�
Are you curious about the activity level of
the microsoft.public.excel.* newsgroups?
�
Maybe, you'd like to learn who are the more
prolific posters are
�
Maybe you'd like to identify the program most
used for postings?
�
How about knowing who initiates the most new
discussions?'
Check out the information in the pages on
the left. And let me know what you think of this
service at
tushar@tushar-mehta.com
This section of the web site provides
statistical analysis of postings to the more popular Excel
newsgroups. Updates to these pages will be on a
monthly basis with a current goal of weekly updates.
Summary statistics cover the entire period
for which data are available (June 2000 to now).
Detailed reports are trimmed to the last six months, or even
3 months. This maintains contemporary relevance and
cuts down on the already large files.
A
note of caution about the October 2001 data.
Apparently, a large chunk of the data was lost.
Consequently, the numbers for October 2001 are not
meaningful for any systematic analysis. Also note that
the data for September 2003 include the impact of the Swen
virus. The data for May 2005 and June 2005 include --
accidentally -- statistics for the PowerPoint newsgroup.
The error has no noticeable impact on data about individuals
since, for the most part, there are very few who post to
both the Excel and the PowerPoint groups.
I have made every attempt to ensure the
integrity of the analysis but one must keep in mind that the
statistical analysis depends on the data in the headers of
each posting. Given the rather loose standards to
which these headers must adhere, the statistics may not be
100% accurate.
This limitation is the same one that other
organizations -- such as Google -- must also accept.
Other problems are also intrinsic to the very nature of
newsgroups standards. For example, the statistic on
postings on a person-by-person basis (the Posting Frequency
report) is more accurate than the same information
summarized from the newsgroup-by-newsgroup report (Posting
Frequency by Newsgroup). In the latter case, it is
impossible to eliminate the effect of cross-posts without
making further assumptions about how to treat the data.
Finally, each of these pages might take
some time to load. They are the result of Excel's
Save as Web Page... command and contain XML
code.
I have no immediate intention of removing the XML code
since the code expedites future updates.
