Re: Postgres mail list traffic over time

Gregory Stark wrote:
> Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> writes:
>
>> Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> writes:
>>> Tom Lane wrote:
>>>> So, to a first approximation, the PG list traffic has been constant
>>>> since 2000. Not the result I expected.
>>> I also was confused by its flatness. I am finding the email traffic
>>> almost impossible to continue tracking, so something different is
>>> happening, but it seems it is not volume-related.
>> Yes, my perception also is that it's getting harder and harder to keep
>> up with the list traffic; so something is happening that a simple
>> volume count doesn't capture.
>
> I've noticed recently that the mailing list traffic seems very "bursty". We
> have days with hundreds of messages on lots of different in-depth topics and
> other days with hardly any messages at all. I wonder if it's hard to follow
> because we've been picking up more simultaneous threads instead of all being
> on one thread together before moving on to the next one.
>
> Another idea, I wonder if the project has gone more international and
> therefore has more traffic at odd hours of the day for everyone. It would also
> mean more long-lived threads with large latencies between messages and replies.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if that were the case. Alas, it's not
possible to analyze usefully because so many companies use .com
addresses instead of addresses under a cctld, and because so many people
use webmail services like gmail that provide no geographical information
in the domain.

Certainly the variety of languages seen in error messages, the variation
in English language skills, etc would tend to suggest a pretty strong
user base outside the US/Uk/Au .

--
Craig Ringer