Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 14:48:26 -0500 (EST)
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Not quite the death of Usenet, but still ...
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

"Michael Walsh" <MJW at press.jhu.edu> wrote:
> Hardly any mention in Usenet of Denvention, but a fair piece of
> discussion on various blogs, according to Google's blog search.

How do you figure that?  A Google Groups search of all mentions
of Denvention in Usenet gets 298 hits.  A Google Blogs search of
all mentions of Denvention on blogs gets 333 hits.  More, but
not enormously more.  There are also 571 hits on Usenet messages
containing both "Denver" and "Worldcon" but not "Denvention."

Of course Usenet is old enough that it was around during the
*previous* Denvention.  If I only look at posts made in this century,
I get 161.  Still a fair number, especially considering the con hasn't
happened yet.

Usenet is far from dead.  So far this month, rec.arts.sf.fandom has
gotten 839 posts, and rec.arts.sf.written has gotten an astonishing
11,951, nearly as many as this list has gotten in the nearly six years
it has existed.  And there are tens of thousands of other Usenet
newsgroups.

"Denvention" (or "Denver Worldcon") has been recently mentioned
in alt.callahans, alt.fan.heinlein, alt.sex.stories.d,
alt.support.dissociation, comp.lang.cobol, mn.sf, rec.arts.mystery,
rec.arts.sf.announce, rec.arts.sf.composition, rec.arts.sf.fandom,
rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated, rec.music.filk, and
soc.sexuality.spanking.