Question:  How many MMD mail list subscribers does it take
           to repair a player piano?

Answer:    1,331 --

  1 to repair the player piano and to post to the mail
    list that the player piano has been fixed

 14 to share similar experiences of repairing a player
    piano and how the player piano could have been
    repaired differently.

  7 to caution about the dangers of repairing a player piano.

 27 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about
    repairing player pianos.

 53 to flame the spell checkers

156 to write to the list administrator complaining about
    the repairing player piano discussion and its
    inappropriateness to this mail list.

 41 to correct spelling in the spelling/grammar flames.

109 to post that this list is not about repairing player
    pianos and to please take this email exchange
    to alt.repair.player.piano

203 to demand that cross posting to alt.grammar,
    alt.spelling and alt.punctuation about repairing
    player pianos to be stopped.

111 to defend the posting to this list saying that we
    all repair player pianos and therefore the posts
    **are** relevant to this mail list.

306 to debate which method of fixing a player piano
    is superior, where to buy the best materials,
    what brand of valves, pneumatics, glue and pouches
    work best for this technique, and what brands are faulty.

 27 to post URLs where one can see examples of
    different player pianos

 14 to post that the URLs were posted incorrectly, and
    to post corrected URLs.

  3 to post about links they found from the URLs that
    are relevant to this list which makes player pianos
    relevant to this list.

 33 to concatenate all posts to date, then quote
    them including all headers and footers, and then
    add "Me Too."

 12 to post to the list that they are un-subscribing
    because they cannot handle the player piano
    controversy.

 19 to quote the "Me Too's" to say, "Me Three."

  4 to suggest that posters request the player piano FAQ.

  1 to propose new alt.repair.player.piano newsgroup.

 47 to say this is just what alt.physic.cold_fusion
    was meant for, leave it here.

143 votes for alt.fixing.player.piano

(adapted from "Changing of the light bulb")

Claus Kucher

 [ Claus has been observing our Digest almost since its beginning two
 [ years ago.  His humorous informal statistics probably agree with the
 [ statistics of other news groups.
 [
 [ Thanks to Ron Yost for also sending us the "light bulb" version.
 [  -- Robbie