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From: alahelma@cc.Helsinki.FI (Antti Lahelma)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic,soc.answers,news.answers
Subject: soc.culture.nordic FAQ, part 1/8 (Introduction to the group)
Followup-To: soc.culture.nordic
Date: 15 Feb 1995 16:30:55 +0200
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Summary: This posting is a part of the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
file for the newsgroup soc.culture.nordic. Its purpose is to
introduce new readers to the group, provide some general information
about the Nordic countries (Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark and
Iceland) and to cover some of the topics frequently discussed in
the group.
Xref: bloom-beacon.mit.edu soc.culture.nordic:34968 soc.answers:2552 news.answers:35132
Archive-name: nordic-faq/introduction
Posting-Frequency: monthly
Version: 1.0
A Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) -file for the newsgroup
S O C . C U L T U R E . N O R D I C
===================================
Featuring:
*Sweden* *Denmark*
+-----------------+
*Norway* |#####| |#########|
|#####| |#########| *Finland*
*Iceland* | | *Aland*
|#####| |#########|
|#####| |#########|
+-----------------+ *Greenland*
*Faroe Islands*
And *much* more!
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
| Table of Contents |
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
NOTE: A "!" signifies that no entry has been written yet.
A "@" means that the entry isn't finished yet. (Actually, none of
them are; you can always send material to expand or replace an
existing entry with).
PART 1: * Introduction to the group *
1.1 Notes about the FAQ
1.2 Welcome to soc.culture.nordic!
1.3 What is 'Scandinavia'? What is 'Nordic'?
1.4 What makes the Nordic countries a unity?
1.5 What languages are welcome in s.c.n?
1.6 How many people read soc.culture.nordic?
PART 2: * Miscellaneous Nordic topics *
2.1 The Sami (Lapp) minority of Sweden/Finland/Norway
! 2.2 The Great Whaling Debate
! 2.3 The Great Finnish-Swedish flamewar
2.4 Scandinavian mythology
2.5 Where to find electronic texts in Nordic languages?
2.6 What about those horns in Viking helmets?
2.7 Looking for a Nordic girl-friend?
2.8 Need a Santa? Pick one of these!
@ 2.9 Some Nordic recipies
2.10 What is "Janteloven"?
2.11 Not-so-Wagnerian Nordic mythology
2.12 The soc.culture.nordic drinking game!
PART 3: * DENMARK *
3.1 Fact Sheet
3.2 General information
3.3 History
3.3.1 A list of Danish monarchs
3.4 Main tourist attractions
3.4.1 Getting there and getting around
@ 3.4.2 Copenhagen, Sealand and surrounding islands
@ 3.4.3 Bornholm
! 3.4.4 Funen and surrounding islands
3.4.5 Jutland
3.5 Addresses; Internet and regular mail
3.6 Danish literature, language, etc.
3.6.1 The Danish alphabet
3.6.2 The Danish language
! 3.6.3 Danish literature
3.6.4 Books for learning Danish
PART 4: * FINLAND *
4.1 Fact Sheet
4.2 General information
4.3 History
4.3.1 A list of Grand Dukes and presidents of Finland
4.4 The Finnish parliament and political parties
4.5 Main tourist attractions
4.5.1 Helsinki
4.5.2 Turku
4.5.3 Tampere
4.5.4 Jyva"skyla"
4.5.5 Other places of interest
4.6 Addresses; Internet and regular mail
4.7 What exactly is the Finnish sauna?
4.8 Finnish literature, language, etc.
4.8.1 Some of the classic works of Finnish literature
4.8.2 Books for learning Finnish
PART 5: * ICELAND *
5.1 Fact Sheet
5.2 General information
5.3 History
5.4 Main tourist attractions
5.5 Addresses; Internet and regular mail
PART 6: * NORWAY *
6.1 Fact Sheet
! 6.2 General information
6.3 History
@ 6.4 Main tourist attractions
6.5 Addresses; Internet and regular mail
@ 6.6 Norwegian literature, language, etc.
PART 7: * SWEDEN *
7.1 Fact Sheet
7.2 General information
7.3 History
@ 7.3.1 A list of Swedish monarchs
@ 7.4 Main tourist attractions
7.5 Addresses; Internet and regular mail
@ 7.6 Swedish literature, books for learning Swedish, etc.
