From: Jeroen Tiggelman CONSUL NL> Date: 6 jan 1997 Subject: Re: Shogi-L messages and subscribers from 1990 until 1996 >I wish you all a somewhat belated healthy and happy 1997. So do I. >The start of a new year provides a nice opportunity to analyze preceding >years. Please find below a table that shows the growth of SHOGI-L since its >founding in May 1990. "Messages" refers to the number of messages sent to >SHOGI-L in a given year and "Subscribers" stands for the number of Alright. "Analyse" is maybe a bit strong, though, for the little data presented. I think that the number of messages over 1990 is not useful, since it was the first year, which would (arguably) imply everyone was anxious to find out what kind of exchanges would work. I'll accept your end-year estimate. I'll give the differences both as an absolute number and as a percentage below. Year Messages Subscribers ---- ---------------- --------------- 1990 (170) * * 51? * * 1991 112 * * 92 +41 + 80? 1992 98 - 14 - 13 126 +34 + 37 1993 351 +253 +158 153 +27 + 21 1994 223 -128 - 36 187 +34 + 22 1995 549 +326 +146 218 +31 + 17 1996 900 +351 + 64 264 +46 + 21 >1996 has seen a substantial growth both in terms of messages (almost twice >as many as in 1995) and subscribers I have several things to say to this. [1] I don't think a growth of 64% quite warrants "almost twice as many". ;-) [2] The one trend I see in the above figures is about 20% more subscribers each year over the last four years. So the +46 isn't exceptional; I'd expect a new record in absolute numbers each year now. ;-) [3] If 51 is a good estimate, people had difficulty finding out about the list at first, it would seem (the +80% is quite a lot higher than what follows). [4] The number of messages fluctuates wildly; the average growth since 1991 is actually 52% per year, so last year wasn't all that exceptional from that point of view. However, I think you would have to break down into types of messages to say something interesting here. I seem to remember the Internet Shogi Server coming up to generate quite a lot of traffic for a while, which died out gradually.. But there's been a lot of initiative lately, that's for sure. :-) The fact _that_ it fluctuates wildly seems to imply that it depends primarily on initiative, so "Keep up the good work" indeed. ;-) Jeroen Tiggelman consul nl