NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Posting Statistics / Proposal
From: Dan Allen
Date: 2001 Jul 21, 3:34 PM
From: Dan Allen
Date: 2001 Jul 21, 3:34 PM
NAVIGATION-L@LISTSERV.WEBKAHUNA.COM Statistics I joined this mailing list in July of 1997. I have saved most (not all) of the email that has gone through the list. I wrote an Awk script to scan the headers of all of the postings and here is what I learned. Here is a histogram of the posting frequencies: [ 0 .. 15) N = 164 (86%) Sum = 459 (32%) [ 15 .. 30) N = 14 ( 7%) Sum = 275 (19%) [ 30 .. 45) N = 7 ( 3%) Sum = 265 (18%) [ 45 .. 60) N = 2 ( 1%) Sum = 107 ( 7%) [ 60 .. 75) N = 0 ( 0%) Sum = 0 ( 0%) [ 75 .. 90) N = 1 ( 1%) Sum = 86 ( 6%) [ 90 .. 105) N = 1 ( 1%) Sum = 97 ( 7%) [ 105 .. 120) N = 0 ( 0%) Sum = 0 ( 0%) [ 120 .. 135) N = 0 ( 0%) Sum = 0 ( 0%) [ 135 .. 150) N = 0 ( 0%) Sum = 0 ( 0%) [ 150 .. INF) N = 1 ( 1%) Sum = 151 (10%) Items 190 Sum 1,440 Minimum 1 Maximum 151 Range 150 Mean 7.6 Harmonic Mean 1.7 Geometric Mean 2.8 RMS Mean 18.3 Sample Stdev 16.7 Population Stdev 16.7 --- Here is how your read this: There were 190 different people that posted to the group for a total of 1,440 posts. From the first line of the histogram you can determine that 164 people posted less than 15 times in 4 years, for a total of 459 posts. The last line of the histogram shows that one person posted 151 times. Here is a list of the top posters and how many times they posted from July of 1997 to July of 2001: 151 Dan Hogan 97 Dan Allen 86 Rick Emerson 57 Russell Sher 50 George Huxtable 44 Tony Severdia 43 Gordon Talge 39 Bill Murdoch 37 Paul Hirose 36 Rodney Myrvaagnes 34 Peter Smith 32 Chuck Taylor 27 Yves Arrouye 26 Lu Abel 26 Aubrey O'Callaghan 23 Millard Kirk 19 Steven Wepster 19 Nigel Gardner 18 Roger M. Derby 18 Michael Wescott 18 Joe Shields 18 Ed Falk 17 Mal Misuraca 16 Andres Ruiz 15 Jim Manzari 15 Dr. Geoffrey Kolbe 13 Herbert Prinz 13 Clive Sutherland 12 Geoff Kuenning 12 Barrie Hudson 11 Richard Langley 11 Henning Umland 11 Carl Herzog 10 William Trayfors 10 Thomas Schmidt 10 Sam Chan 10 R.H. van Gent 9 Pierre Boucher 9 Craig 8 John Simmonds My Awk script actually handled the fact that many of the posters of this list have had different signatures (email addresses, spellings of names, with or without middle initials, order of names, etc.) and has folded everyone many identities into a single canonical identity based on what they posted as the most frequently. REFLECTION ========== This fine collection of acquaintances seems now like longtime friends! I have found myself starting to talk to others about my friend George Huxtable who knows the history of English navigation like the back of his hand, of Chuck Taylor who enjoys HP calculators like I do, of Aubrey O'Callaghan who enjoys O'Brian, of Dan Hogan the Silicon Sea man, of Richard Emerson our pragmatist who always brings our theory back to practice, of Russell Sher who someday if I ever get to South Africa I would like to meet, of Peter Smith who I have learned a lot of theory from... and to many others who have all been posting for these 4 years. I am impressed with the amount of knowledge that we collectively have shared in this forum. I would bet that we account for more than 50% of the people of the world that are seriously interested in celestial navigation, perhaps more! PROPOSAL ======== Maybe we should consider trying to sometime meet for a day someplace to actually meet and get acquainted in person. It would be especially nice to pick someplace that is central to navigation. Next year is the 200th anniversary of Nathaniel Bowditch's first edition of "The American Practical Navigator" and Bowditch was born at Salem, Massachusets. Perhaps we should gather there? Or not. Is there any interest in doing this? REQUEST ======= To better determine a central meeting location, could you email me your city or lat/lon and then I'd like to find a center point where we could meet. I know of several of the list in Europe and Russell in Africa, but I think most of us are in the US. My rough guess is that a center would be somewhere in the Eastern US. Thanks! Dan Daniel K. Allen danallen@nwlink.com http://www.nwlink.com/~danallen/ Measure | Analyze | Communicate