What about a statistics file like azureus.
Users could be given an option of having one. It would allow others to monitor ue without having to keep opening the window.
I use azureus statistics file to monitor azureus using lcdstudio for my logitech g15.
File standard xml.
It should allow you to:
1) Select update frequency 1,2,3,4,5 etc seconds.
2) Select where you want the file to be saved.
The file could contain the following
1) Bandwidth
2) Time left
3) Databse size allocate/reserved
4) Show details of articles,headers and newsgroup list it is downloading such as subject,author,date ,size server,progress