From: jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala)
Subject: Political newsgroups on Usenet - statistics
Reply-To: jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala)
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 20:02:39 GMT

In November, I noticed that alt.activism ranks surprisingly high in
the newsgroup statistics - though to me it seems that most of the
discussion has little to with activism but rather "alt.us.politics" as
in alternative (meaning something like "non-demopublican") U.S.
politics.  Now it's even higher and exceeds talk.politics.misc
readership by 20 thousand readers instead of the 10 thousand of
October (though the counting method has apparently changed).

Here's a grep of some political newsgroups (choice of groups biased by
my personal interests) in the December 1992 statistics (see the
monthly posting in news.lists for an explanation of the figures):

egrep 'politics|activism|libert|censorship|eff|acad-freedom|privacy'

  15  83000  2324   69%   303  1545.3    57%  0.02   5.0%  alt.activism 
  36  63000  1761   73%  1778  5320.4    62%  0.11   3.8%  talk.politics.misc 
 141  41000  1154   60%    62   164.6    21%  0.00   2.5%  alt.activism.d 
 160  39000  1090   66%   187   403.1    60%  0.01   2.3%  alt.censorship 
 259  32000   893   82%   516  1284.9    15%  0.06   1.9%  comp.org.eff.talk 
 404  26000   723   60%   426  1090.5     9%  0.05   1.5%  alt.politics.homosexuality 
 423  26000   713   70%   930  2613.8    10%  0.13   1.5%  talk.politics.guns 
 434  25000   703   71%  1373  3975.0    23%  0.21   1.5%  talk.politics.mideast 
 488  23000   649   63%   170   289.3    38%  0.01   1.4%  alt.privacy 
 509  23000   627   70%   218   854.1    29%  0.05   1.3%  talk.politics.soviet 
 555  22000   599   62%   204   654.8    58%  0.03   1.3%  alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk 
 585  21000   580   70%   339   989.3    79%  0.06   1.2%  talk.politics.theory 
 632  20000   553   79%     6   113.4   100%  0.01   1.2%  comp.org.eff.news 
 642  20000   549   72%   146   300.7     0%  0.02   1.2%  comp.society.privacy 
 744  18000   493   54%   157   505.0    90%  0.03   1.1%  alt.politics.elections 
 775  17000   476   66%   158   376.6    37%  0.03   1.0%  talk.politics.drugs 
 783  17000   467   50%   497  1112.3    35%  0.06   1.0%  alt.politics.clinton 
 820  16000   449   71%   826  6800.1     9%  0.55   1.0%  misc.activism.progressive 
 824  16000   448   39%    25    84.6     0%  0.00   1.0%  alt.aeffle.und.pferdle 
 899  15000   404   58%   175   709.8    78%  0.05   0.9%  alt.society.civil-liberty 
 917  14000   395   57%    75   158.3     4%  0.01   0.8%  alt.politics.correct 
 974  13000   370   48%   148   382.2    13%  0.03   0.8%  alt.politics.bush 
1032  12000   343   61%    82   238.7    18%  0.02   0.7%  talk.politics.space 
1093  11000   317   56%   670  1997.3     4%  0.19   0.7%  talk.politics.animals 
1099  11000   314   48%   323   986.7     8%  0.08   0.7%  talk.politics.china 
1109  11000   309   72%     -       -      -     -   0.7%  soc.politics 
1138  11000   293   44%     -       -      -     -   0.6%  alt.politics.libertarian 
1175  10000   279   44%     -       -      -     -   0.6%  alt.politics.perot 
1295   8100   226   28%     -       -      -     -   0.5%  alt.politics.sex 
1320   7900   219   26%   118   276.1    46%  0.02   0.5%  ca.politics 
1346   7500   209   48%     2     6.0     0%  0.00   0.4%  alt.society.civil-liberties 
1420   6600   183   44%     -       -      -     -   0.4%  alt.politics.british 
1438   6300   176   40%     -       -      -     -   0.4%  alt.politics.marrou 
1451   6200   172   42%     -       -      -     -   0.4%  alt.politics.usa.constitution 
1454   6200   172   13%    17    72.7   100%  0.00   0.4%  clari.news.politics 
1464   6000   167   53%     4   162.2     0%  0.03   0.4%  alt.comp.acad-freedom.news 
1491   5700   158   41%     -       -      -     -   0.3%  alt.politics.usa.misc 
1495   5700   158   30%   103   286.6     6%  0.03   0.3%  eunet.politics 
1497   5600   156   37%     -       -      -     -   0.3%  alt.politics.europe.misc 
1513   5500   153   32%     -       -      -     -   0.3%  talk.politics.medicine 
1528   5300   148   37%     -       -      -     -   0.3%  alt.politics.ec 
1536   5200   146   14%   199   554.1     1%  0.03   0.3%  tx.politics 
1537   5200   145   70%     -       -      -     -   0.3%  soc.politics.arms-d 
1571   4800   134   17%   450  1313.4    47%  0.09   0.3%  can.politics 
1579   4600   129   21%   313   718.3    26%  0.06   0.3%  ba.politics 
1678   3400    94   16%    26    84.9     0%  0.01   0.2%  ne.politics 
1750   2300    63   10%   431   947.2     1%  0.08   0.1%  uk.politics 
1751   2200    62    9%    11    12.9     9%  0.00   0.1%  or.politics 
1777   1900    53   14%   169   502.3     0%  0.07   0.1%  aus.politics 


