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ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   4788 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 04, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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700 total registered users. I have no idea how that compares to Reddit's 19,000 subscribers; some of the tools we have now are providing a rather interesting look into the internals, and there's a lot of users whose names I have never seen at all who are dutifully upvoting things that are good and downvoting things that are bad. I think we may have a ton of imported lurkers who were always just invisible before, and I'm glad at least some of them have chosen to come along.

(Hi, lurkers, if you're out there!)

Also, those 19,000 subscribers probably included a lot of dead accounts, Reddit never pruned them at all. So we were never going to get anywhere near that number.

The stats I have also say that we have 150 active users on the site at this very moment, about half of which have registered accounts, but it's hard to say how this compares to the Reddit numbers (currently 2500); the concept of an "active user" is inherently very subjective and we never knew what the hell Reddit was doing anyway, every few months it would jump up by an order of magnitude for a day and we never had any idea why. I always assumed Reddit's numbers were garbage or at least garbage-adjacent.

(Hi, lurkers, if you're out there!)

Hi to you, too! I've been lurking since the SSC subreddit days, just never registered because I didn't want to get involved with Reddit.

One thing I've noticed since the move is that there seems to be heavy cross-pollination with /r/drama. This seems odd to me; I wouldn't expect there to be much overlap between the two communities. Is there any reason other than the commonality of Reddit diaspora?

There's also been a somewhat-substantial userbase overlap even before this, from what I remember. Can't say I really understand it, myself, because it seems like it would have to be an absolute Jekyll-and-Hyde thing, but I suppose people are multifaceted.

It's actually reassuring that I'm not the only one confused about that! Not that I'm assigning any particular positive or negative valence to it ... they seem like a lively bunch ... I just wouldn't have guessed.

Does it have to do with us building the site out of their codebase or is the relationship an old one that I've just never noticed?

We forked their codebase; they’re talking about us because they think that’s interesting.

Speaking of user statistics, I wonder about those moments on the subreddit where the number of active users spiked into the thousands - like, uh, seems to be happening right now, if my memories of normal activity levels are correct. My guesses about why those happened before were that something from The Motte was linked in some high-traffic thread on some high-traffic subreddit, but was never able to find any proof of that happening whenever I checked, and didn't notice any influx of new posters going "what's this about" at any point, either.

If there's a lot of attention on the subreddit right now, I think it's pretty obvious why that is, but we've never fled the platform before. But of course, knowing Reddit, I wouldn't expect the mod team could have any more insight into whatever was generally going on than I, a random hitherto-lurker, would.

So that's a totally reasonable guess! But . . . as near as I can tell, it's wrong. Or something's wrong. Mods actually do have some info about subreddit traffic - there's a page with traffic graphs - and we've never seen any significant jump in traffic while one of those spikes was going on. Including right now, in fact, this is pretty much normal for this time of day (which is in itself confusing?)

Either something else is going on there, or the traffic graph is the one lying to us.

Imported lurker who was always just invisible before, here to confirm we're here.

I never committed to making an account on reddit, but I've been reading and keeping up with the Motte for quite a long time now. Came through the usual slatestarcodex route (is it even the usual route these days?) but I was never too engaged with the SSC subreddit's general flavors of discussion.

It's a challenge to imagine myself as an effortposter by any stretch, but I'm really keen on what this community is all about and I'm happy to be here anyway.

Going from pure lurker to attempted effortpost-er can be intimidating if you aren't a natural writer. But if you have a subject that you are passionate about then that passion will carry through even if you find the idea of be awarded an AAQC to be challenging to imagine.

I think we may have a ton of imported lurkers who were always just invisible before, and I'm glad at least some of them have chosen to come along.

Ohai. I was never subscribed, but despite that I was a frequent reader I think I was effectively invisible to moderators. I have cycled through various reddit accounts over time but in the past the "you are a member of [...] therefore you are [...]" dynamic seemed best avoided and I avoided controversial memberships. (Ironically I've recently reached the "actually I don't care anymore ban me whatevs" point, but I also feel like reddit may be about to implode as a useful resource thus rendering it all moot.)

I think we may have a ton of imported lurkers who were always just invisible before, and I'm glad at least some of them have chosen to come along.

Where else would we get our reading material from? I usually don't post much because I don't particularly enjoy writing like people here do, and I usually feel more pain than joy when I do post. I do mostly enjoy skimming every weekly culture war or small-scale questions thread, and also the other non-weekly random topic threads.

Good to hear that we have a large amount of folks already here, day two (one?) of the official move. Personally I'm a long-time lurker who didn't post out of a combination of fear of reddit admins/old health issues, and this move has changed my mind on posting. My favorite internet community facing an existential threat has given me enough motivation to get over the hump, so to speak.

I've seen a similar sentiment elsewhere already, and I like to think many quality posters who held back in the past for some reason will come in out of the cold and help us keep this place alive, and high quality.

You could try to invite the intellectual userbase of rdrama. That's how I ended up here. Some guy messaged me and told me I would be more appreciated here.

I think we did pretty well.

:marseydoubt:

They aren't really trying to actively troll you. Individual morons coming in so far.

Agreed. Haven't had to report anything yet.

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