From: "James Cameron" <quozl at us.netrek.org>

> I've a goal of growing the Netrek community.
> But I've no measurement system in place and I want one.
> Has anyone already got something?
>
> Would a peak number of players as shown by the metaserver be a
> reasonable measurement?  Or perhaps the number of unique IP addresses
> seen by continuum in a week?  Number of ships created?

If by "growth" you mean increase in number of people playing within a time
interval, unique IP addresses is probably the best measure of the above.
Refine it further by login and character for further accuracy if you want.

I would be also be interested in demographic analysis such as

* The number of new players in a week, measured perhaps by new unique
login+characters with offense below .5.

* #players that make up the top x% of playing time, for x=10, 20, etc.

I know that I log in now and then during the day and in the evening almost
every day, and I see some of the same people over and over again, like
D-Day, Lee, lonedog, WhiteDog (Chad?), motwani, and even Karthik and I seem
to play a lot.  Do the top 10 players (by hours) make up 20% of the volume
in a day?

Dan Damouth