.9%
>> 16 (3.7%) forte 5 2.9%
>> 14 (3.2%) gnus 7 4.0%
>>
>> [...]

> 120 posts made from Google Groups, by 61 users... That says it all,
> doesn't it...? :-/

The question is what does it say? The ratio posts/users looks
even slightly "worse" for pan users. Slrn/tin seem to be on top,
which isn't surprising, advanced user seem more likely to use CLI
nntp reader. Presumingly more advanced users trying to answer a
few questions are running those. Strange enough, those suffer
most from the brain dead groups.google default answer mode. ;(

Personally doubt one could tell much from the usage of one or
another newsreader.

Presuming, just for the fun of it, one out of ten poster would be
some kind of troll or alike. Meaning we would have had in the
past week 6 google trolls, but just one knode troll. It's likely
to get the impression, trolls is all we get from groups.google.

One wouldn't really remember this single knode troll behind his
KDE desktop, but in fact the ratio would be exactly the same.

The real pity about it, >95% of groups.google users don't have
the slightest clue that this isn't some internal google group.;(

If I'm wrong, please provide more info what you mean?

BTW
Annoyingly the number one last week looks an awful lot like
myself.;(

--
Michael Heiming (X-PGP-Sig > GPG-Key ID: EDD27B94)
mail: echo zvpunry.DeleteThis@urvzvat.qr | perl -pe 'y/a-z/n-za-m/'
#bofh excuse 82: Yeah, yo mama dresses you funny and you need
a mouse to delete files.

Aragorn · External Since: Aug 07, 2005 Posts: 1389

On Monday 08 May 2006 01:00, Michael Heiming stood up and spoke the
following words to the masses in /comp.os.linux.misc...:/

> In comp.os.linux.misc Aragorn <stryder DeleteThis @telenet.invalid>:
>> On Monday 08 May 2006 00:03, Michael Heiming stood up and spoke the
>> following words to the masses in /comp.os.linux.misc...:/
>
>>> [...]
>>>
>>> Top 10 Newsreader used (accumulated):
>>>
>>> posts newsreader user
>>> 120 (27.6%) g2 61 34.9%
>>> 49 (11.3%) slrn 14 8.0%
>>> 41 (9.4%) pan 22 12.6%
>>> 32 (7.4%) mozilla 12 6.9%
>>> 29 (6.7%) thunderbird 12 6.9%
>>> 28 (6.4%) microsoft 9 5.1%
>>> 28 (6.4%) knode 10 5.7%
>>> 25 (5.7%) tin 5 2.9%
>>> 16 (3.7%) forte 5 2.9%
>>> 14 (3.2%) gnus 7 4.0%
>>>
>>> [...]
>
>> 120 posts made from Google Groups, by 61 users... That says it all,
>> doesn't it...? :-/
>
> The question is what does it say? The ratio posts/users looks
> even slightly "worse" for pan users. Slrn/tin seem to be on top,
> which isn't surprising, advanced user seem more likely to use CLI
> nntp reader. Presumingly more advanced users trying to answer a
> few questions are running those. Strange enough, those suffer
> most from the brain dead groups.google default answer mode. ;(

Well, I'm willing to bet that most of the replying people use a real
newsreader and are aware of what Usenet or NNTP are... Wink

> Personally doubt one could tell much from the usage of one or
> another newsreader.

Not from the newsreader usage, but rather from _not_ using a newsreader,
I'd say...

> Presuming, just for the fun of it, one out of ten poster would be
> some kind of troll or alike. Meaning we would have had in the
> past week 6 google trolls, but just one knode troll. It's likely
> to get the impression, trolls is all we get from groups.google.
>
> One wouldn't really remember this single knode troll behind his
> KDE desktop, but in fact the ratio would be exactly the same.
>
> The real pity about it, >95% of groups.google users don't have
> the slightest clue that this isn't some internal google group.;(

This is actually my point... And it doesn't even seem to help that we
tell them otherwise...

Just as an "anecdote", I happened to have called a user on his
persistent top-posting - along with guidelines on how to post correctly
- in another newsgroup this week, but he just keeps on top-posting.

It's like they just don't care about any of it anymore. All they care
about is getting an answer to whatever it is they're asking. :-/

> If I'm wrong, please provide more info what you mean?

I think you were quite correct... Except maybe that I'm not really
talking about trolls, but about cluelessness, and how the average
knowledge of the newbie seems to be dropping statistically.

I may be sounding disrespectful towards a number of lurkers - if there
still are any, that is; sometimes I just think they post their stuff
right away without looking for an answer and without lurking a group
for a while - but there is this saying that if you treat your customers
like idiots, then idiots are the customers you will attract.