7.7 Scania
PART 8: * Appendices *
A The Nordic graphemes FAQ
B Nordic shortwave radio schedules
------------------------------
Subject: 1.1: Notes about the FAQ
Copyright (c) 1994 by Antti Lahelma, all rights reserved.
This FAQ may not be distributed for any financial gain. Including it in
a commercial collection or compilation without express permission of the
author is illegal.
While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information
contained in this FAQ, the author and contributors do not assume any respon-
sibility for errors or damages resulting from the use of the information
contained herein.
The FAQ isn't quite finished as it is: more information will be added,
some of the more irrelevant parts may get deleted, corrections will be
made, etc. In other words, it'll get better with time. But your help is
required; if you have anything in mind to add to the FAQ don't be shy
to contact me. All contributions, corrections and suggestions are warmly
welcomed. Flames aren't.
That some of the country sections are shorter than others does not imply
any personal prejudices or preferences of mine; it's simply because there
has been much fewer contributions to the Norwegian section, for example,
than to the Danish one. If you want to improve the situation, just grab your
keyboard and write something yourself.
FAQ started: 24 May 1994
Changes made since last version:
Added article on Finnish political system,
General Intro to Sweden, expanded Finnish & Swedish history
sections, rewrote the Scandinavia/Nordic stuff
Some of the people who have helped and sent contributions to me:
Ahrvid Engholm [ahrvid@stacken.kth.se> Mauri Haikola [mjh@stekt.oulu.fi>
Lars Aronsson [aronsson@lysator.liu.se> Bodil Gram [gram@coco.ihi.ku.dk>
Mats Dahlgren [mats@fenk.wau.nl> Malte Lewan [cfl@df.lth.se>
Roger Greenwald [roger@epas.utoronto.ca> Stan Brown [brown@ncoast.org>
Kari Yli-Kuha [yli-kuha@cs.tut.fi> Jens Chr. Madsen [madsen@scripps.edu>
Palle M Pedersen [palle@Think.COM> Ruth M. Sylte [rmsylte@uci.edu>
Einar Indridason [einari@rhi.hi.is> Hiski Haapoja [trhiha@uta.fi>
Halldor Arnason [harnason@u.washington.edu>
Gunnar Davidsson [gunnar.davidsson@nt.norut.no>
Big thanks to all of you. And apologies to anyone I may have forgotten.
NB: The FAQ has been arranged in digest format. You should be able to
jump from one article to the next one by pressing CTRL-G in many
newsreaders, such as rn, trn or strn.
NB: The Nordic special letters have (for the most part; please ignore the
inconsistencies for now) been transcribed in this FAQ as follows:
letter description pronounced
------ ----------- ----------
a" 'a' with umlauts like the 'a' in 'hat'
ae written as a single letter like the 'e' in 'bet'
o" 'o' with umlauts like the 'i' in 'bird'
o/ 'o' with a slash through it like the 'i' in 'bird'
aa 'a' with a ring above it like the 'a' in 'claw'
In Danish, 'aa' is still in some cases (for example in placenames like
Aalborg) spelled that way, and not as an a-ring, which may
cause some confusion. Finnish makes it even more confusing; if 'aa'
appears in a Finnish word, it's not spelled with an a-ring, and it's
not pronounced like the 'a' in 'claw', more like the 'a' in 'father'.
(a long 'a', that is). I'll try to decide sometime in future how to solve
the damned mess the special letters cause.
More information about the Nordic letters and their use in the Internet
can be found in the appendices, part 8 of the FAQ.
------------------------------
Subject: 1.2 Welcome to soc.culture.nordic!
If you're interested in the Nordic countries, and don't feel like
subscribing to five individual mailing-lists, soc.culture.nordic is the
best choice for a discussion forum you will find in the whole Internet.
It is far from being perfect, of course; but then, few Usenet newsgroups
can be described by that particular adjective.
You will find that discussions here are not always on as profound topics
as you might have hoped for, that certain threads never really die even
though every imaginable argument has been presented already hundreds of
times, that these threads may, if they coincide, suffocate almost all other
discussion in the newsgroup.
You will find that there are hotheads who preach absurd gospels and cynics
who perceive themselves as "net.vets", considering it their god-given right
to flame newcomers who happen to ask the wrong questions, and that there is
a good deal of U.S-bashing, Sweden-bashing, Norway-bashing and Finland-
bashing (but curiously no Denmark-bashing :) going on most of the time.
