<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Hi Nick,</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Just a quick question re: your comments on total subscribers. Maybe Niels also has some ideas about this? </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Best,</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Jul 2, 2018 at 12:39 AM, Nick Doty <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:npdoty@ischool.berkeley.edu" target="_blank">npdoty@ischool.berkeley.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word;line-break:after-white-space"><div><div class="h5">On Jun 28, 2018, at 5:47 PM, Sebastian Benthall <<a href="mailto:sbenthall@gmail.com" target="_blank">sbenthall@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div dir="auto"><div class="gmail_quote" dir="auto"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><span><br>
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<div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">2. how many people are
subscribed to a list in total?<br>
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if I remember correctly, not even in principle</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Interesting, why is this the case? </div></div></div></div></blockquote></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">David is quite right on this point.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">The data we currently have available are archived emails sent to the mailing list. Essentially, it is what you would see if you were a subscriber yourself, in your inbox.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">From this we can identify who has *sent* to the mailing list.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">But subscribers who never send a message are not represented in the data.</div></div></div></blockquote><br></div></div></div><div>I've gotten this question before from people reviewing my work on mailing list analysis. It might potentially be very interesting to know who is participating in the sense of just receiving emails by subscribing to the list without sending any messages. But that data is typically not public; probably mostly for spam-protection reasons, but there might also be a privacy interest in subscribing to a mailing list without letting others know that you have.</div><div><br></div><div>People who operate mailing lists do have access to that subscriber list, so you could potentially get mailing list owners to share that data for research purposes under some sort of confidentiality agreement and with IRB review.</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Who would that be in the case of the IETF?</div><br></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word;line-break:after-white-space"><div> I haven't gotten to that point yet, but it could be useful for comparing those who lurk on governance/decision-making mailing lists to those who send messages.</div><br><div>—npd</div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Corinne Cath <br>Ph.D. Candidate, Oxford Internet Institute & Alan Turing Institute <br><br><span style="color:rgb(68,68,68)">Web: <a href="http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/corinne-cath" target="_blank">www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/corinne-cath</a> <br>Email: <a href="mailto:ccath@turing.ac.uk" target="_blank">ccath@turing.ac.uk</a> & <a href="mailto:corinnecath@gmail.com" target="_blank">corinnecath@gmail.com</a><br>Twitter: @C_Cath</span><br></span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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