And Google Groups seems to be a real idiot-magnet, if I may say so...

(I apologize for the strong language, but it's really frustrating to see
the level of average common knowledge drop so rapidly...)

> BTW Annoyingly the number one last week looks an awful lot like
> myself.;(

I'm not sure what you mean by that... :-/

--
With kind regards,

*Aragorn*
(Registered GNU/Linux user #223157)

Michael Heiming · External Since: Apr 04, 2004 Posts: 3526

In comp.os.linux.misc Aragorn <stryder RemoveThis @telenet.invalid>:
> On Monday 08 May 2006 01:00, Michael Heiming stood up and spoke the
> following words to the masses in /comp.os.linux.misc...:/

>> In comp.os.linux.misc Aragorn <stryder RemoveThis @telenet.invalid>:
>>> On Monday 08 May 2006 00:03, Michael Heiming stood up and spoke the
>>> following words to the masses in /comp.os.linux.misc...:/
>>
>>>> [...]
>>>>
>>>> Top 10 Newsreader used (accumulated):
>>>>
>>>> posts newsreader user
>>>> 120 (27.6%) g2 61 34.9%
[..]

>>> 120 posts made from Google Groups, by 61 users... That says it all,
>>> doesn't it...? :-/
[..]

>> Personally doubt one could tell much from the usage of one or
>> another newsreader.

> Not from the newsreader usage, but rather from _not_ using a newsreader,
> I'd say...

Strong point!
[..]

>> The real pity about it, >95% of groups.google users don't have
>> the slightest clue that this isn't some internal google group.;(

> This is actually my point... And it doesn't even seem to help that we
> tell them otherwise...

> Just as an "anecdote", I happened to have called a user on his
> persistent top-posting - along with guidelines on how to post correctly
> - in another newsgroup this week, but he just keeps on top-posting.

> It's like they just don't care about any of it anymore. All they care
> about is getting an answer to whatever it is they're asking. :-/

If you lose patient, here are some pre made answers:

[ ] 1. You haven't installed any patches or ever heard about it.
[ ] 2. You installed within a single / nothing else, despite swap.
[ ] 3. You have zero clue what you are doing.
[ ] 4. You desperately need step-by-step instruction.
[ ] 5. Someone (likely an idiot) gave you root on the production server.
[ ] 6. You are doze expert, "fixing" problems with constant rebooting.
[ ] 7. You can't be bothered to read docs, click/reboot always worked.
[ ] 8. You think more GUI admin tools would really help you.
[ ] 9. You mentioned already you are a newbie.
[ ] 10. You were busy developing unix at AT&T, but forgot anything.
[ ] 11. You are confusing corporate help-desk and usenet.
[ ] 12. You are doing a living from posting FUD. (M$-Jubelperser)
[ ] 13. Looks like you should be replaced with competent stuff asap.
[ ] 14. You need help to crack your girlfriends XP box remotely.
[ ] 15. You announced a new Linux support forum, working with IE only.
[ ] 16. You announced a new Linux support forum, using IE.
[ ] 17. You announced a new Linux support forum, using Outcrap.
[ ] 18. You belief M$-Outcrap is a clever choice as MUA.
[ ] 19. You have permissions to use the domain in your "From:"?
[ ] 20. Top posting looks like a clever idea to you.
[ ] 21. You never heard about Netiquette.
[ ] 22. You think Linux should really be more like M$.
[ ] 23. You announced looking for a Linux job using IE.
[ ] 24. You'd like web based config, so you can use IE.
[ ] 25. You think WLAN nics depending on ndiswrapper are a good choice.
[ ] 26. Your time is pretty limited.
[ ] 27. You'd prefer some spoon feeding to get you going.
[ ] 28. It remains completely unclear why your post ended up here.
[ ] 29. You are using a fresh google throw away account.
[ ] 30. You are using an open proxy to bring us your amazing message.
[ ] 31. No traffic on your cool support site? Just spam usenet.
[ ] 32. You blame regulars while remaining completely anonymous.
[ ] 33. You reply in default google style to an ages old thread.
[ ] 34. You are IT professional, using G/2 + IE in default reply mode.

Just in case, only collected from reading.

>> If I'm wrong, please provide more info what you mean?

> I think you were quite correct... Except maybe that I'm not really
> talking about trolls, but about cluelessness, and how the average
> knowledge of the newbie seems to be dropping statistically.

