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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LightPhoenix" data-source="post: 5177007" data-attributes="member: 115">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 <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />-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.</blockquote>

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