Phorum Poster Stats

[milowent]

Because distributions fascinate me ...

[Terryfic]

Impressive work Milo. I thought I might divide this data into thirds based on your estimates in the corner.

17 Users (0.7%) are responsible for 1/3 of all posts.
65 Users (2.7%) are responsible for the next 1/3 of all posts.
2287 Users (96.5%) are responsible for the remaining 1/3 of all posts.

3.4% of the phorum population is responsible for 66% of all the posts.

[hyemew]

That's extremely interesting Terry, truly fits in with our "vocal minority" theory. Someone tell the authors...

[curiousgeorge]

I just love REAL data, it brings out the ScienceMonkey! in me. This supports a lot of my assumptions which were heretofore merely a SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guess).

Once again the Covites shine a bright line on the LG15 community. Bravo gents.

[Terryfic]

I think these numbers are pretty much the same across any forum. Take a look at this one I whipped up about the Cove.



6 Users (1.3%) are responsible for 1/3 of all posts.
19 Users (4.3%) are responsible for the next 1/3 of all posts.
417 Users (94.3%) are responsible for the remaining 1/3 of all posts.

5.6% of the Cove population is responsible for 66% of all the posts.

[Smashing]

very interesting indeed.

[curiousgeorge]

Good work Terry and I think those numbers support your idea well.

I admit, I was surprised... But then again, I have "diarrhea of the keys" at times myself. And all that that term implies . Milo has helped with the "throwing issues" I have, I am striving to behave better.

Not sure if it is the same premise as Hye brought up though, because the c's are obviously not coming to us for plot suggestions! In all fairness, it would be impossible to quantify the contents of the top phorum postsers with the direction of the plot... Qualitatively, I would guess that to be true, but that is just a SWAG.

[Terryfic]

Perhaps the only thing it helps with is to state that using a forum to receive feedback will only, in general, give you the opinions of a very small faction of your audience. Now based on the ideas of a sample poll, if that small faction is a fair representation of your audience as a whole, then you’re golden. But trying to prove that either way with regards to the phorum would be pretty much impossible.

[curiousgeorge]

I pretty much stay out of the threads where all the "socializing" goes on over there. My guess is that this type of post really bumps up their counts. Chat-room like posts, e.g. "I had meatloaf for breakfast, how 'bout you?".

Also impossible to quantify is the number and content of posts relating to plot suggestion and/ or ARG elements activity. To return to Hye's premise, I think we can only guess at this... Darn that would be good hard data to have though.

[milowent]

terryfic said:

I think these numbers are pretty much the same across any forum.

yes, they probably are. i forget what this distribution is called, but its very common.

cheers,

miragewent

[flwright]

Here's another nerdy way of looking at TCOAC forum activity. I plotted the number of members per day who 1) Signed Up and 2) Last Logged In.

If there's a spike in either, I think it means something significant has happened. Terrific has pointed out that "last login" is a weak indicator as there are members who have come back as guests and never bother to sign in. True, but logging in was required in the early days and it's interesting to see when people abandoned the Cove back then.

Also notable-Right now on a given day, about 20 active participants still sign in.



FLDork

PS It took me about an hour to hunt and gather the tasty stats. Does anyone remember when the Cove opened it's gates to the lurking public?

<edit>Milo correctly points out when Mayoress Brooke cut the ribbon to the new village of Anchor Cove (Sept 4, 2006, 11:12pm). I was also wondering when did we make logging in optional?

<more edit> Ah ha! Terryific says we made logging in optional around October 29. It seems that that event, and not the start of "The Road Trip" (The Leaving of the Bedroom), may have been responsible for the dip in log in activity around that date.

[milowent]

great work fl, not sure how you did this!

the new board was founded on the evening of sept 4. i don't know what the 1st post was, but here is a very early thread where john green celebrates its birth that evening:

alissabrooke.proboards56.com/index.cgi?board=bin&action=display&thread=1157428127

oh, alissa herself: Date Registered: Sept 4, 2006, 11:12pm. So, there you go.

[Terryfic]

Around Oct 29th I set it so you only had to login to post, but could lurk without logging in.

[slainte]

An interesting - but certainly not surprising - addendum to the phorum stats.

Of the top 15 posters (with the exception of moderators who should be above such things but aren't) the last 50 posts (probably many more but I just got exhausted) were in the social threads such as "Off the Cuff", "Get to Know Each Other" and the new thread for meepers "LG15 Community"

So while the curve may look similar in both the Phorum and the Forum, they represent two VERY different types of conversations and subject matter. Certainly there are alpha contributors in both. But what are they contributing?

In addition the phorum numbers are further skewed by the fact that among the higher posters there is a meaningful competition to attain newer titles. Certainly these titles were meant to convey the degree of experience with the subject but in the phorum it is clearly the result of "postwhoring"...a pretty bizzarre ambition I think.

[slainte]

pretty good observation huh?