[SIGCIS-Members] Was email really already 75% of ARPANET traffic by 1973?

[thomas.haigh at gmail.com]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET: "In 1971, Ray Tomlinson, of BBN sent the first network e-mail (RFC 524, RFC 561). By 1973, e-mail constituted 75% of the ARPANET traffic.[9][84]"

There are two citations, so straight a "citation needed" flag might not convince people. However one is to a Ray Tomlinson page that does not include the figure. The other is to a book chapter by communications scholar Leah A. Lievrouw, but the page pointed to by the link doesn't seem to include the figure either. (That page does cite the Ceruzzi history we're working to revise). 

So the two references go with the first sentence of the short paragraph, not the second which is unsourced. A better general citation for the creation and rapid adoption of Internet email would actually be pages 106-111 of Abbate.

Tom



-----Original Message-----
From: Members <members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org> On Behalf Of Alexandre Hocquet
Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2020 5:54 PM
To: members at lists.sigcis.org
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Was email really already 75% of ARPANET traffic by 1973?

On 7/29/20 11:18 PM, Win Treese wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Jul 29, 2020, at 4:22 PM, <thomas.haigh at gmail.com> <thomas.haigh at gmail.com> wrote:
>> […]
>>
>> The figure is also in Wikipedia, without a real source, so I'm acutely aware that it's one of those factoids that historians and journalists will find somewhere like Wikipedia or the Hobbes Timeline and then copy, thus creating a "reliable source" that Wikipedia can then cite to support the information. It's like a time paradox.
> 
> Of course, there’s an XKCD for that: https://xkcd.com/978/.


If we know which Wikipedia article exactly, the best thing to do would be to add a [[citation needed]] flag, or even better, to link to this SIGCIS thread in the artcile talk page with a short explanation. If you point me to the article, I can do that as a contribution to restore XKCD's faith in Wikipedia :)


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Alexandre Hocquet
Archives Henri Poincaré & Science History Institute Alexandre.Hocquet at univ-lorraine.fr
https://www.sciencehistory.org/profile/alexandre-hocquet
https://poincare.univ-lorraine.fr/fr/membre-titulaire/alexandre-hocquet
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