One of the purposes of this FAQ is in fact to decrease the amount of
flaming and the frequency of the same old threads; if you're a newcomer,
please read through this FAQ, and you may be able to avoid some of the
most common mistakes made by new SCNers (e.g posting a flamy article
condemning Norwegian whaling, or starting an argument with Jarmo Ryyti. :)
Sometimes the group may seem like a battle-ground in virtual reality, but
don't be too alarmed by it. The Nordic countries are, in spite of
everything, like a family; not a One Big Happy Family of Nations, no,
just any old family with its small quarrels and fights. They just tend to
grow out of proportion when we have no *real* problems or crises to fight
about. There are no great feelings of hatred between the different
nationalities, few historical traumas, our prejudices about each other are
pretty harmless, and so forth. If the quarreling annoys you, don't hesitate
to use your kill-file! It's simple! (If you don't know how it's done, check
the "kill file FAQ" which is posted regularly to news.answers).
Even as it is, s.c.n is a very calm and flame-free newsgroup compared
to many other groups in the soc.culture.* hierarchy. This group has many,
many positive sides, too. For one thing, you will find that people in
s.c.n are very helpful; post a question, and you're likely to get several
long, detailed and well thought out replies that will answer everything you
asked for, and probably also a whole lot of things you didn't ask for and
weren't really even interested in. All five nationalities are well (some
more, some less) represented by natives in this newsgroup, who have first-
hand information on everything that goes on in their countries. There are
many people who post valuable information on their own initiative, just to
serve the group.
But despite all this, please keep in mind that we're not walking (or
typing :) encyclopaedias, so you *might* take the trouble to check your
local library before posting a very basic question to the group. Any
tourist guide will probably answer the question "Hi, I'm coming to visit
[name of country>, what should I go and see?" better than we will, and
a tourist guide won't get annoyed with you if you happen to be the 52nd
person to have asked the same question this week. Try to be *specific*;
explain your interests, and what exactly it is you would like to know.
This applies to other types of questions as well (and after all, although
questions about travelling are OK in soc.culture.nordic, this isn't a
rec.travel group; travelers might consider posting to rec.travel.europe
instead, or checking out the rec.travel archives at ftp.cc.umanitoba.edu,
in the directory /rec-travel). At the very least, read through this FAQ
and see if you can find an answer here. Try to save those questions for
the group to which you know you won't be able to (easily) find an answer
in the books.
When you do post, please try to keep it somehow related to Nordic matters.
Sure, the group is unmoderated, so no one can control what you write. And
it's not like you have to force the discussion on Nordic tracks if it
should digress into something else. But nevertheless, as the name of the
group implies, this *is* a group for discussing Nordic culture in all its
forms; not American abortion-laws, Bill Clinton or Jesus. Keep this in
mind when you start a new thread.
Also, if possible, try to avoid cross-posting; that tends to generate
threads that soon lose any connection to Nordic culture, and it's difficult
to get the people in other newsgroups to remove s.c.n from their Newsgroups-
line. If you want to post your query to several groups, consider posting
it as separate articles instead.
And one last thing: never trust the net for drawing conclusions about
groups of people. You'll always get it wrong. We're not representative of
the population layers of our countries, and most of us don't even attempt
to represent anyone but ourselves. Don't fall into thinking "Gosh, those
XXXXXs sure are a mighty weird/fanatic/stupid bunch of people." Treat us
as individuals, and you'll have a better chance of being treated as an
individual yourself.
All this being said: welcome to soc.culture.nordic! I hope you enjoy the
group!
------------------------------
Subject: 1.3 What is 'Scandinavia'? What is 'Nordic'?
The Roman historian Pliny the Elder mentions in 67 CE an island called
'Scadinauia' in the sea at the edge of the world, north of Germania. This,
as it dawned much later to the civilized world, was in fact no island but
the southern tip of Sweden, the province of Scania (Skaane). The name is
thought to be related to the word 'skada', or "damage" that could be done
to ships by the sand reefs outside southwestern Sweden. The '-avia' ending,
on the other hand, probably comes from a word meaning 'island', cf. modern
Norwegian 'o"ya'. Thus the original definition of the word 'Scandinavia'
was purely geographical: it referred to the Scandinavian peninsula -- modern
Sweden and Norway.
Later, as people became more conscious of their culture, formed political
unions, colonized previously uninhabited areas and conquered the land of
their neighbours, the definition of the word started to stretch. 'Scandi-
navia' became more a political and cultural concept than a geographic one.
