Statistics for comp.lang.perl.misc

Greg Bacon

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Nov 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AM11/10/97

to

Following is a summary of articles spanning a 7 day period,
beginning at 01 Nov 1997 13:18:11 GMT and ending at
08 Nov 1997 19:31:46 GMT.

Notes
=====

- A line in the body of a post is considered to be original if it
does *not* match the regular expression /^\s{0,3}(?:>|:|\S+>|\+\+)/.
- All text after the last cut line (/^-- $/) in the body is
considered to be the author's signature.
- The scanner prefers the Reply-To: header over the From: header
in determining the "real" e-mail address and name.
- Original Content Rating is the ratio of the original content volume
to the total body volume.
- Please send all comments to Greg Bacon <gba...@cs.uah.edu>.

Excluded Posters
================

perlfaq-s...@mox.perl.com

Totals
======

Total number of posters: 387
Total number of articles: 837 (315 with cutlined signatures)
Total number of threads: 313
Total volume generated: 1377.2 kb
- headers: 559.3 kb (11,417 lines)
- bodies: 757.6 kb (23,663 lines)
- original: 536.7 kb (17,453 lines)
- signatures: 58.3 kb (1,240 lines)
Original Content Rating: 0.7084

Averages
========

Number of posts per poster: 2.16
median: 1 post
mode: 1 post - 274 posters
s: 4.73 posts
Number of posts per thread: 2.67
median: 2 posts
mode: 1 post - 111 threads
s: 2.25 posts
Message size: 1684.9 bytes
- header: 684.2 bytes (13.6 lines)
- body: 926.8 bytes (28.3 lines)
- original: 656.6 bytes (20.9 lines)
- signature: 71.3 bytes (1.5 lines)

Top 10 Posters by Number of Posts
=================================

(kb) (kb) (kb) (kb)
Posts Volume ( hdr/ body/ orig) Address
----- -------------------------- -------

64 105.8 ( 54.0/ 38.0/ 23.8) Tom Phoenix <root...@teleport.com>
47 76.5 ( 32.7/ 34.1/ 19.0) brian d foy <com...@computerdog.com>
37 73.9 ( 22.3/ 51.6/ 34.3) Tad McClellan <ta...@flash.net>
21 44.8 ( 13.8/ 31.0/ 20.2) Mark Mielke <ma...@nortel.ca>
13 16.3 ( 8.4/ 7.6/ 3.1) Toutatis <toutatis@_SPAMTRAP_toutatis.net>
11 20.6 ( 6.4/ 10.7/ 6.8) Mike Stok <mi...@stok.co.uk>
11 20.9 ( 5.7/ 15.0/ 11.8) Andrew M. Langmead <a...@world.std.com>
10 18.5 ( 7.3/ 11.2/ 6.2) "Allen Evenson" <a...@seanet.com>
10 15.5 ( 7.1/ 6.3/ 3.6) Martien Verbruggen <mg...@comdyn.com.au>
10 22.9 ( 6.5/ 14.0/ 10.0) William R. Ward <her...@cats.ucsc.edu>

Top 10 Posters by Volume
========================

(kb) (kb) (kb) (kb)
Volume ( hdr/ body/ orig) Posts Address
-------------------------- ----- -------

105.8 ( 54.0/ 38.0/ 23.8) 64 Tom Phoenix <root...@teleport.com>
76.5 ( 32.7/ 34.1/ 19.0) 47 brian d foy <com...@computerdog.com>
73.9 ( 22.3/ 51.6/ 34.3) 37 Tad McClellan <ta...@flash.net>
44.8 ( 13.8/ 31.0/ 20.2) 21 Mark Mielke <ma...@nortel.ca>
22.9 ( 6.5/ 14.0/ 10.0) 10 William R. Ward <her...@cats.ucsc.edu>
20.9 ( 5.7/ 15.0/ 11.8) 11 Andrew M. Langmead <a...@world.std.com>
20.6 ( 6.4/ 10.7/ 6.8) 11 Mike Stok <mi...@stok.co.uk>
18.5 ( 7.3/ 11.2/ 6.2) 10 "Allen Evenson" <a...@seanet.com>
16.3 ( 8.4/ 7.6/ 3.1) 13 Toutatis <toutatis@_SPAMTRAP_toutatis.net>
15.9 ( 4.6/ 11.4/ 3.3) 6 Justin Wills <jus...@nectar.com.au>