You are aware that AOL closed their nntp server some time ago and
*asked* users to switch to groups.google? Could it be those are
the "same" who refreshed us with top-posting + full quoting from
Outcrap via AOL before?

> I may be sounding disrespectful towards a number of lurkers - if there
> still are any, that is; sometimes I just think they post their stuff
> right away without looking for an answer and without lurking a group
> for a while - but there is this saying that if you treat your customers
> like idiots, then idiots are the customers you will attract.

> And Google Groups seems to be a real idiot-magnet, if I may say so...

> (I apologize for the strong language, but it's really frustrating to see
> the level of average common knowledge drop so rapidly...)

[..]

--
Michael Heiming (X-PGP-Sig > GPG-Key ID: EDD27B94)
mail: echo zvpunry RemoveThis @urvzvat.qr | perl -pe 'y/a-z/n-za-m/'
#bofh excuse 442: Trojan horse ran out of hay

Moe Trin · External Since: Aug 12, 2004 Posts: 1700

On Sun, 07 May 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux.misc, in article
<bgv7g.412754$Z67.11416681@phobos.telenet-ops.be>, Aragorn wrote:

>Well, I'm willing to bet that most of the replying people use a real
>newsreader and are aware of what Usenet or NNTP are... Wink

Anecdotal evidence - yeah, that looks about right. I see some replies
via groups.google that contain helpful answers, but not that many.

>> The real pity about it, >95% of groups.google users don't have
>> the slightest clue that this isn't some internal google group.;(
>
>This is actually my point... And it doesn't even seem to help that we
>tell them otherwise...

But then, how many posters are even aware that some news groups are not
very active (which would be apparent if they looked at posting dates in
representative articles, but that doesn't happen that often) or that
it helps to post to _either_ the standard big-eight groups

[compton ~]$ grep linux big-eight.list.04.15.06 | cut -f1 | column
comp.os.linux.advocacy comp.os.linux.misc
comp.os.linux.alpha comp.os.linux.networking
comp.os.linux.announce comp.os.linux.portable
comp.os.linux.answers comp.os.linux.powerpc
comp.os.linux.development.apps comp.os.linux.security
comp.os.linux.development.system comp.os.linux.setup
comp.os.linux.embedded comp.os.linux.x
comp.os.linux.hardware comp.os.linux.xbox
comp.os.linux.m68k
[compton ~]$

which should be carried on every properly configured news server, OR the
appropriate alt.os.linux.$DISTRIBUTION group

[compton ~]$ grep '^alt\.os\.linux\.' .newsrc | column
alt.os.linux.best alt.os.linux.mandriva
alt.os.linux.caldera alt.os.linux.redhat
alt.os.linux.corel alt.os.linux.slackware
alt.os.linux.debian alt.os.linux.smoothwall
alt.os.linux.gentoo alt.os.linux.storm
alt.os.linux.libranet alt.os.linux.suse
alt.os.linux.lindows alt.os.linux.turbolinux
alt.os.linux.mandrake
[compton ~]$

which are carried by some BUT NOT ALL news servers. People also post to
'alt.linux' and 'alt.os.linux' but posting to the appropriate group is
likely to have your post seen by more people who are willing/able to help.
If the poster's isn't comfortable posting in English, there are a large
number of groups in other languages. Grabbing Red Hat as just one example,
I see

alt.fr.os.redhat cz.comp.linux.redhat-cz
alt.pl.comp.os.linux.redhat it.comp.os.linux.redhat

on my news server (and I suspect there are more), and that's not counting
the national linux groups like 'be.comp.os.linux', 'ch.comp.os.linux',
'cn.comp.os.linux', 'cz.comp.linux' on through to 'uk.comp.os.linux' and
'yu.os.linux'.

>It's like they just don't care about any of it anymore. All they care
>about is getting an answer to whatever it is they're asking. :-/

I know there are people who normally help who are now kill-filing the
groups.google postings. I haven't gotten to that stage yet (and it's
trivial to set up - kill on the 'Message-ID:' ending in 'googlegroups.com>')
but the 'spam-to-ham' (or 'noise-to-signal') ratio is getting fairly high.
Complaints to groups-abuse.DeleteThis@google.com do not provide relief yet. Perhaps
that will change - perhaps not.

>I may be sounding disrespectful towards a number of lurkers - if there
>still are any, that is; sometimes I just think they post their stuff
>right away without looking for an answer and without lurking a group
>for a while

More the pity, because they are posting from a freakin' search engine
that would provide the answer to their question in seconds if they just
use the damn thing.

>And Google Groups seems to be a real idiot-magnet, if I may say so...

