Hi Dale, I am usually lurking cypherpunks, I decided to reply to your message just to give you an idea of why _I_ subscribed to cypherpunks. (English is not my first language, not even the second, please forgive me my grammar monstruosities) I am very intested in crypto, _application_ of crypto, remailers and security, I usually trash flames, political/social implication of crypto and of course commercial emails. Looks like the last 3 categories are the main topic. I don't have problem in bandwith but I think that if I was forced to use a phone connection instead of a digital one like I have now I will unsubscribe to the list since it will not be worth for me to spend hours in downloading a lot of emails knowing that I will trash the 90% of them. I don't want to criticize people who talk all the time about the above mentioned 3 categories because it is in my understanding that someone is interested in those and I will remain subscribed to the list just to pick up the real juice. Best wishes to all, Juriaan

-----Original Message----- From: Dale Thorn [SMTP:dthorn@gte.net] Sent: Wednesday, January 08, 1997 4:06 AM To: cypherpunks@toad.com Cc: freedom-knights@jetcafe.org Subject: [STATS] Cypherpunks subscriptions on and off

The following table shows cypherpunks subscription activity for the period 12 Oct 1996 thru 07 January 1996.

Date ~Days #Subs Gain Loss Gain / day Loss / day ----- ----- ----- ---- ---- ---------- ---------- 10/12 n/a 1361 n/a n/a n/a n/a 11/04 23 1353 211 219 9.2 9.5 11/30 26 1299 173 227 6.7 8.7 12/18 18 1262 120 157 6.7 8.7 01/07 20 1291 151 122 7.6 6.1 ----- ----- ---- ---- ---------- ---------- Totals: 87 655 725 7.5 8.3

Interpretation:

Unless the reversal of gain/loss in the 5th data row is permanent, c-punks are losing 0.8 bodies per day, or 294 subscribers per year.

Actually, the constant high turnover suggests something else: Many people join the list and get back off again due to the high volume and their own personal time constraints. Unless Sandy can cut *way* back on the number of posts to the list, i.e. excise a *lot* more postings than just the blatant Spam and "Timmy is a....." posts, it won't make any difference to those people who come and go.

In effect, Sandy is going to have to cut the number of daily posts (to the moderated list) from, say, 100 per day down to, say, 20 or 25 per day. This would certainly be a goal of his, since most of the subscriber comments I've heard indicate that even 50 posts per day of "relevant political/social commentary" is way too high for them.

As to the net loss in subscribers, the moderation of the list could have a substantial effect on the number of subscribers short-term, but whatever trend we have here will continue regardless, since the real value and character of the list is not determined by the posts which are removed (unless it were that some of the character and value is going to be removed), but by long-term factors which are to be expected when the principals get older, less involved, and less contentious (like Sandy, wanting to avoid conflict).