And since cultural boundaries tend to be less clearly definable than
geographic ones, and political boundaries on the other hand move around
quite a bit, the current use of the word is a bit of a mess.
Another term used of the countries covered by this FAQ is, of course,
"Nordic countries", coming originally from French ('Pays Nordiques'). It
was at first used of "northern" (European) countries in general, but with
the common political, economic and cultural development of Sweden, Denmark,
Norway, Finland and Iceland, the term has in English become established as
referring exclusively to said five countries. Some examples from dictionaries:
[Webster's Third New International Dictionary] NORDIC 4. of or relating
to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Finland.
[Oxford Reference Dictionary] NORDIC 2. of Scandinavia, Finland or
Iceland.
In the Nordic languages, one has the term NORDEN ("Pohjola" or "Pohjoismaat"
in Finnish) which is commonly used of the five Nordic countries. Some have
tried to implant this term into English, but without much success so far. It
does, however, occur every now and then in this newsgroup.
The word 'Scandinavia' presents a bit more difficulties. In Nordic languages,
the meaning is quite clear:
Skandinavien: Sweden, Denmark, Norway (and sometimes Iceland)
-- the ancient lands of the Norsemen.
But in English, alas, there seems to be no standard usage. This is mainly
due to the fact that English lacks a simple and clear term for the five
countries, and the word "Scandinavia" tends to be used for that purpose
instead. The term "Nordic countries", in it's current definition, is a
rather recent invention, it's meaning is a bit obscure especially to non-
Europeans, it's awkward to use and to some people it carries unpleasant
connotations of the Aryan "Nordic race". Therefore, you will find that it's
quite common to define the word "Scandinavia" in English like this:
[Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English] SCANDINAVIAN 1. of the
countries Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland in northern
Europe, or their people or languages.
On the other hand, it is not uncommon to use the word "Scandinavia" in it's
more limited definition. An example:
[The Concise Oxford Dictionary] SCANDINAVIAN 1. a native or inhabitant
of Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Iceland).
And some encyclopaedias put it like this:
[The Random House Encyclopaedia] SCANDINAVIA 1. region of northern
Europe consisting of kingdoms of Sweden, Norway and Denmark; culturally
and historically Finland and Iceland are often considered part of this
area.
At the risk of disturbing some people's sleep, I will use 'Nordic' and
'Scandinavian' interchangeably throughout this FAQ, for practical reasons.
You have been warned. :>
In addition, it should be noted that after the fall of the Soviet Union,
Latvia and especially Estonia have expressed a wish for extensive
co-opearation with the Nordic countries, emphasizing their many historical
and cultural ties with Norden. If the Nordic Council manages to justify
its existense even as Finland and Sweden have joined the EU (some
politicians in the Nordic countries have questioned the importance of the
NC in the current political situation), we may yet see Estonia and Latvia
joining the NC.
------------------------------
Subject: 1.4 What makes Nordic countries a unity?
The forming of what we today know as "Nordic countries" is a rather complex
historical process. This is also the reason why it's not a very tight unit.
While the common cultural heritage and even political unions of the Nordic
peoples go well beyond the renaissance, a conscious supra-national identity
is a relatively recent development. After the splitting up of the Kalmar
Union in early 16th century, Sweden-Finland and Denmark-Norway remained
arch-enemies for almost three hundred years, fighting each other for the
dominance of Scandinavia; political co-operation was for the most part out
of the question.
In the learned circles of the late 18th century, however, a movement known
as Scandinavism started to spread with the growing realization of national
identity on one hand and common cultural heritage on the other hand. At first
this was limited to promoting cultural exchange, but in the 1830s a political
Scandinavism was born among the students of Sweden and Denmark; it aimed to
create a Nordic defence alliance and even to unite the countries as a single
state.
King Oskar I of Sweden, who was an enthusiastic Scandinavist, supported
Denmark when the country was subjected to strong political pressure from
Prussia in 1848-49, which increased the popularity of Scandinavism in
Denmark. During the Crimean War of 1853-56 efforts were made to get Finns
to embrace Scandinavism and Sweden planned to 'liberate' Finland from
the yoke of the Russian Empire so that it could join the Scandinavian family,
but at that time Finns were quite content with their autonomy and didn't
show much enthusiasm for Scandinavism.
