[Foundation-l] Analysis of lists statistics: community in decline

[Milos Rancic]

On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 5:00 PM, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 4:47 PM,  <mikelifeguard at fastmail.fm> wrote:
>>>* Two [of analyzed] lists -- textbook-l and wikija-l -- show
>>>*increase* of traffic! It would be good to analyze why it is so. Maybe
>>>they have the answer to our problem: increasing of list traffic
>>>usually means that community is increasing. (Or they are just in the
>>>earlier phase, which means that they will show decrease of traffic
>>>during the next year or two.)
>>
>> I would suggest that textbook-l traffic is up because we have had several
>> announcements lately, such as getting the Collection extension enabled last
>> week. In fact, the most voluminous threads over the past 6 months have been
>> on the subject of PDF generation, with one exception (a licensing issue).
>> I'm not sure what conclusions can be drawn from that additional information,
>> but I think the low level of traffic overall is probably relevant to an
>> accurate determination in that case.
>
> Simply, you are working on specific goals. If this is the answer, it
> is a very very simple one :)
>
> So, maybe the question should be redefined to others: How many
> specific goals do have other projects and supporting mailing lists?

Mike, thanks! As more as I am thinking, I am more sure that you gave
us the right answer. It is a simple one, but the right one. If we
don't know for reasons why it is so at other places, we learned what
the cure is.