From: "Strong, Lee" <StrongL at MTMC.ARMY.MIL>
To: "WSFAList (E-mail)" <WSFAList at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Predicting Attendance at WSFA Meetings
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 08:27:55 -0500
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

	Keith proposes to develop a computer program to predict attendance
at WSFA meetings.  In addition to the obvious goal of enabling people to
attend meetings when interesting people are likely to attend, other uses for
such a program would be avoiding meetings when banal or offensive people
attend, and enabling officers to schedule votes when a maximum number of
voters are present.  On the other hand, WSFAns are generally sufficiently
contrarian to resist being easily predicted even for benevolent reasons.
	Before spending a lot of time analyzing attendance data, however, I
suggest that Keith or other interested parties interview a number of people
about their own attendance pattern(s) and reasons.  Include people who don't
attend regularly as well as regular attenders.  Knowing that information
would enable the program writer to program for important factors and avoid
unimportant factors.  In the mundane world, last week my employer purchased
a software package that incorporates metrics that have not existed in our
agency for about a year because the program writer didn't consider changes
that occured between 2001 and 2003.  In my own case, weather, time of day
and my personal health (e.g. fatigue and need for sleep) are the 3 biggest
influences on whether or not I attend a given WSFA meeting.  The first
factor is trackable, the second factor is currently a constant, and the
third factor might be a bigger tracking job than anyone [else] wants to take
on.  I missed the First Friday in February meeting due to weather (snow) and
the other meetings this year due to a comibination of time of day and need
for sleep.  I would attend more WSFA meetings if we started earlier in the
evening.
	When analyzing data, it would probably be best to look at four
patterns:  Virginia meeting attendance, Maryland meeting attendance, dual
meeting attendance, and Disclave/Capclave attendance.  The effects of the
traditional August switcheroo should be considered along with weather and
time of year.