Top 10 Posters by OCR (minimum of five posts)
==============================================

(kb) (kb)
OCR orig / body Posts Address
------ -------------- ----- -------

0.9988 3.4 / 3.4 5 John Moreno <phe...@interpath.com>
0.9872 2.4 / 2.4 6 "Rick" <rllu...@netins.net>
0.9848 4.6 / 4.6 9 Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH; to reply, change "void" to "kf8nh" <b...@void.apk.net>
0.7849 11.8 / 15.0 11 Andrew M. Langmead <a...@world.std.com>
0.7426 2.3 / 3.1 8 Calle Dybedahl <qdt...@esb.ericsson.se>
0.7366 5.9 / 8.0 7 Ronald L. Parker <r...@farmworks.com>
0.7338 5.2 / 7.1 8 Steve Kilbane <Steve_...@cegelecproj.co.uk>
0.7099 10.0 / 14.0 10 William R. Ward <her...@cats.ucsc.edu>
0.7035 2.6 / 3.7 5 Dave Barnett <bar...@houston.Geco-Prakla.slb.com>
0.6641 34.3 / 51.6 37 Tad McClellan <ta...@flash.net>

Bottom 10 Posters by OCR (minimum of five posts)
=================================================

(kb) (kb)
OCR orig / body Posts Address
------ -------------- ----- -------

0.5560 6.2 / 11.2 10 "Allen Evenson" <a...@seanet.com>
0.5124 3.0 / 5.9 6 Mike Heins <mhe...@prairienet.org>
0.4975 3.9 / 7.9 5 Douglas SEAY <se...@hol.fr>
0.4955 2.1 / 4.3 5 Bart Lateur <bart.me...@tornado.be>
0.4909 3.8 / 7.7 7 Ilya Zakharevich <il...@math.ohio-state.edu>
0.4422 2.7 / 6.0 7 corn...@home.com
0.4179 1.7 / 4.1 7 Jason Gloudon <jglo...@bbn.com>
0.4091 3.1 / 7.6 13 Toutatis <toutatis@_SPAMTRAP_toutatis.net>
0.3685 1.6 / 4.3 5 Charles DeRykus <c...@bcstec.ca.boeing.com>
0.2913 3.3 / 11.4 6 Justin Wills <jus...@nectar.com.au>

Top 10 Threads by Number of Posts
=================================

Posts Subject
----- -------

24 An excellent example of perl madness (or "split stupidity")
12 Seeking Year 2000 checker OR comment stripper for C/C++
11 Sorting and Counting with PERL
10 Regular Expressions
9 Chomp vs Chop
8 Perl->Java? Java->Perl? Gaaaaa!
8 What to do with Bitwise operators?
8 CPAN confusion
8 One slice of hash, please...
8 Puzzle: palindromep

Top 10 Threads by Volume
========================

(kb) (kb) (kb) (kb)
Volume ( hdr/ body/ orig) Posts Subject
-------------------------- ----- -------

48.1 ( 17.0/ 28.9/ 18.3) 24 An excellent example of perl madness (or "split stupidity")
22.6 ( 9.2/ 12.3/ 8.5) 12 Seeking Year 2000 checker OR comment stripper for C/C++
20.9 ( 5.8/ 14.6/ 8.7) 9 Chomp vs Chop
20.9 ( 7.9/ 11.3/ 7.7) 11 Sorting and Counting with PERL
19.2 ( 5.2/ 13.3/ 7.9) 8 Perl->Java? Java->Perl? Gaaaaa!
18.5 ( 5.3/ 12.0/ 5.8) 8 CPAN confusion
14.9 ( 4.1/ 10.8/ 6.8) 6 Real Newbie Question
14.5 ( 7.5/ 6.1/ 3.3) 10 Regular Expressions
13.9 ( 5.1/ 7.6/ 5.0) 8 Puzzle: palindromep
13.8 ( 2.0/ 11.3/ 10.6) 3 Tricky problem... how to use open3() in "open3.pl" ??

