Re: PHYS-L Nov99 Technical posting

[David Bowman <David_Bowman@GEORGETOWNCOLLEGE.EDU>]

Regarding William Waggoner's comment of 11/01/99:

> This technical post needs updating.  Traffic varies from 0 a day to well
> over 80 messages a day.  It is far greater than an average of 10 a day.  I
> would estimate it is closer to an average of 50 a day. I would guess on
> average 5 threads are discussed a day.

According to my (fairly good-but not perfectly complete) records the
traffic on phys-l over the past few years is approximately:

Time span                Avg. per diem number of posts
03/21/95 - 08/27/96           14.9
09/05/96 - 12/31/97           15.2
01/01/98 - 12/31/98           14.1
01/01/99 - 11/04/99           18.5

So it appears that the 10/day estimate in the technical post is somewhat
too low, but the 50/day estimate is too high with a much greater error.

The main thing to keep in mind is wild fluctuations--yet with a
significant persistence time--in the posting volume do occur.  A typical
2-week average is not necessarily representative of an annual average
(which itself is apparently not all that stable either).

I suspect it may still be too soon to tell if the recent upswing in
volume represents a new long term average baseline level.  However the
1999 volume so far does seem to be over 6 standard deviations above the
mean of previous years.

David Bowman
David_Bowman@georgetowncollege.edu