Political Scandinavism collapsed by and large in 1864 when Denmark was
attacked by Prussia and Austria. Although the reigning Swedish king Karl XV
was an advocate of Scandinavism, the Riksdag (parliament) which had
grown in power had a more sceptical attitude, and decided not to send any
troops to aid the Danes. In addition to this, the Norwegian independence
movement started to cause tension between Norwegians and Swedes. Thus
the dreams of a unified Scandinavia were abandoned, and Scandinavism came
to be focused on cultural and economic co-operation, standardizing
legistlation and acting together in international conferences. This co-
operation has continued up to this date, although the word "Scandinavism"
itself is no longer used. The main Nordic cultural and political organs are
the Norden-societies in each country (founded in Swe/No/De in 1919, in Ice-
land in 1922, Finland 1924, Faroes 1955, Aaland 1970), their umbrella
organization founded in 1965, the Nordic Minister Council (1971), and most
importantly the Nordic Council (1953), through which free movement of labour,
common legistlation and passport-free travel have been introduced in the
Nordic countries. A similar political profile has lead all the Nordic
countries to develop into welfare states with a high social security and
standard of living.
Behind the political co-operation lie the factors that have made it possible
in the first place. These include common cultural background, linguistic
relationship, shared history, religion and geography. With the exception of
religion, none of them is fully shared by all five countries, but even so,
there are more things that unite us than ones that separate us. Here's short
look on each of the categories:
+ culture: Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland shared a more or less
homogenous 'viking' culture in the Viking Age (800-~1050
CE), and Finland, while not strictly speaking a 'viking'
country, did have a 'viking age' and a culture very close
to its western neighbours, and at the close of Viking age
was united into the Swedish kingdom. Scandinavian culture
today could be described as a potpourri of this "original"
culture, medieval German influence, French influence in the
centuries that followed, and several other smaller sources,
not forgetting local development and national romantic
inventiveness, of course. A significant factor is also the
fact that the Nordic countries never had an era of feodalism
to speak of; personal freedom is highly valued here. The
Nordics are rather heavy drinkers, the 'vodkabelt' goes right
through Finland, Sweden and Norway; the Danes are more of
a beer-drinking nation, but don't say no to a glass of
akvavit either. Smorgasbords with pickled herrings and open-
faced sandwiches are no rare sight. Women are emancipated.
Cities are clean and well-functioning enough to make a Swiss
clocksmith feel at home. And so forth; myths and stereotypes
about Scandinavia are many. Some them are, of course, less
true than others, but their very existense illustrates the
fact that we do have quite a lot in common.
+ language Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese are all
Germanic languages developed from the Old Norse spoken in
Viking age Scandinavia. A Swede, a Dane and a Norwegian can
understand each other with varying degrees of difficulties,
but none of them will fully undestand Icelandic or Faroese
without studying the languages. Finnish is an entirely
different case, it's a Finno-Ugric language related to
Estonian and Hungarian. There is, however, a Swedish-speaking
minority in Finland, which ties it linguistically to Scan-
dinavia. Also, Finnish is related to Sami, the language
spoken in Norway, Sweden and Finland by the Sami or Lapps,
the aborigines of northern Scandinavia.
+ history From the Viking age onwards, the Nordics have fought each
other, formed unions with each other and ruled over each
other. Sweden ruled over Finland for over 600 years, Denmark
ruled over southern Sweden also for over 600 years (or,
alternatively, Sweden has ruled over northern Denmark for
the past 300 years) and over Norway for nearly 500 years,
while Norway ruled over Iceland for some 200 years and
Denmark yet another 500 years, and the list goes on (but
Finland hasn't ruled over anybody, and is very jealous
because of that :). Unavoidably, this has caused some anti-
pathies, butit has also made the Nordic cultures more uniform.
+ religion The Germanic pagan religion has left it's marks on customs
and festivals; celebrations with bonfires and maypoles mark
the Finnish and Swedish midsummer, and the Nordic Christmas
bears many similarities to the midwinter feast of the vikings,
starting with the word for Christmas (sw. Jul, fin. Joulu)
which comes from the Old Germanic word "hjul", meaning the
wheel of the year. Trolls and gnomes still inhabit Nordic
households, although the once revered and feared mythical
beings have been reduced to the lowly caste of smurfs and
other soft toys.
