At 09:34 PM 9/29/98 +0100, Stevan Harnad wrote:
>On Tue, 29 Sep 1998, Marvin Margoshes wrote:
[...]
>To test armchair pronouncements such as these against real evidence, I
>can only patiently counsel yet again having a look at the way 20,000
>authors a year and 65,000 readers a day are voting with their eyes and
>fingers even as we speak...
>
>http://xxx.lanl.gov/cgi-bin/todays_stats
Okay, that's *one* way to evaluate the effectiveness of
the transition to online media. Quantify it based upon
"traffic" or "popularity." But how do you evaluate it
qualitatively? You need a good survey to do that.
I haven't yet seen one conducted, or suggested. I think
if one were conducted, you might see readers willing to
stay with the status-quo longer than some of us may think.
The usability issue is a serious problem and not one
likely to go away any time in the next decade (guaranteed).
As for the site's statistics, I think they confuse things
unnecessarily by using non-standard terms when discussing
their statistics. A connection does not equal a person,
but rather (I believe) seems to be equivalent to a page
access or a "hit." The number of *hosts* connecting is
what we would consider a unique visitor, and it is that
number one should look at.
The hosts number is much more believable at between
3,000 - 8,000 people per day accessing the site. I'd
find it hard to believe that 65,000 unique people
were looking at that particular Web site every day!
And it's not 20,000 authors a year according to:
http://xxx.lanl.gov/cgi-bin/show_monthly_submissions
It's 11,706 authors a year, and we don't know how
many of those are non-unique authors.
It's an interesting development, and I do believe some
of the things discussed in this forum will slowly come
to pass. But it will likely be a very slow (and sometimes
painful) transition to this new media, and resisted by
many.
John
--
Mental Health Net
http://www.cmhc.com/
Received on Tue Aug 25 1998 - 19:17:43 BST