Friday marked the second anniversary of the Traveller Mailing List. Two
years ago I asked rec.games.frp if such an idea raised any interest, and
now we're over 150 members strong, with the following confirmed
international membership counts: 7 in Canada, 2 in Denmark, 1 in the
Netherlands, 4 in Sweden, and 5 in the UK (about 15% of the list
membership). We have at least 4 people on this list which have
published Traveller materials, and at least one which has run a PBEM
Traveller game.
List contributions by month (yes, the graph is sideways):
Jun88 12 |====********
Jul 13 |==***********
Aug 3 |*** ________________
M Sep 3 |*** |Legend: |
O Oct 11 |=********** |Administrator = |
N Nov 8 |=******* |Listee * |
T Dec 2 |** |________________|
H Jan89 3 |==*
Feb 9 |*********
Mar 73 |======************************************************** ~ *****
Apr 54 |====**************************************************
May 52 |==**************************************************
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+- ~ -+----+
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 70 75
Number of messages submitted
Note: The list mailing software was broken Jan '89 through Feb
'89. Jun '89 is currently at about 18 messages, so it looks
like things have mostly calmed down.
Archives:
Kbytes: 1717 (1140 this year)
Number of messages: 400 (259 this year)
Number of full bundles: 38 (26 this year)
Average message size: 4 Kbytes
Average # messages/week: 7 (up from 3 the previous year)
The above shows that list traffic has increased by a factor of ~2 over
the previous year. Although messages have remained the same size, we
are getting twice as many of them.
We've had quite a loss of old listees (~30-40) in the past year, which
has been compensated by about 60 new listees, so I think the membership
is fairly stable at around 150 members. Reasons for loss included
computer account termination (~25%), lack of interest (~25%), or broken
mail addresses (~50%).
During the past year we've had problems with duplicated mail and the
hp.com server failure, both of which have required signifigant efforts
to track down.
I've implemented a dual distribution path for list members in the past
year. Listees can now choose between "instant" message delivery, or
twice-weekly "digest" delivery. I've added software that makes it
easier for me to manage the list, particularly in answering standard
questions (archive requests, and the new listee package). I've also
added "archive packages" that contain messages which pertain to specific
topics (MT Errata, Software, and Ship Designs). If you'd like a copy of
the archive contents listing, or change your delivery format, please let
me know.
My friends at Computer Network Services here at Tek have recently put
the company mail server (tektronix.tek.com) on the Internet, with a
leased line connection to CSNET. This has reduced propagation delay for
mail reaching you from 1-6 hours down to 1-10 minutes!
THERE WILL BE SOME CHANGES in the next couple months FOR ADDRESSING MAIL
TO REACH ME AND THE LIST DISTRIBUTION SOFTWARE. Keep a watch out for
the change, which I will announce as it happens.
If you can think of any way to make this list better, I'd like to hear
your suggestions (even if they are "be more prompt!", or "stop sending
this silly anniversary drivel").
Thanks everybody for being a part of this list. It's your contributions
that have made this list valuable. Keep up the excellent quality of
this last year's contributions, and I'll try to keep the list
functional.
James
P.S. Watch your hobby shops for the successors to Digest Group
Publications' Grand Census and Grand Survey, updated for MegaTraveller.
They are due any time. Also in November, GDW has scheduled the release
of a "Robots" book for MegaTraveller.
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James T. Perkins Traveller Mailing List Administrator
Tektronix Digital Systems Division "Load Auto/Evade, Beowulf!"
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INTERNET: [email removed]
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