Top 10 Targets for Crossposts
=============================

Articles Newsgroup
-------- ---------

12 comp.lang.perl.modules
6 comp.lang.java
3 alt.fan.e-t-b
3 pl.comp.lang.perl
2 comp.lang.perl
2 it.comp.lang.perl
2 comp.unix.solaris
2 comp.lang.perl.tk
1 comp.lang.modula3
1 comp.os.vms

Top 10 Crossposters
===================

Articles Address
-------- -------

10 "Manfred Schneider" <manfred....@rhein-neckar.de>
3 Tom Phoenix <root...@teleport.com>
3 ng...@q-d.com
2 Mike Heins <mhe...@prairienet.org>
2 ap...@torfree.net
2 Nicco <nicc...@mbox.vol.it>
2 indh...@hotmail.com
2 yan...@alumni.cs.uwm.edu
2 Eli the Bearded <usene...@qz.little-neck.ny.us>
1 Carey Evans <c.e...@clear.net.nz>

Tad McClellan

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Nov 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM11/11/97

to

Danny Aldham (da...@lennon.postino.com) wrote:
: Greg Bacon (gba...@cs.uah.edu) wrote:
: : Following is a summary of articles spanning a 7 day period,

: : beginning at 01 Nov 1997 13:18:11 GMT and ending at
: : 08 Nov 1997 19:31:46 GMT.

: : Top 10 Posters by Number of Posts
: : Top 10 Posters by Volume
: : Top 10 Posters by OCR (minimum of five posts)
: : Bottom 10 Posters by OCR (minimum of five posts)
: : Top 10 Threads by Number of Posts
: : Top 10 Threads by Volume
: : Top 10 Targets for Crossposts
: : Top 10 Crossposters

: Would it be possible to get the Top 10 Posters of RTFM posts?
: I swear, close to 50% of the posts are such a beast. Couldn't
: they just be sent as e-mail?

Would it be possible to get the Top 10 Posters of FAQs?
I swear, close to 50% of the posts are such a beast. Couldn't
they just try and look them up, like the conscientious 'net
citizens do, before they post the same question yet again?

I'm more annoyed by the disease than I am by a symptom of the disease...

--
Tad McClellan SGML Consulting
ta...@flash.net Perl programming
Fort Worth, Texas

Danny Aldham

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Nov 11, 1997, 3:00:00 AM11/11/97

to

Greg Bacon (gba...@cs.uah.edu) wrote:
: Following is a summary of articles spanning a 7 day period,

: beginning at 01 Nov 1997 13:18:11 GMT and ending at
: 08 Nov 1997 19:31:46 GMT.

: Top 10 Posters by Number of Posts
: Top 10 Posters by Volume
: Top 10 Posters by OCR (minimum of five posts)
: Bottom 10 Posters by OCR (minimum of five posts)
: Top 10 Threads by Number of Posts
: Top 10 Threads by Volume
: Top 10 Targets for Crossposts
: Top 10 Crossposters

Would it be possible to get the Top 10 Posters of RTFM posts?
I swear, close to 50% of the posts are such a beast. Couldn't
they just be sent as e-mail?

