Tangent! I would wager ENWorld has a lot of lurkers; you can't tell whether or not that's true, of course, because definitionally they don't post (much|at all).
I should know; I am one
Suggestion: No April Fools prank this year, please. (Forked Thread: About Reveille)
- Thread starter Zelligars Apprentice
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Tangent! I would wager ENWorld has a lot of lurkers; you can't tell whether or not that's true, of course, because definitionally they don't post (much|at all).
I should know; I am one
This isn't true. Interestingly, the opposite is true: of those who read threads, those who actually post are rare.
Nikosandros
Golden Procrastinator
For every thread that I post to, there are at least 20 that I just read... I'm not at all surprised to learn that my behavior is not that uncommon.
genshou
First Post
Please re-read my statement with emphasis to see an obvious part you may have overlooked.
I may only post once or twice in a thread I respond to, and only respond to 1/10 threads I read. But I still have over 2,000 posts. That's because I consistently read a fair number of threads. If I barely ever checked the forum, or only read the threads in a very "small" subforum, I would probably have a very low post count.
Elodan
Adventurer
I would think that Morrus has the numbers to back him up.
I come to this message board almost every day. I work through 6 -10 of the subforums each time reading a bunch of the posts in each. I rarely respond. I think those of us who don't post are more common.
Not trying to pick a fight. I just think post count is way overrated.
genshou
First Post
Yes, and as someone who has been here for around 7-ish years (I didn't check the month you joined, just the year) and yet has less posts than the number of days in a standard Earth year, you obviously (for unspecified reasons) just haven't said much compared to the extremely active posters. But as to whether or not you read as many threads as someone like Crothian, well, who can know?
My point is simply that those who read as many threads as someone like Crothian but have less than 1% of his post count are generally a minority on any forum. The correlation between post count and activity level is not a universal ratio (especially considering different forums have different circumstances, ratios between member count and posts per day, and other differing factors), nor is it the only thing that should be considered when weighting someone's opinion, but there IS some level of correlation between the two.
Obviously, if we go by total member count and find the mean of posts per day, it will be very low. That mean would include people who registered years ago, visited the site for a very short time, never posted, and haven't touched the site for years. It also fails to take into consideration leaves of absence from the site. For example, I registered in 2003 because I was a player in a Story Hour started at that time, but I did not become an active member of the community until July 2005, at which time my post count rapidly increased from less than 10 to over 100. Afterward, I took another extended leave of absence from active forum participation for at least a year and a half, which I believe ended late last year (I could find out exactly when if I took a careful look at my lists of subscribed threads).
I am inclined to believe a set of statistics comparing hours a person spent perusing the forum to their post count (impossible to quantify without omniscience, since the site can only register the time stamps at which a person takes some action on the forum such as clicking a link, but let's just roll with it for the sake of argument) would show a phenomenally higher mean of posts per day.
As others have pointed out (and so have I if I didn't muddy my posts too much), you certainly shouldn't rely on post count (or posts per day) alone to determine how active someone is on the forum. However, it IS a factor, and that's all I'm trying to point out here.
I realize we've gone off on a tangent of considerable size, but I won't ask others who wish to reply to me to prevent themselves from doing so. However, this will be my last post on the subject unless the discussion moves to a forked thread. Feel free to leave your thoughts on my post on this or a forked thread.
My point is simply that those who read as many threads as someone like Crothian but have less than 1% of his post count are generally a minority on any forum. The correlation between post count and activity level is not a universal ratio (especially considering different forums have different circumstances, ratios between member count and posts per day, and other differing factors), nor is it the only thing that should be considered when weighting someone's opinion, but there IS some level of correlation between the two.
Obviously, if we go by total member count and find the mean of posts per day, it will be very low. That mean would include people who registered years ago, visited the site for a very short time, never posted, and haven't touched the site for years. It also fails to take into consideration leaves of absence from the site. For example, I registered in 2003 because I was a player in a Story Hour started at that time, but I did not become an active member of the community until July 2005, at which time my post count rapidly increased from less than 10 to over 100. Afterward, I took another extended leave of absence from active forum participation for at least a year and a half, which I believe ended late last year (I could find out exactly when if I took a careful look at my lists of subscribed threads).
I am inclined to believe a set of statistics comparing hours a person spent perusing the forum to their post count (impossible to quantify without omniscience, since the site can only register the time stamps at which a person takes some action on the forum such as clicking a link, but let's just roll with it for the sake of argument) would show a phenomenally higher mean of posts per day.
As others have pointed out (and so have I if I didn't muddy my posts too much), you certainly shouldn't rely on post count (or posts per day) alone to determine how active someone is on the forum. However, it IS a factor, and that's all I'm trying to point out here.
I realize we've gone off on a tangent of considerable size, but I won't ask others who wish to reply to me to prevent themselves from doing so. However, this will be my last post on the subject unless the discussion moves to a forked thread. Feel free to leave your thoughts on my post on this or a forked thread.
