1994 BIOSCI/bionet Newsgroup Usage Statistics

[Dave Kristofferson]

Here are the BIOSCI/bionet newsgroup usage statistics for 1994.

Usage was up dramatically on virtually all newsgroups, and the total
number of postings in 1994, 59,672 was up 207% over the 1993 total,
28,868.  This means that anyone who attempted to read all of the
postings to BIOSCI/bionet during 1994 would have had to peruse 163
messages per day, 365 days per year.  When we started this system back
in the mid-80's, it was possible to read everything each day in about
5 minutes; clearly it is no longer possible to monitor everything in
the system.

It is becoming an increasingly important objective to improve the
signal-to-noise ratio on the groups as more people join the Internet.
Newsgroup moderation is one means of acheiving this goal.

BIONEWS/bionet.announce readership stats are posted in a separate
message.

Twenty three new newsgroups were created in 1994, continuing at the
rate of about 2 new groups a month that we have seen for the last two
to three years.

				Sincerely,

				Dave Kristofferson
				BIOSCI/bionet Manager

				biosci-help at net.bio.net


		  1994 BIOSCI/bionet Newsgroup Usage
                  ----------------------------------

Groups are listed in descending order of the number of messages posted
per day.

USENET Newsgroup Name		# 1994 msgs.	Msgs/day	'94/'93**
---------------------		------------	--------	-------
bionet.molbio.methds-reagnts	12442		34.1		2.0
bionet.general			5692		15.6		1.8
bionet.jobs			3952		10.8		2.4
bionet.software			3687		10.1		1.2
bionet.neuroscience		3334		9.1		2.4
bionet.plants			2400		6.6		1.5
bionet.molbio.proteins		2184		6.0		3.2
bionet.microbiology*		1063		5.7		N/A
bionet.immunology		1929		5.3		3.1
bionet.molbio.yeast		1500		4.1		1.9
bionet.info-theory		1180		3.2		1.4
bionet.cellbiol			1107		3.0             2.3
bionet.mycology			1094		3.0             1.6
bionet.genome.arabidopsis	1037		2.8             1.2
bionet.jobs.wanted*		526		2.8		N/A
bionet.women-in-bio		966		2.6             1.6
bionet.virology			939		2.6             2.9
bionet.molbio.evolution		931		2.6             1.5
bionet.announce			793		2.2             1.4
bionet.xtallography		773		2.1             1.5
bionet.users.addresses		735		2.0             1.5
bionet.software.gcg		644		1.8             1.8
bionet.agroforestry		642		1.8             3.0
bionet.biophysics*		569		1.8		N/A
bionet.molbio.proteins.7tms_r*	68		1.7		N/A
bionet.glycosci*		29		1.7		N/A
bionet.molbio.ageing		582		1.6             2.3
bionet.drosophila		577		1.6             2.3
bionet.molbio.rapd		531		1.5             1.2
bionet.molbio.hiv		526		1.4             4.7
bionet.journals.contents	506		1.4             1.2
bionet.celegans*		225		1.3		N/A
bionet.molbio.genome-program	478		1.3             2.2
bionet.parasitology*		420		1.3		N/A
bionet.population-bio		452		1.2             2.4
bionet.structural-nmr*		340		1.3		N/A
bionet.biology.cardiovascular*	90		1.2		N/A
bionet.molbio.genbank		394		1.1             1.2
bionet.molec-model*		214		1.1		N/A
bionet.software.acedb		382		1.0             1.7
bionet.biology.tropical		378		1.0             2.0
bionet.organisms.zebrafish*	162		1.0		N/A
bionet.sci-resources		339		0.9             1.1
bionet.photosynthesis		318		0.9             1.1
bionet.chlamydomonas		275		0.8             1.0
bionet.biology.grasses*		179		0.8		N/A
bionet.metabolic-reg		255		0.7             0.9
bionet.genome.chromosomes	251		0.7             1.2
bionet.protista*		224		0.7		N/A
bionet.molbio.gene-linkage	224		0.6             1.5
bionet.emf-bio*			85		0.6		N/A
bionet.prof-society.cfbs*	44		0.6		N/A
bionet.cellbiol.cytonet*	148		0.5		N/A
bionet.journals.note		163		0.4             0.8
bionet.molbio.embldatabank	149		0.4             1.0
bionet.molbio.molluscs*		48		0.4		N/A
bionet.molbio.gdb		122		0.3             1.0
bionet.biology.n2-fixation	108		0.3             0.75
bionet.organisms.urodeles*	63		0.3		N/A
bionet.software.staden*		32		0.3		N/A
bionet.molbio.bio-matrix	75		0.2             1.0
bionet.biology.computational	52		0.1             0.17
bionet.prof-society.ascb*	19		0.1		N/A
bionet.prof-society.faseb*	11		0.1		N/A
bionet.prof-society.csm*	6		0.1		N/A
bionet.prof-society.biophysics*	9		0.03		N/A

* - The 23 newsgroups marked with a * were created during 1994.  The
messages per day statistics for these groups are derived by dividing
the number of posts by the number of days that the respective group
was in existence.

** The ratio of 1994 messages per day to 1993 messages per day.  N/A =
"not applicable" because the newsgroup was not in existence during 1993.

Statistics for bionet.molbiol.genbank.updates, the newsgroup used to
disseminate information on daily GenBank sequence updates, are not
tabulated.