Readership

[Per Starback]

Don asked:
> Which leads me to something I don't think I know the exact
> answer to: this Digest only goes to a certain number of people in this
> "Disney" group which exists over on some other BBS (than where I am -
> COMPUSERVE)... is that right? How many people are in that Disney-group
> nowadays, and how many DON'T see this digest and the stuff that is
> posted here???

I'll try to make this clear, and answer some questions you didn't ask
as well:

Anyone who can receive Internet mail can subscribe to the mailing
list.  Internet isn't really a BBS, but rather a collection of several
interconnected computer networks in lots of countries with zillions of
users, most of them academics.  Besides hosts directly connected to
Internet, lots of other computers can receive Internet mail as well,
as there are various gateways out there sitting on multiple networks
that will carry a message over from one network to another.  This is
something commercial bboards like Compu$erve and Genie etc.  tend to
offer their customers.  So the number of potential subscribers is
probably mindboggingly huge, and probably not all Duck fans out there
who have access to email don't know about it.

Currently the list has 64 subscribers, with this domain distribution:
(I list all top domains, and all subdomains with more than one
member.)

edu = USA, educational	17 (Boston University 2)
com = USA, commercial	 9 (Compuserve 2, General Electric 2)
gov = USA, government	 3 (Center for Seismic Studies, VA 2)
---------------------------
USA, total:		29

ca = Canada		 3
br = Brazil		 1

se = Sweden		13 (Uppsala University 5, Ericsson 2)
nl = Netherlands	 5
no = Norway		 3
de = Germany		 2
dk = Denmark		 2
it = Italy		 2
be = Belgium		 1
es = Spain		 1
fi = Finland		 1
uk = United Kingdom	 1
---------------------------
Europe, total:		31

One of the Norwegian subscribers is an automatic address that puts the
messages in a local "Usenet Newsgroup" where several people can read it.
I have no idea how many readers that group have.

Only 11 of these 64 subscribers subscribe to the "digest" form of the
list, but what way people subscribe shouldn't matter much as you get
exactly the same messages any way.  The digests are collected
automatically from all messages sent to the list since last time.
This means among other things that the issue numbers of the digests
don't mean much to most subscribers.  They are there mostly so digest
subscribers will notice if they miss an issue.
--       "
Per Starback, Uppsala, Sweden.  email: starback at student.docs.uu.se
 "Life is but a gamble!  Let flipism chart your ramble!"