The Nordic countries were converted to Catholicism in 10th
to 12th centuries, but the Lutheran reformation embraced in
all Nordic countries wiped out most of the Catholic customs
and memories in the course of the 16th century. Having become
a stronghold of protestantism against Catholics in the south
and Greek Orthodoxes in the east had some unifying effect on
Scandinavia even though wars between the countries kept raging
on; religion was, after all, the most important basis of ones
identity well into the 18th century. The Lutheran ideal was
to require the common people to be able to read the Bible on
their own, which had a enormous educating effect on the
Nordic peoples. This, along with the protestant work ethics,
had significant role in the forming of the Scandinavian
societies, enabling their economic and cultural growth and the
pioneering work in increasing social inequality. No doubt it
also shaped the national character of each country to a
similar direction (a common complaint in Norden: we're such
joyless, grey and angst-ridden people --> it's all the
Lutheran Church's fault! :)
+ geography Norway, Sweden and northern Finland form the Scandinavian
peninsula. Denmark is mostly a part of continental Europe,
while Iceland is situated in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Except for Iceland, the countries are situated close to each
other, often sharing borders with one another, and have access
to the Baltic Sea. They do not really form a geographical
unit, but this is rather irrelevant since seas and waterways
have historically, instead of separating peoples, united them.
And we are, after all, talking about the best seafarers of
ancient Europe.
------------------------------
Subject: 1.5 What languages are welcome in soc.culture.nordic?
English, naturally, is the most common choice, but threads in Swedish,
Danish, Norwegian, Sami, Finnish, Icelandic, Faroese, etc. are all perfectly
suitable for the newsgroup. Fact is, however, that such threads don't appear
very frequently in s.c.n. There are several reasons for this. First of all,
not all Nordic languages are mutually intelligible; while Danes, Norwegians
and Swedes could discuss with each other with only some difficulty, many
Icelanders and Finns would be left out of the discussion (even though all
Finns and Icelanders have studied one obligatory Scandinavian language at
school. That doesn't mean they're necessarily fluent in it).
A third group of people left out of the discussion would, of course, be the
non-Nordics, who make up a large part of the readership of s.c.n. Therefore,
threads in Nordic languages don't necessarily get very many readers. Nordics
in general tend to be relatively fluent in English, so if the topic is of
general interest, using a language that restricts readership may seem
slightly pointless. Another reason is, of course, that the soc.* hierarchy
_is_ international; there is no shortage of national hierarchies (for
example: sfnet.* in Finland, no.* in Norway, dk.* in Denmark, swnet.* in
Sweden and is.* in Iceland) where all discussion is in the Nordic languages.
Accessing these hierarchies is possible from abroad as well, except for the
Icelandic one whose distribution (I hear) isn't global. (However, even the
hierarchies that are distributed globally may not be available at your
particular site; that is the decision of your system administrator).
But if you're a Nordic student or immigrant living abroad, or if you're
studying some Nordic language, or if you're of Nordic descent and want
to practice the language -- whatever your reason is, don't hesitate to start
a thread in a Nordic language. It brings a welcome change to s.c.n, even if
we may not want all discussion to be in Nordic languages.
------------------------------
Subject: 1.6 How many people read soc.culture.nordic?
This excerpt is taken from the "USENET Readership Report for Jun 94",
posted monthly to news.lists.
+--Ranking
| +-- Estimated total number of people who read the group, worldwide.
| | +-- Actual number of readers in sampled population
| | | +-- Propagation: how many sites receive this group at all
| | | | +-- Recent traffic (messages per month)
| | | | | +-- Recent traffic (kilobytes per month)
| | | | | | +-- Crossposting percentage
| | | | | | | +-- Cost ratio: $US/month/rdr
| | | | | | | | +-- Share: % of newsrders
| | | | | | | | | who read this group.
| | | | | | | | |
1 800000 6658 92% 37 0.4 43% 0.00 13.5% news.announce.newusers
2 360000 3193 88% 1584 0.2 100% 0.00 6.5% news.answers
3 340000 3170 82% 48 0.1 0% 0.00 6.4% rec.humor.funny
| | | | | | | | | . . . . . . . . .
V V V V V V V V V
417 57000 610 71% 1658 2.7 9% 0.05 1.2% soc.culture.nordic
The total number of groups listed was 3121. Among the soc.culture.* groups,
soc.culture.nordic ranked 23rd out of 85 groups.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-END OF PART 1-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-