The picture painted by Randy is not that bleak - was it ever. Most of the
stuff is bird oriented. I was going to analyse the topics posted this month
but it looks like hard work - though I may do it yet. This would give an idea
of the percentages of the time that people stay on-topic. I decided against
this as it would unfairly penalise people who don't post that often, but when
they do they complain about off-topic posts :-)))

Top 17 posters (everybody with 100 or more postings) since Wed Apr 19
06:37:52 1995 :

Dennis Paulson 943 almost always about birds
Don Baccus 519 mix of stuff
Gene Hunn 361 always about birds
Stuart MacKay 297 never about birds :-)
Michael Price 231 our what's left of Canada expert
Michael Smith 230 atlassing guru
Tom Foote 229 quiz master
Russel Rogers 213 RBA technician
Jon Anderson 203 Our man in the Government
Dan Victor 183 Without whom we'd all be on OBOL
Serge Le Huitouze 133 Dry Gallic Humour par excellence
Chris Hill 116 not sure how to describe Chris ;-)
Burt Guttman 111 even less sure about Burt
Andy StepniewSki 110 Is there life east of the Cascades
Dale Goble 103 Our agent in Moscow
MWKG at AOL.COM 101 no idea who this is
Mike Patterson 100 hmmmm.

Total 3538

Total number of postings in the period 8502

Percentage of posting by all frequent posters: 49%
Percentage of posting by top 10 frequent posters: 40%
Percentage of posting by top 5 frequent posters: 28%


489 people posted to the list in the last 6 months. I suppose this gives an
idea of turnover, etc, etc.


I suppose the bottom line is: If you want to change the composition of the
postings then post more stuff about birds more often. There's no point being a
lurker then complaining about the material you read - CONTRIBUTE, CONTRIBUTE,
CONTRIBUTE - that's the only way to do it.

PS - saw 6 dark-eyed juncos in the garden yesterday. This makes this posting
totally "on-topic".

Stuart
--
Stuart MacKay, Ravenna Ave NE, Seattle