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WARNING: this post is not very interesting to anyone except weirdly geeky stalkers of me.

Usenet used to be really central to my online life... before the web really got into gear, it was a great set of forums over myriad topics, and it was cool to have so many different forums all with the same interface, one that the poster could choose. (Especially compared to web-forums, where every forum requires a new login and uses a slightly different interface.)

Years ago I used Google groups to do some basic metering of how much I posted to Usenet. Today, cleaning out an old HD (including a snagged snapshot of my old cs.tufts.edu account home folder) I found a copy of my ".posted" file, a list of references to Usenet posts I made. I crunched some numbers and came up with the following...

Here's how much I posted per year:

1995	615
1996	570
1997	1048
1998	959
1999	1149
2000	453

Here are the groups I posted to most often. (I posted to 441 unique groups, 193 only once, and 65 only twice.)

rec.games.video.classic	1167
tufts.general	752
comp.sys.palmtops.pilot	354
alt.fan.cecil-adams	308
alt.folklore.computers	267
rec.games.video.nintendo	258
alt.games.wing-commander	150
alt.tv.commercials	139
alt.comp.sys.palmtops.pilot	137
tufts.tuftsconnect	124
alt.hackers	102
rec.arts.sf.written	89
rec.arts.sf.starwars.misc	64
comp.sys.palmtops	61
alt.peeves	60

Finally, here were the threads I participated in the most:

What does Micro$oft do Well ?	alt.folklore.computers	46
Tufts Lifeline Taxi	tufts.general	45
Tufts on NPR	tufts.general	40
Worried about IDSA killing emulation?	rec.games.video.classic	23
What did Nintendo do that Atari couldn't?	rec.games.video.classic	19
Defending Emulation / some ROMS.	rec.games.video.classic	17
Just missing immortality, defining a life well-lived	rec.arts.sf.written	17
Reorganization RFD has been submitted	rec.games.video.classic	14
Just Wondering...	tufts.general	13
Primary Source	tufts.general	12
So quiet	tufts.general	12
Landware Go Type Pro keyboard comments	comp.sys.palmtops.pilot	12
whats your favorite classic system (cannot include arcade emulators)	rec.games.video.classic	12
The string of lights down the hill	tufts.general	11
Dont buy Palm: Retarded OS with 4K memo limit	comp.sys.palmtops.pilot	11
tuftsconnect	tufts.general	10
Atari VS. ???	rec.games.video.classic	10
Gameboy vs 2600: The Ultimate Classic System?	rec.games.video.classic	10

It seems odd to me how few of these I remember, and odd to look things up on Google Groups, and see discussion that once meant kind of a lot to me.

Anyway, here is the raw .posted file, the full data analysis, and the node script I wrote to crunch it.