On Tue, February 9, 1999 at 07:34:51 (-0500) Gerald Levy writes: >... >What PEN-L suffers from is not the absence of posts. Quite the reverse. It >is not uncommon for daily digests to be over 500K. I would guestimate that >digests have average over 250K in recent months. This is _way_ too large >for subscribers to be expected to read, engage, and seriously participate >in. (NB: a recent check revealed that there has been in recent months a >approx 20% reduction in subscribers). Daily average in January was about 125K. The average number of posts per day was about 27. >So, the volume is too large. > >Moreover, a lot of this volume is posted by just a few subscribers. For >instance, it is not uncommon for individuals to post between 6-15 messages >per day. It would seem that voluntary restraint (or if necessary a list >requirement concerning the maximum # of posts/person/day) is needed. > >So, there are too many posts by too few subscribers. Top 20 highest posters per day (approx. figures) were: Average Total Poster -------- -- ---------------------------------------------- 2.709680 84 Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 2.032260 63 Doug Henwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 2.000000 62 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tom Walker) 1.709680 53 Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 1.612900 50 Michael Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 1.064520 33 valis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 1.032260 32 "Rosser Jr, John Barkley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 0.903226 28 "Henry C.K. Liu" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 0.903226 28 "James Michael Craven" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 0.741935 23 Ken Hanly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 0.741935 23 Brad De Long <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 0.709677 22 Peter Dorman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 0.677419 21 "William S. Lear" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 0.645161 20 Richardson_D <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 0.548387 17 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Max Sawicky) 0.451613 14 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 0.419355 13 Dennis R Redmond <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 0.387097 12 rc&am <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 0.354839 11 Michael Yates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 0.354839 11 Rob Schaap <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Moreover, too much of the content of posts has nothing to do of relevance >for a "Progressive Economists Network". In fact, I would hazard to >estimate that on this "economists" list, a majority of posts are written >by non-economists. As I am a non-economist, I'll have to disagree with your implication. >E.g. (yes, I have raised this issue before but it was blithely ignored): >why is there a "daily labor report" for the US sent to a list which is >supposedly international? (but which is, in fact, overwhelmingly dominated >by subscribers from the US and Canada). Isn't there *some other way* that >those who want the report can be sent it without burdening the rest of >us? (seriously, Dave: stop it!) The daily labor report is highly relevant to progressive economics. If you have information to add, please do so. >Then there are all of those reprints from _The New York Times_. You call >that "discussion"? If you don't like what is being discussed, why don't you raise the level and contribute something of value? What would you like to discuss? >(Or long reprints from books without the author's permission and in >violation of copyright laws). Fair use. Bill
