Posts per day

Diagnosis: Fascination

Well, few if any of those numbers represent output peaks. I'm certain I've had a higher ppd before. And, yes, I was gone for several months, but nobody really noticed.

But I wonder what the curves look like over time. Is it spiky and erratic, or a smooth fluctuation?

If we had daily activity marks available for general viewing—SciTrends, or something—I think there would be much entertainment and enlightenment to be found insofar as community behavior is concerned. We might actually get to know one another a little bit more.

Oh. Right.

 

Don't know if it's possible, but just imagine ....

I have no idea, but I would love to see the deviations that occur around various national holidays around the world, and high-profile human events. How long after an incident before it hits Sciforums? How long after that before it experiences its peak posting? Social scientists could actually take that kind of data from a broad range of interactive communities and formulate certain postulations about human behavior. Fascinating comprehension beckons.

 

(Insert Title Here)

No. But that's not the point.

Imagine if a thousand web communities did the same, and someone somewhere collated the generic data. Even if it's just one or two websites, the point isn't to discover a principle about general society. It's to watch how computer users interact with virtual concepts.

One needs broad diversity in the data to identify general trends, but there is much to be learned—especially in a comparative context over the long term—from examining the behavior of a specific microcosm. The distal in this case defines the general terms. The proximal gives those terms meaning and function.

What would be the personal impact be of a statement like, "(Member) spends X hours a week online, about Y per day; but notice the twenty-six percent increase during those two weeks when he was fighting with (Other), an additional (time) spent per day in the trenches."

Some of us would certainly be shocked by our own numbers. It's easy not to think of hours spent or wasted. Unless you happen to be looking right at them.

And people are curious. Even and especially about themselves. And, yes, some would try to use the stats as ammunition, but come on. We can expect people to be smart enough to see through that.

There are some times that I would intervene in an argument and simply say that people should be aware that the gallery just isn't that stupid, except, well, yeah, it's not like I have any real moral authority about playing to the gallery. Of course, one man's irony is another's condescension, but I digress. I just think it would add an entirely new dimension to the communal experience at Sciforums.

 

I'd estimate that most regular contributors average about 5 posts per day over time.

A higher post rate, I think, may indicate one or more of the following, for starters:

• Posts are of a low quality or "knee-jerk" variety.
• Poster thinks sciforums can be used like a Facebook status box.
• Poster is happy to start threads on just about anything that pops into his or her mind, and lacks the ability to self-censor and reflect on whether other members may be interested.
• Poster spends too much time on the internet.
• Poster places too much importance on internet forums, probably at the expense of his or her "real life".
• Poster has an unhealthy obsession with one or more topics discussed on sciforums and feels compelled to post on them to excess.
• Poster is very fast at processing information, is an excellent and efficient writer, has lots of intelligent things to say and is very good at multitasking internet use with his or her real life.