--
Danny Aldham SCO Ace , MCSE , JAPH , DAD
I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night. jm

Eli the Bearded

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Nov 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM11/12/97

to

Tad McClellan <ta...@flash.net> wrote:
> Danny Aldham (da...@lennon.postino.com) wrote:
> : Greg Bacon (gba...@cs.uah.edu) wrote:

> : : Following is a summary of articles spanning a 7 day period,
> : Would it be possible to get the Top 10 Posters of RTFM posts?

Submit code to do it.

> : I swear, close to 50% of the posts are such a beast. Couldn't

> : they just be sent as e-mail?

I very rarely see them, maybe that says something about the articles I
choose not to read though.

> Would it be possible to get the Top 10 Posters of FAQs?

A little trickier since them suckers are very good are rewording the
questions.

> I swear, close to 50% of the posts are such a beast. Couldn't

> they just try and look them up, like the conscientious 'net
> citizens do, before they post the same question yet again?

You assume they aspire to be conscientious.

(Greg: would it be possible to keep a running tally of how many people
have asked for counts of RTFM posts? Probably something like:

my $rtfmcount=1; # Danny Aldham is the first

if ( ($subject =~ /Statistics\s+for\s+comp\.lang\.perl/i) and
(defined($references)) ) {

if ( $body =~ /^\s*
[^]>:|}]
.*
top\s+
(?: ten
| 10
)\s+
(?: RTFM
| read [-\s]+ the [-\s]+ FAQ
| check [-\s]+ deja\W?news
)
/xim
) {

if (open(SAVEDCOUNT,"<savedcount")) {

$rtfmcount=<SAVEDCOUNT>;

if ( $rtfmcount =~ /^\s*\d+\s*$/ ) {
$rtfmcount++;
} else {
warn "\$rtfmcount has been trashed ($rtfmcount) resetting" .
" date is now bogus\n";
$rtfmcount=1;
}

if (open(SAVEDCOUNT,">savedcount")) {
print SAVEDCOUNT $rtfmcount;
} else {
warn "Couldn't write to savedcount: $!\n";
}

} else {
warn "Couldn't open savedcount: $!\n";
}
}
}

# ...

printf "%8d Bozos have asked for RTFM post counts since November 1997\n",
$rtfmcount;

Just a suggestion mind you.)

> I'm more annoyed by the disease than I am by a symptom of the disease...

Of course, they represent two very different mindsets.

Elijah
------
perl -e 's Y Yreverse q N ny pm ,srekcah lrep kroy wen emosNYex and s Pmp ynP
P and s MsMjust sMx and print and s NYPM MPYN Nis or reverse and print q q q'

Tad McClellan

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Nov 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM11/12/97

to

Eli the Bearded (usene...@qz.little-neck.ny.us) wrote:
: Tad McClellan <ta...@flash.net> wrote:

: > I swear, close to 50% of the posts are such a beast. Couldn't

: > they just try and look them up, like the conscientious 'net
: > citizens do, before they post the same question yet again?

: You assume they aspire to be conscientious.

There is my mistake (compounded by my inability to ignore them,
as they deserve. For some reason that I cannot explain, even to
myself, I insist on trying to help even them).

I am an idiot.

brian d foy

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Nov 12, 1997, 3:00:00 AM11/12/97

to

In article <64atoh$s3j$1...@lennon.postino.com>, da...@lennon.postino.com (Danny Aldham) wrote:

>Greg Bacon (gba...@cs.uah.edu) wrote:
>: Following is a summary of articles spanning a 7 day period,

>: beginning at 01 Nov 1997 13:18:11 GMT and ending at
>

>Would it be possible to get the Top 10 Posters of RTFM posts?

>I swear, close to 50% of the posts are such a beast. Couldn't

>they just be sent as e-mail?

then other people wouldn't see them and wouldn't get the stigma of
posting a question before RTFM.

most of the questions answered here are answered by people that
RTFM. you'll notice that these same people rarely *ask* questions.