A previous similar statistic, from October 1992 statistics, from
1992 06:49:50 GMT

  23  68000  2120   67%   498  2901.9    48%  0.06   4.4%  alt.activism 
  38  58000  1796   70%  4231 12569.8    54%  0.29   3.7%  talk.politics.misc 
 193  31000   963   64%   177   465.7    67%  0.02   2.0%  alt.censorship 
 195  31000   957   59%   218   825.8    37%  0.03   2.0%  alt.activism.d 
 269  26000   823   79%   328   917.1    44%  0.05   1.7%  comp.org.eff.talk 
 393  22000   685   57%   117   280.5    12%  0.01   1.4%  alt.politics.homosexuality 
 455  20000   619   51%  3138  8055.0    59%  0.40   1.3%  alt.politics.elections 
 477  19000   601   68%   868  2251.5    12%  0.15   1.2%  talk.politics.guns 
 486  19000   595   69%   718  1840.6     4%  0.13   1.2%  talk.politics.mideast 
 487  19000   595   60%    70   250.5    14%  0.02   1.2%  alt.privacy 
 554  18000   547   67%    58   117.0     0%  0.01   1.1%  comp.society.privacy 
 562  18000   545   46%  2391  6860.4    61%  0.34   1.1%  alt.politics.clinton 
 624  16000   505   68%   280   817.2    25%  0.07   1.0%  talk.politics.soviet 
 649  16000   491   59%   203   706.8    48%  0.05   1.0%  alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk 
 670  16000   483   69%    95   388.3    22%  0.03   1.0%  talk.politics.theory 
 693  15000   476   75%     4    60.8    75%  0.01   1.0%  comp.org.eff.news 
 768  14000   428   63%   268   632.9    46%  0.05   0.9%  talk.politics.drugs 
 789  13000   418   42%  1702  4824.7    70%  0.30   0.9%  alt.politics.bush 
 815  13000   407   55%    58   113.8    49%  0.01   0.8%  alt.politics.correct 
 824  13000   404   55%   132   466.0    77%  0.04   0.8%  alt.society.civil-liberty 
 836  13000   399   41%     -       -      -     -   0.8%  alt.politics.perot 
 865  12000   381   67%   909  5923.1    27%  0.64   0.8%  misc.activism.progressive 
1099   8900   275   43%   669  1620.9     7%  0.15   0.6%  talk.politics.china 
1131   8300   259   35%    17    30.4     0%  0.00   0.5%  alt.aeffle.und.pferdle 
1171   7800   243   68%    10    41.1     0%  0.01   0.5%  soc.politics 
1172   7800   243   57%    78   244.4    44%  0.03   0.5%  talk.politics.space 
1193   7600   235   28%   326   793.2    20%  0.06   0.5%  ca.politics 
1209   7300   227   37%     -       -      -     -   0.5%  alt.politics.marrou 
1250   6800   211   12%    77   311.9    93%  0.01   0.4%  clari.news.politics 
1297   6300   196   33%     -       -      -     -   0.4%  alt.politics.libertarian 
1324   6000   186   52%   703  2200.0     2%  0.37   0.4%  talk.politics.animals 
1341   5800   180   26%    35    74.7     3%  0.01   0.4%  eunet.politics 
1387   5200   162   46%     2     2.5     0%  0.00   0.3%  alt.society.civil-liberties 
1389   5200   162   14%   507  1212.2     7%  0.07   0.3%  tx.politics 
1413   5000   154   22%   339   883.8    39%  0.08   0.3%  ba.politics 
1439   4600   143   41%     -       -      -     -   0.3%  alt.politics.british 
1443   4500   140   50%     6   307.3     0%  0.07   0.3%  alt.comp.acad-freedom.news 
1480   4000   125   17%  1011  2203.4    25%  0.19   0.3%  can.politics 
1485   4000   123   68%     -       -      -     -   0.3%  soc.politics.arms-d 
1548   3000    93   17%   169   318.0     9%  0.03   0.2%  ne.politics 
1577   2400    74    9%    97   397.1    41%  0.03   0.2%  or.politics 
1590   2100    65   23%    17    26.8     0%  0.01   0.1%  trial.talk.politics.peace 
1599   2000    62   14%   202   492.9     1%  0.07   0.1%  aus.politics 

//Jyrki