Re: SAA down the tubes?

I believe that the decline in the number of SAA posts is due to many folks
moving over to Astromart and Cloudynights forums, Yahoo Groups. etc...

"canopus56" <canopus56@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1124493091.808544.264260@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> X-archive: No
>
> B Yen wrote:
>
> X-archive: No
>
>> What happened to sci.astro.amateur? It looks like its degraded, . . .
>
> Yes, there is a down trend.
>
> Table 1 - Frequency of posts to sci.astro.amateur
> Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul
> 1995 1118 949 1060 961 1273 1695 1695
> 1996 2912 2527 3005 3538 3522 3051 4001
> 1997 5464 5266 6139 5436 4705 3833 4214
> 1998 7050 5814 7114 6458 7804 6549 6962
> 1999 11348 9073 10056 10775 10454 10075 12169
> 2000 12076 8700 11911 8406 8606 8799 10137
> 2001 12000 9178 9301 8555 7720 7263 7458
> 2002 8062 6442 7728 7361 6465 6297 6493
> 2003 6665 6355 6014 5587 5287 4894 6448
> 2004 7413 6856 5731 4595 3986 5184 4528
> 2005 5484 3092 3627 3456 2713 2915 2935
>
> Looking at the linear decline each year during May and July between
> 1999 through 2005, SAA posts have been declining at the rate between
> 1250 to 1400 posts per year. Thus, SAA may be dead between May and
> July of 2007.
>
> I personally attribute the trend to three factors -
>
> 1) Audience fragmentation - from the rise of alternative fragmented
> listservs - like Yahoo and Cloudynights - accounting for the general
> downward trend after 2000.
>
> 2) Natural factors - for 2005 - weather reducing interest in the
> hobby; for 1999-2001, increased interest in the hooby due to do solar
> max the more frequent extension of aurora to the mid-latitudes.
>
> 3) Community factors - the failure of the community as a whole to reach
> consensus as to an appropriate balance, or mutual coexistence, between
> social posting and technical-science posting.
>
> The last, community failure to reach a consensus, IMHO primarily
> accounts for the drop between Jan 2005 through July 2005.
>
> There has been an ongoing theme in this group between two audiences who
> seek different returns from the group:
>
> - those who view it as a technical-observational resource.
> - those who view it as a social outlet.
>
> Some posts over the last year are illustrative.
>
> Whenever, technical-observational content increases, posts start to
> pop-up about how astronomy - "It's a HOBBY" and suggesting that the
> participants here are "pinheads" and "a nest of egos" or are on a
> "science fantasy" trip.
>
> The result of this community split was more than one long-time
> technological-observal-adept poster ramping back on the group in the
> last 8 months. E.g. (sorry to single an individual out), Bill Ferris
> "s.a.a. vs. other forums" 4/30/2005: "The last straw for me were the
> self-appointed 'regulars' who decided that the s.a.a. charter didn't
> apply to them."
>
> Conversely, the technical-observational sub-audience isn't going to
> wade through a hundred socially-oriented posts to participate in a
> technical/science/amateur-astronomy-gear discussion. Most people don't
> have the time.
>
> Since, let's say January 2005, Chris Petersen has done an outstanding
> job of holding up the technological/amateur-astronomy-gear end of the
> sci.astro.amateur sub-community.
>
>> Are the website-based forums overcoming Usenet?
>> Looks like the CloudyNights forums are active:
>> <snip> There are a bunch of astronomy groups on Yahoo! Groups.
>
> I participate and lurk in a few Yahoo and CloudyNights forums.
> Privately-owned moderation is not very good at addressing the basic
> audience split discussed above. Privately-owned moderation is very
> good at eliminating bouts of persons with apparent mental problems
> clogging the group with inappropriate posts, e.g. the guy who posted
> capitalized "Are you saved" headers a few months ago or astrological
> posters claiming "astronomers are cataloguers". You all know the list
> of usual suspects. Privately-owned moderation, for example, at Yahoo
> or Google groups, has the advantage that it is easy to found a new
> group on an obscure topic.
>
> A listserv model based on privately owned moderation in fragmented
> newsgroups has its own drawbacks -
>
> 1) It's privately-owned - the resource could disappear should market
> forces, an illness or simple whim overtake the list owner. One of the
> strengths of usenet SAA is that it is a defacto publically owned
> reference resource.
>
> 2) It can fragment the audience below a critical mass. Fragmentation
> means that the odds of getting a good technical answer to a question
> are much lower. You have to take the time to search multiple newsgroup
> sources and "hope" that the right expert lurks in that group.
> Fragmented groups are on occassion very useful. For example, I've
> gotten some outstanding answers in the yahoo lunar observing and the
> Meade DSI groups. Conversely, fragmentation can lead to low group
> participation. Although I like Cloudynights tremendously, in many of
> the groups, the posting rate is very low. They look active, but in
> some groups, there might be 10 posts across several months. The same
> thing could be said for 10 or 15 astronomy related Yahoo groups.
>
> What is the future?
>
> My own feeling is that usenet groups, including SAA, have a bright
> future - yahoo.groups and google.groups notwithstanding, because they
> exist in the public domain and, for SAA in particular, they can be
> moderated so a group charter is enforced. In this case, that is the
> SAA group charter.
>
> (There has been some criticism that the SAA group charter has become
> outdated and needs revision. IMHO, it does need updating in the
> context of audience group splits discussed above. IMHO recent
> discoveries in the science of astronomy is an appropriate topic.)
>
> A moderated group would create a one-stop, publically-owned, protected
> zone in which SAA can shine as a technical and observational resource.
>
> Practically, this means a couple of hardy, dedicated souls have to come
> forward and found sci.astro.amateur.moderated - a sub-group in which an
> updated SAA charter would be enforced. I do not know how the usenet
> system works these days with respect to founding a moderated newsgroup.
>
>
> The SAA charter can be read by searching for the following post:
>
> News group: news.announce.newgroups
> Subject: RESULT: sci.astro.amateur passes 435:29
> Date: Sep 7 1994
> From: rdippold@xxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> My two cents -
>
> Canopus56
>


.

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