[OT][META] historical analysis of the list's traffic.

[Samuel Thurston]

Just to beat the dead horse a little, I found the message heralding
the switch from the old mailing list description (which was "Ubuntu
community news and chit-chat .. anything goes ") to the current one:

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/sounder/2010-August/015091.html

How I came across this is moderately interesting: I was thinking about
doing another epic data post, along the lines of my previous one,
detailing the history of the list.  Since the archives start in August
of 2004, I decided to only look at each august as "annual milestones."
Here are the interesting points of my finds:

Initially the list was a lot of install reports of warty and technical
information probably better suited to the ubuntu-users list.
august 2005 sees the shift into how Alan characterizes the list, as
mostly a "ubuntu sightings and ubuntu in the news" type list. However
even at this time there were discussions about more "political" type
issues.

Darl McBride Sco/novell lawsuit drivel:
             https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/sounder/2005-August/002329.html'
Stuff about space (because sabdfl is an astronaut, get it?)
             https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/sounder/2005-August/002376.html
Open source -> guerrilla warfare -> US justifies Iraq War (seriously)
             https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/sounder/2005-August/002363.html
===

August of 2006 shows really what I think is the beginning of the way
the list is today:

An ubuntu distro with religious overtones:
             https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/sounder/2006-August/008327.html
An argument about a similar change in the description of ubuntu-users list
             https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/sounder/2006-August/008558.html
Merits of various email providers:
            https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/sounder/2006-August/008510.html

===
August of 2007 was much more of the same.

August of 2008 is the big story.  Aug 2007 had 97 messages.  low, but
only about half of the previous couple years volume, something you
could write off as a statistical anomaly.  Aug 2008 has 11.  11
messages posted to sounder for the whole month.  in one year's time,
the list volume went from 3 messages per day to 1 every 3 days.

====

August 2009 sees a comeback, 67 messages, or back to two a day: but
the content of the list is DECIDEDLY non-ubuntu and mostly even
non-linux related.

August 2010 sees an almost complete return to the prior model: mostly
topical, reasonably high traffic still (90ish messages)

Since Aug 2011 is still to come, I want to compare the most-recent
whole month data we have: March 2011

167 messages, overwhelmingly ubuntu related.(actually overwhelmingly
Unity related, but that's a horse of a different color.)

====

In short the list is almost as healthy as it's ever been.  If Ubuntu
doesn't "need this list" anymore, perhaps that's because Ubuntu's
grown to the point where it's no longer exciting when it's mentioned
in the news. That's kind of sad.

If people are interested I may do an analysis on what the big dip in
2008 was all about. Not sure I want to invest the time if nobody cares
though.