Joe T,

Sorry, but I don't believe that the lower posting rates in RGO are due to
violations of TOS.

http://netscan.research.microsoft.com/ is a tool that allows one to search
for all kinds of interesting statistics about this newsgroup. Among other
things, you can find out there that RGO has been much less active this year
than last year -- for example: using August 1, 2006 to get the statistics
for a year, last year there were 5533, and this year only 2968; in contrast
using August, 1, 2001 to get statistics for a year, 12158 "this year"
(meaning Aug 1, 2001 back to Aug 1, 2000, I think). And yet in February 2001
there was a message to this forum entitled "Why are people so mean on this
forum". I think you will find reading through the archives that this group
has actually become much more tame and friendly to newbies over time rather
than the opposite. RGO used to have some ferocious flame wars, and yet
during those days the number of messages was much higher.

Mick Fournier has been a member of this forum since Jun 19 1997, and in this
time he has been exceedingly rude at times, exceedingly funny at other
times, and given useful information at other times, and sometimes even all
three of these at once, but you cannot blame the declining participation in
this forum on Mick's behavior because then this forum would have had it's
lowest turnout years ago, when Mick's tirades were really ugly. Believe it
or not, Mick seems to have calmed down significantly over the years, and he
is no longer nearly as rude as he used to be. Just read the archives in
groups.google.com searching for group:rec.gardens.orchids author:fournier if
you don't believe me.

So there must be another explanation for decline in participation in this
forum. How about the fact that newsgroups in general are an old mode of
communication? I have not been able to find statistics for all of
Usenet/Newsgroups but I bet that the overall numbers have declined over the
years.

Joanna


"jtill" wrote in message
oups.com...
The point is, violations of TOS harm this forum and drive away posters.
I think Mr. Fournier has violated the TOS and wish he would quit doing
that. Years ago I watched RGR Flamed till it was ruined. There are folk
that turn to RGO for help and discussion, that is what they should get.
We all, Experts and Newbies, should provide that. Simple, polite
corrections should should stop OT posts.
Did I make that clear?
Joe T
The data I used came from GOOGLE.


J Fortuna wrote:
RGO posts, author Mick Fournier, July 2000, 21
RGO posts, author Mick Fournier, July 2000, 1

I do not know the orchid sales of Mick Fournier during that time, and
whether or not they have shown a steady growth.

Joe T, what point were you trying to make with these RGO stats?

Joanna

PS: the RGO posts, author Mick Fournier stats quoted above are based on a
search using http://groups.google.com/advanced_search (I don't know what
you
were using for your stats Joe T, but groups.google.com returns only 241
results for RGO for 2000, and only 41 in July 2006 -- although I think
groups.google.com returns threads as results and not individual messages,
so
that might account for the difference in our stats.

"jtill" wrote in message
ups.com...
snip
RGO posts, July 2000, 1007.
RGO posts, July 2006, 313.

Orchid sales during that time have shown steady growth.

Joe T
Baytown