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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   6177 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 12, 2023

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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Too early to say. The early months of themotte.org were dominated by USA election season, which has always spurred heavy traffic in the CWR, and the early months of 2023 have been big dry spell for the culture war. (Of course, 2020-2022 was probably the most intense culture war period of my life, so maybe we're settling into a new equilibrium.)

I expect us to whither and die but I'm not sure I'm seeing that yet.

I think there’s a lot more demand for niche internet communities now than in the mid 2010s when everyone was allowed to have their own subreddit.

I think there’s a lot more demand for niche internet communities now than in the mid 2010s when everyone was allowed to have their own subreddit.

Oh, I believe there's a demo that wants us. But our discoverability is toilet tier compared to being a subreddit.

Some communities sustain themselves through pure word of mouth, like Kiwifarms. (Hey! They're alive!) But most... don't. They shrink as their initial seed members drift away without being replaced.

I'd be interested if there are any commenters, (or lurkers, what the heck you're in this thing too), who joined after the jump.

I'll report in as a datapoint.

How did you get here? Anything we can do to funnel your kind into the net?

My response to your first question.

As for your second, I really couldn't tell you - I can't think of a place off the top of my head I would feel comfortable exposing to this place.

OK, you were already caught ages ago, you just got reeled in recently . The search for new fish continues.

I lurked but I started posting after the jump.

Same story here.

Same here

Same.

I'd also like to know this. Any numbers @ZorbaTHut ?

I don't actually know how we could have numbers for that, honestly - there's no consistent way for us to associate pre-Reddit and post-Reddit people, I know a bunch of people changed nicknames.

I guess I meant how many new members since the initial influx. I think we were at 2,000 last time someone asked?

We were, although that was long past the initial influx. Looks like we're at 2259 now, although I don't know how many of those are attempts at spambots and so forth.

How often do new members go on to be productive posters? Do you know (including older people) roughly how many people regularly post or vote on things?

I admit I haven't attempted to quantify that. It's an interesting question, and I'd like an answer except I do not have time to do the work required to create an appropriate database query >_<

The following will get you, segmented by month,

  • Number of signups in that month

  • Number of those signups who have ever commented

  • Average number of comments by those signups (total and per day)

  • Average number of comment words written by those signups (total and per day)

  • Average number of upvotes on comments by those signups (total and per day)

  • Average number of downvotes on comments by those signups (total and per day)

  • Average score (up - down) on comments by those signups (total and per day)


with user_comment_stats as (

    select

        u.id as user_id,

        min(to_timestamp(u.created_utc)::date) as signup_date,

        count(c.id) as n_comments,

        sum(array_length(regexp_split_to_array(trim(c.body), E'\\W+'), 1)) as total_words_written,

        sum(c.upvotes) as total_upvotes,

        sum(c.downvotes) as total_downvotes,

        sum(c.upvotes - c.downvotes) as total_score,

        min(now()::date - to_timestamp(u.created_utc)::date) as days_since_signup

    from users u

        left join comments c on c.author_id = u.id

    group by user_id

)
select

    left(signup_date::text, 7) as signup_month,

    count(distinct user_id) as n_users,

    sum((n_comments > 0)::int) as n_commented,

    avg(n_comments) as avg_comments_per_user,

    avg(total_words_written) as avg_commentwords_per_user,

    avg(total_upvotes) as avg_upvotes_per_user,

    avg(total_downvotes) as avg_downvotes_per_user,

    avg(total_score) as avg_score_per_user,

    avg(n_comments / days_since_signup) as avg_daily_comments_per_user,

    avg(total_words_written / days_since_signup) as avg_daily_commentwords_per_user,

    avg(total_upvotes / days_since_signup) as avg_daily_upvotes_per_user,

    avg(total_downvotes / days_since_signup) as avg_daily_downvotes_per_user,

    avg(total_score / days_since_signup) as avg_daily_score_per_user

from user_comment_stats

group by signup_month

You can do a similar thing with votes and posts if you care about such things.

Though honestly there are fewer than 2500 users and 100000 comments on the motte -- fancy analytics approaches are unlikely to tell you anything you don't already know from regularly reading the motte.

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