I don't know if that's because it's well known and free (and a larger
number of ISPs are no longer offering news service) or because they
can be a major fool without having everyone at their ISP pointing at
them and laughing. It's only those who know how to read the headers
and haven't killfiles groups.google who are laughing.

Old guy

Aragorn · External Since: Aug 07, 2005 Posts: 1389

On Monday 08 May 2006 07:24, Michael Heiming stood up and spoke the
following words to the masses in /comp.os.linux.misc...:/

> In comp.os.linux.misc Aragorn <stryder.TakeThisOut@telenet.invalid>:
>
>> On Monday 08 May 2006 01:00, Michael Heiming stood up and spoke the
>> following words to the masses in /comp.os.linux.misc...:/
>>
>>> The real pity about it, >95% of groups.google users don't have
>>> the slightest clue that this isn't some internal google group.;(
>>
>> This is actually my point... And it doesn't even seem to help that
>> we tell them otherwise...
>>
>> Just as an "anecdote", I happened to have called a user on his
>> persistent top-posting - along with guidelines on how to post
>> correctly - in another newsgroup this week, but he just keeps on
>> top-posting.
>>
>> It's like they just don't care about any of it anymore. All they
>> care about is getting an answer to whatever it is they're asking. :-/
>
> If you lose patient, here are some pre made answers:
>
> [...]
>
> Just in case, only collected from reading.

Well, I generally try not to insult anyone, but it *is* darn
frustrating... It's like trying to explain general relativity to a
mushroom... :-/

>>> If I'm wrong, please provide more info what you mean?
>
>> I think you were quite correct... Except maybe that I'm not really
>> talking about trolls, but about cluelessness, and how the average
>> knowledge of the newbie seems to be dropping statistically.
>
> You are aware that AOL closed their nntp server some time ago and
> *asked* users to switch to groups.google?

So I've been told, but I must admit that I've never really known what
this AOL thing was. I presume it was (or is) an ISP?

> Could it be those are the "same" who refreshed us with top-posting +
> full quoting from Outcrap via AOL before?

This has already been mentioned in other newsgroups, yes. However,
given my lack of experience with said users, I cannot vouch for that.

Either way, the dumber the posters seem to become, the more I feel like
telling them to /RTFM,/ although I've always managed to avoid resorting
to such rudeness.

Like I said, it's sad... Very sad... :-/

--
With kind regards,

*Aragorn*
(Registered GNU/Linux user #223157)

John Hasler · External Since: Mar 25, 2004 Posts: 1319

Aragorn writes:
> The thing that puzzled me was the reputation AOL users had, as I've never
> come across any flagrant displays of stupidity from any of them, or at
> least, not in such a way that I would still remember it.

AOL started out as a closed network with no connection to the Internet.
They provided moderated forums, etc, all targeted at "the family". They
marketed heavily and were quite successful at attracting a certain type of
user, but eventually found their users demanding access to the Internet.
So they gave it to them, including Usenet, in 1993 (without telling them
that the newsgroups were not just more AOL forums). A comment at the time
was "Now September will never end".

Of course, WebTV came along later and made AOLers look like old Unix hands.
Last year AOL dropped Usenet, but now we have Google Groups.
--
John Hasler
john.RemoveThis@dhh.gt.org
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI USA

Robert Hull · External Since: Oct 31, 2004 Posts: 1219

In comp.os.linux.misc, on Mon 08 May 2006 18:11, Aragorn
<stryder.DeleteThis@telenet.invalid> wrote:

> Well, I generally try not to insult anyone, but it *is* darn
> frustrating... It's like trying to explain general relativity to a
> mushroom... :-/
>
So why are you insulting the mushroom?
--
Robert HULL

Archival or publication of this article on any part of thisishull.net
is without consent and is in direct breach of the Data Protection Act

Aragorn · External Since: Aug 07, 2005 Posts: 1389

On Monday 08 May 2006 23:44, Robert Hull stood up and spoke the
following words to the masses in /comp.os.linux.misc...:/

> In comp.os.linux.misc, on Mon 08 May 2006 18:11, Aragorn
> <stryder.DeleteThis@telenet.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Well, I generally try not to insult anyone, but it *is* darn
>> frustrating... It's like trying to explain general relativity to a
>> mushroom... :-/
>>
> So why are you insulting the mushroom?

I hereby sincerely apologize to all mushrooms on this planet. I never
meant to imply that all mushrooms by definition make use of Google
Groups...

Wink

--
With kind regards,

*Aragorn*
(Registered GNU/Linux user #223157)