After my recent post on the women's heptathlon, I received an off-list reply that commented on the dramatic decline in messages he had received from t-and-f and wondered if that was experienced by other members.
I wrote back that it certainly was part of my experience, with the traffic having declined from something on the order of a dozen messages a day to a usual one or two. I also wrote that I wasn't sure whether the decline was due to a dramatic decline in list membership, or just reduced participation. I told him I'd try to learn something about past and present membership numbers. This is some of what I learned: An April 20, 2000, message on the topic carried the information that at that time, list membership varied seasonally from 900-1000 to about 1500. A request today to darkwing.uoregon produced a current membership list of 667, making current membership in this off-season about two-thirds of what it was in 2000. When I scanned about 500 t-and-f messages I'd considered useful to file, it quickly became apparent that an important part of the reason for decline in traffic is loss of, or greatly reduced participation of some members who had been frequent contributors in earlier years. At the very considerable hazard of embarrassment by missing some important ones, let me mention a few that seemed obvious to me-- Paul Houde: Quebec journalist who provided lots of posts on European results; especially those in France. Cordner Nelson and Jim Dunaway: formerly with Track and Field News. Garry Hill: Editor of Track and Field News, who was able to bring enormous research resources to bear on any question that generated a significant thread. Coty Pinckney: One of the list originators, I think, who was especially helpful with statistical analyses. Dave Carey: Athletics writer and statistician. Ken Nakamura: Frequent contributor of data on distance events. Ed Gordon: Sportswriter on assignments in Europe. Eamonn Condon: Faithful translator, from English to American English, of articles from London newspapers, especially the Daily Telegraph. Also, and I'm sure to miss some and apologize in advance, frequent contributors Jeff Hollobaugh, Mike Moran, Ed Grant, Tomas Magnusson, Wilmar Kortleever, Winfried Kramer, Phil Wyckoff, FranciCash, Graham Thomas, Ed Koch, Tony Craddock, and Conway Hill. Even though these names don't include many who participated well then and still do, I think there was a time when the 20-odd I've listed contributed half the messages that flowed on this list. Losing their participation accounts for a good part of the reduced traffic. As I look at the examples of Houde, Gordon and Condon, it also is apparent that another reason for the decline in posting of results is today's far greater ease of access to websites that provide the information they formerly translated and forwarded. Personally, I wish there still was more posting of results. Maybe that's just a combination of laziness and dial-in internet access, but I much appreciated the ease of availability of results on the t-and-f list. Finally, there's the factor of renewed competition for our audience; especially that of the Track and Field News forums. I don't know large a bite this has taken. It couldn't substitute as a venue for the results and statistical summaries I've especially appreciated on t-and-f, because the formatting of columnar material is hopelessly scrambled on the T&FN display; but it works as well as t-and-f for discussion items and the threads are easier to follow. In summary, we've lost more participation than we have members, but we've lost some important contributors. There's room for more to emerge: go for it! Cheers, Roger
