TarionzCousin
Second Most Angelic Devil Ever
@weem: Whoa! Numbers and actual facts to back up your point. I begin to see why you are at the top of the XP ladder.
Why Have You Disabled Experience Points?
- Thread starter TarionzCousin
- Start date
numbers and facts? On the interwebz? surely this is a sign of the coming apocalypse.
Fifth Element
Legend
The problem with this analysis is that XP has not been accumulating as long as posts have. Someone with 10,000 posts, all before 2007 (for example), would have 0 XP but rank highly in posts.
But that's a grain of salt, and doesn't entirely invalidate the numbers.
Asmor
First Post
Certainly the highest XP earners are also the most prolific posters... But consider that, all other things aside, someone who posts twice as often will have twice as many "XP-worthy" posts.
Of course, one could then question whether prolific posters are themselves more or less likely to have any individual post really be worth XP. I could see arguments for either side.
For what it's worth, I pay almost no attention to who posts what. In fact, the only person I recognize right away is PirateCat thanks to his distinctive and eye-catching avatar. Everyone else remains anonymous until such time as I need to cite them or otherwise make note of their name...
Asmor
First Post
@weem: Whoa! Numbers and actual facts to back up your point. I begin to see why you are at the top of the XP ladder.
I was going to give Weem some exp on your behalf, but apparently I need to spread it around too. lol.
LightPhoenix
First Post
That list is a little misleading, since the way top posters are calculated is not representative of prolific activity.
First off, top posters are only listed by the number of posts they have made, which is not a good indicator for a number of reasons. The main reason is that number of posts is not representative of prolific activity. For example - if a new member signs up and makes 100 posts in a day, that is prolific, but not enough to be a blip on the top posters board.
Obviously, the next choice is post rate as a measure of prolific activity. Unfortunately this also has a fundamental problem - the calculation is too simple. The boards just take number of posts over days of membership as a calculation. That's too coarse to really say whether someone is prolific or not. For example*, you have a rate of 0.46 messages a day; but you became a member way back in 2002. Looking at your profile, your current activity is more like 2 messages a day.
Even if we calculate rate from when XP started, that's still not a good enough metric. Simply put, there's the issue of
-for-tat. That is, who gives the most experience may influence who receives the most. Unfortunately "XP Ratio" is not something that can, to my knowledge, be measured except individually**. I can estimate; for example, Steel_Wind gave 2 experience and received 4 on May 7th. However, as that's obviously an estimate it's not terribly reliable; it's too fine-grained.XP Ratio is getting there, but still not quite good enough. While XP Ratio addresses random give and take, it doesn't address the question of group give and take. What you'd really need is a list of the top ten XP granters for each of the top ten XP receivers, and see if names pop up regularly or not. If XP Ratio can only be estimated, a measurement like that would be right out of the question. It would also be informative in answering a fundamental question - is there a situation where XP is artificially increased amongst the top receivers based on a social circle? Not to say that's any sort of bad, but it would answer the concerns of those that think it promotes cliques.
So in short, while interesting, a comparison between post count and XP received means very little. Unfortunately, everything else is pretty much out of our hands to calculate, unless Morrus, or possibly one of the mods, chooses to do so.
* Not picking on you, but you're an excellent example of the reason why post rate is not a good metric.
** In actuality, I think a better calculation would emphasize XP Received, so that someone with 149/149 and someone with 1/1 are not equal. Also, for those wondering, my XPG/XPR is 0.59.
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
Two from the top twenty, actually.
Not that that really changes anything; it's still a very valid point.
Starman
Adventurer
Even if this wasn't a joke (as Fifth Element mentioned), I really don't have the time (or inclination) to comb through the 13,400 hits a Google search for "awesome site:enworld.org/forum" returned and add XP to all of those posts. So, don't worry. Won't happen.
Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
Oh thank God. I am so, so glad you have a life!
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