--
brian d foy <com...@computerdog.com>
NY.pm - New York Perl M((o|u)ngers|aniacs)* <URL:http://ny.pm.org/>
CGI Meta FAQ <URL:http://computerdog.com/CGI_MetaFAQ.html>

Keith Willis

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Nov 21, 1997, 3:00:00 AM11/21/97

to

On Mon, 17 Nov 1997 15:14:52 GMT, a...@world.std.com (Andrew M.
Langmead) wrote:

>da...@lennon.postino.com (Danny Aldham) writes:
>
>I have been toying with an idea that may alleviate the situation. If
>the frequent posters to comp.lang.perl.* put a header in their posts
>that are answers to FAQs (maybe with the contents of the header being
>a URL to the source of their answers.) others may find a way to kill
>both the response and its originating question. They reason that I'm
>thinking of putting the URL in the header is to differentiate the
>posts between absolutely factual answers and replies that are contain
>they authors opinions.

Or use a technique that is frequently found in the much-spammed binary
groups; prefix the subject with a fixed string, say "FAQ:". Then it
becomes a trivial matter for those who wish to to set up a kill filter
to zap all those FAQ answers.

klw
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The above message reflects my own views, not those of Hewlett Packard.
When emailing me, please note that there is no '.junk' in my address.

Andrew M. Langmead

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Nov 21, 1997, 3:00:00 AM11/21/97

to

keith_wi...@non-hp-unitedkingdom-om1.om.hp.com (Keith Willis) writes:

>Or use a technique that is frequently found in the much-spammed binary
>groups; prefix the subject with a fixed string, say "FAQ:". Then it
>becomes a trivial matter for those who wish to to set up a kill filter
>to zap all those FAQ answers.

There are two problems with that approach:

1. You kill the FAQ answers, but not their originating questions. In
that case I wouldn't see the answers and may waste time answering
them. (I want to kill both the RTFM and the FAQ posts.)

2. The newsreader I use threads on subject lines, not on References
headers. Every once in a while, I make an attempt to use trn, but
unfortunately my brain is wired to "nn"s key sequences and its view of
Usenet. Since the RTFM post has a different subject header than the
original, my threads are screwed up.

Its not that your idea is a bad one, and if there was a growing
momentum to flag posts this way, I'd certainly do my part, but since
I'm dreaming this dream, I get to make my own rules.
--
Andrew Langmead

Greg Bacon

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Nov 24, 1997, 3:00:00 AM11/24/97

to

Following is a summary of articles spanning a 7 day period,

beginning at 15 Nov 1997 11:27:37 GMT and ending at
22 Nov 1997 06:02:55 GMT.

Notes
=====

- A line in the body of a post is considered to be original if it
does *not* match the regular expression /^\s{0,3}(?:>|:|\S+>|\+\+)/.
- All text after the last cut line (/^-- $/) in the body is
considered to be the author's signature.
- The scanner prefers the Reply-To: header over the From: header
in determining the "real" e-mail address and name.
- Original Content Rating is the ratio of the original content volume
to the total body volume.
- Please send all comments to Greg Bacon <gba...@cs.uah.edu>.

Excluded Posters
================

perlfaq-s...@mox.perl.com

Totals
======

Total number of posters: 470
Total number of articles: 1089 (439 with cutlined signatures)
Total number of threads: 392
Total volume generated: 1751.2 kb
- headers: 738.2 kb (15,143 lines)
- bodies: 933.5 kb (30,422 lines)
- original: 647.4 kb (22,131 lines)
- signatures: 76.7 kb (1,582 lines)
Original Content Rating: 0.6936

Averages
========

Number of posts per poster: 2.32
median: 1.0 post
mode: 1 post - 324 posters
s: 4.99 posts
Number of posts per thread: 2.78
median: 2.0 posts
mode: 1 post - 125 threads
s: 2.52 posts
Message size: 1646.7 bytes
- header: 694.2 bytes (13.9 lines)
- body: 877.8 bytes (27.9 lines)
- original: 608.8 bytes (20.3 lines)
- signature: 72.2 bytes (1.5 lines)