The Psubs Archives and the Pareto Principle

[SeaLordOne@aol.com]

Psubbers,

The Pareto Principle (a.k.a. 80/20 rule) suggests that for many systems, a 
majority of the output value (say 80%) is derived from a minority of the 
input value (say 20%).
The Psubs archives may be a case in point.  If you take a strict definition 
of the Psubs charter, focusing on the engineering of the boats, 80% of what 
they have to offer may well reside in 20% of the postings.  So it may be very 
useful for a few folks to take a crack at identifying "my favorite 20%".

I am not recommending censorship.  On no!  I would never "dump" the 80% based 
on one individual's vision of the 20%.  And I would love to see multiple 
versions of the "top 20". But it might be useful for folks to be able to 
cruise through at least someone's vision of the 20% before digging into the 
other 80%.  For folks who don't care about fuzzy bikinis and dead horses, or 
who have to pay for each e-mail they read, this could be quite useful.  And 
it could showcase our "best stuff" for the larger community (like the T.V. 
guy from Britain).

IMHO, this could be a perfect opportunity for new subscribers to "pay their 
dues", if that is what they wanted to do.  I recognize that a few recent new 
subscribers have had an attitude of entitlement, but I suspect those folks 
will drop off quickly.  I would anticipate that over time we would attract 
some folks who want to contribute to the group, but have nothing to give, 
because they are so new.  These are also the same folks who may want to 
review the archives.  

If they had a few basic criteria (see below) for identifying their 20%, if 
only for a few months of archives, they could perhaps assist the entire 
community.  I suspect the "newbies" might be better at this than the "old 
guard" anyway, so it could be a nice win-win situation.

What would these criterion be?  Off the top of my head, things like: (1) 
direct reference to the design, construction, testing, operation and 
maintenance of personal submarines, (2) direct reference to sources of 
information regarding (1), and (3) descriptions of and sources for the 
components of a personal submarine.  That sort of thing.  I suspect that if 
someone had a nice set of criterion, even a "newbie" could put out a pretty 
good listing.  He or she could cull out those threads that do not relate 
directly to submarine design, or that small subset of entries from a thread 
that captures the technical contribution of the entire thread.

I recognize that Psubs is many things to many people, and I would never want 
to mess with that.  But I also feel that, at the end of the day, what we will 
really leave to the next generation, and to the outside world, is the "top 
20%".  I would like to live and breathe and enjoy the full 100%...that is the 
fun of it.  That is why I am here.  But I would still like to package up the 
"top 20" as our legacy...for the "other folks".

One guy's thoughts, in the middle of the night.  Thanks for listening.

Doug Farrow