X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] ["1054" "Sat" "12" "December" "1998" "16:57:53" "+0100" "Chris Rowley" "C.A.Rowley@OPEN.AC.UK" nil "28" "Re: Public vote!" "^Date:" nil nil "12" nil nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: from listserv.gmd.de (listserv.gmd.de [192.88.97.1]) by mail.Uni-Mainz.DE (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id RAA23767; Sat, 12 Dec 1998 17:03:25 +0100 (MET) Received: from lsv1.listserv.gmd.de (192.88.97.2) by listserv.gmd.de (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <10.CAA84F2E@listserv.gmd.de>; Sat, 12 Dec 1998 17:03:23 +0100 Received: from RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE by RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8b) with spool id 412681 for LATEX-L@RELAY.URZ.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE; Sat, 12 Dec 1998 17:03:19 +0100 Received: from ixgate02.dfnrelay.d400.de (ixgate02.dfnrelay.d400.de [193.174.248.2]) by relay.urz.uni-heidelberg.de (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id RAA18360 for ; Sat, 12 Dec 1998 17:03:17 +0100 (MET) X400-Received: by mta d400relay in /PRMD=dfnrelay/ADMD=d400/C=de/; Relayed; Sat, 12 Dec 1998 17:03:12 +0100 X400-Received: by mta venus in /PRMD=uk.ac/ADMD= /C=gb/; Relayed; Sat, 12 Dec 1998 16:57:37 +0100 X400-Received: by mta fell.open.ac.uk in /PRMD=UK.AC/ADMD= /C=GB/; Relayed; Sat, 12 Dec 1998 16:57:32 +0100 X400-Received: by mta open.ac.uk in /PRMD=UK.AC/ADMD= /C=GB/; Relayed; Sat, 12 Dec 1998 16:57:31 +0100 X400-Received: by mta UK.AC.MHS-RELAY.SUN in /PRMD=uk.ac/ADMD= /C=gb/; Relayed; Sat, 12 Dec 1998 16:57:53 +0100 X400-Originator: C.A.Rowley@open.ac.uk X400-Recipients: non-disclosure:; X400-MTS-Identifier: [/PRMD=UK.AC/ADMD= /C=GB/;<13938.37317.859422.965110@fell.] X400-Content-Type: P2-1988 (22) Content-Identifier: Re: Public vo... Alternate-Recipient: Allowed References: <009D0821.9CF1AC80.130@ROSE.IPM.AC.IR> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: VM 6.44 under Emacs 19.34.1 Message-ID: <13938.37317.859422.965110@fell.open.ac.uk> Reply-To: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project In-Reply-To: <4.1.19981210193536.00a37330@pop.tiac.net> Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1998 16:57:53 +0100 From: Chris Rowley Sender: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L Subject: Re: Public vote! Status: R X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 3074 > I think the problem with this laudable objective is that there is no way to > take a scientific sample of (La)TeX users. Only a microscopic fraction of > them belongs to any one well defined group --- like people reading > comp.text.tex --- or TUG, or DANTE or GUTenberg or NTG or CyrTUG --- > or reading Notices of the AMS or SIAM say. That is certainly the conclusion that we came to several times previously. If anyone has any good ideas about a sampling frame for such an activity, for TeX and/or LaTeX, please let us know. > > And if you perform the survey in comp.text.tex you will get an extremely > biased view of the world! And how, almost as bad as LaTeX-L:-). > > One outrageous idea would be an access count on packages on CTAN. > Although this would not take into account redistribution at local sites and > would be swamped probably by `mirroring' access and `collectors/pack rats' > (who must simply have everything of any kind whether they need or not) > rather than `normal' end users. But it might be interesting data. chris