Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 11:42:30 -0500 From: Randy Pratt <rpratt1950@earthlink.net> To: Andrew Boothman <andrew@cream.org> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Less messages to FreeBSD.org lists Message-ID: <20040126114230.0d712ccb.rpratt1950@earthlink.net>
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On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 16:11:09 +0000 you wrote: > Hi everybody, > I've just noticed an interesting fact. If you visit the mailing list > archives on http://docs.freebsd.org/mail/ you'll notice that in 2003 > there were 20,000 less messages to FreeBSD.org mailing lists compared > to 2002. That's a fall of about 8% (Although we did still manage to > increase the total size of those emails - thanks to all those essay > email writers! :-) > > That's the first time since FreeBSD began that there's been a fall in > numbers. > > Now - I'm not trying to start a "BSD is dying!" thread, there's no > question that there's more than enough development going on in all the > BSDs to counter that - but I would expect the total number of mailing > list posts to vary approximately to the OSs installed base. Or is that > too simplistic a view and I'm just worrying unnecessarily? > > I've been thinking for a while that -questions "feels" quieter. Or > perhaps I'm just getting used to the message flow... As others have mention, the documentation gets much better all the time and the search engines are probably a bit better at finding more relevant postings than in the past. One thing that has not been mentioned is that you see very few one line posts with only the content "man foo" as in the past. It was very common several years ago. The higher quality content of responses to questions has probably decreased the necessity of follow-up questions and explanations. These one line posts probably contributed to the higher numbers in several ways. Perhaps Greg Lehey's weekly posting of "How to get the best results.." is encouraging more people to do research on their own or ask better questions in the first place. I know from experience that there are very few instances where I could not find an answer from the archives or at least enough information to get me going in the right direction. Perhaps there is a silent "buddy system" growing where someone takes it upon themselves to mentor a new user. I've been doing this for a few years and have helped about 5 new people thru some rough spots to the point they can now generally help themselves. I'm sure that cut the number of postings down. As a side benefit, I also learned a lot myself during the process: To teach is to learn twice. Perhaps the 4.x branch has had enough questions asked such that most of the common questions/answers have been archived and are easily found. It may skyrocket when 5.x becomes the mainstay and there are less people familar with it. I just don't think there is any coorelation between the number of postings and the number of users. There are far too many factors affecting the posting count to draw any conclusions from it. Best regards, Randy -- There is no .sig better than no sig
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