[pyritechips]

A few statistics concerning membership and involvment:

As of June 19, 2003 there were 827,634 posts.

There were 215,678 posts in RANDOM = 26%

There were 611,956 posts in TECH = 74%

Of the 611,956 TECH posts:

Acacandy = 16,382 posts

Rollin' Rog = 13,488 "

BrianF = 10,775 "

Bryan = 10,419 "

Eddie5659 = 8,850 "

Tonyklien = 8,838 "

Davey7549 = 6,252 "

Dreamboat = 6,450 "

pvc9 = 4,621 "

RandyG = 3,817 "
__________________________

10 members = 89,433 posts, or 14% of total tech posts.


Only 800 members(1.3%) of a total of 61,730 have ever posted over 100 times.

My conclusion: It is fallacious to speak of a "60,000" membership. With well less than 1,000 participating even moderately, and a full 26% of that in Random (a tecnically useless forum), It is like boasting that my home town has a population of 60,000 but 59,200 of them are in the cemetary. I believe the "strength" and fate of TSG are in the hands of just a few.

[RandyG]

You bucking for oscar's stats job?

[pyritechips]

LOL no way Randy! I can't even pretend to top the "Stats Master"

I was just looking for a member and noticed how few ever post past their first tech question thread, and how very few members supply help over the years. Hats off to you and the rest! I just feel we can't afford to lose truly valuable tech members. I feel very petty with a paltry 30%/960 tech posts!

[RandyG]

It's not about numbers or percentages. I truly feel that I don't belong up there listed with the exhalted ranks.

I've no specialty, just time and willingness, and 3 years here.

loads more folks here, and many not even senior members with less than 100 posts total have more knowledge.

It's neat to know the figures, but it's something we've all been kicking around the boards for quite sometime . . .

the high numbers are misleading, because they tend to lead newcomers down the wrong path. even with the tech percentages, it's going to lead folks to believe that low percentage posters are not technically competent, and we all know that is not a fair assessment.

Anyway, I was surprised by the numbers you posted, and sort of embarrassed about being up there. conversely to your feelings, maybe I'll post more in Random!

[oscar51]

Ah, a statistical soul mate!

The point is a good one: Even though computers lend themselves by nature to numbers (I'm user #4641 here, BTW), TSG helpers are people and are second to none is what they do; likewise the moderators and the administrators, overworked as they are.

I suppose there might be some new members who are in a hurry to assess the technical competence of the helpers, but really the best way to do that is to read through the threads to get a feel for the answers already given to others. Takes time, but to me it's impressive -- not only the good quality but the good attitudes. There is plenty of "bad attitude" around the Internet; glad it's not here.

[RandyG]

I take offense to that, oscar!!!

Mouldy and I make up for all the "good" attitudes on this site!

[oscar51]

Sorry about my oversight.

I was going to put in a few comments about RD being a place to vent and therefore all the "bad attitudes" could be found there, but in light of the "bad reception" to my past comments about RD, I took them out. And I'd better watch it here before I get myself into a hole again.

I read somewhere that the first thing to do when in a hole is to stop digging, so I guess I'd better stop....

[Davey7549]

Nice work PC!

I have always been a firm believer in the 80\20 rule! In this case it is 80% work and 20% fun!

Strangely enough if you remove the heavily skewed Fun Game replies, http://forums.techguy.org/t88435/s.html you will see the results between Tech forum and Random falls into the 80\20 rule.

Dave

[pyritechips]

Davey, Oscar, Randy - everybody:

Please don't put too much into what I posted. It was never entended to be comprehensive or an accurate cross-section of the membership and their posting habits.

It was only my intention to illustrate that the bulk of the real work at TSG is done by only a hanful of members. It was never my intention to list all worthy contributors, nor was it my intention to deliberately overlook any, or arbitrarily any out of order.

I mentioned only the first 10 tech posters that I came across. The list was intentionally short and also intentionally arbtrary. If everybody asked me why I didn't include one member or another then I might as well include all members.

P.S. The value of posts is also arbitrary and do not tell the whole "truth". A member can be very new with computers. The member can start a thread asking for help with a modem. If their lack of familiarity with tech "jargon" and lack of practice with tweaking or even hardware cause them to post many questions, a simple (for us) modem or driver install can easily run into 30 or 40 posts (I'm sure we have all been involved in threads like that). That means that the unknowledgable poster now has 15 or 20 tech posts, most of them probably misunderstood. If this person keeps asking for help, they slowly gain knowledge and their tech post count quickly grows. So our hypothecial "newbie" member's 100 tech posts can hardly be said to have the value of 100 or Rog's tech posts, or your's Davey.

[Davey7549]

Jim
My reply was in no way implying that I was dissatisfied with the stats and thought more people should of been included. On the contrary I was rather impressed with the way you were able to make some conclusions from the data you mined!
The results solidified my feelings that many of us in life use the 80\20 rule consciously or unconsciously.

Take Care

Dave

[pyritechips]

It's ok Davey, just a light-hearted stab at some TSG stats!

As far as the 80/20 rule is concerned, I think some people believe it should be 20/80!

[Davey7549]

Yup!

Would be great if I could make a living in the 20% and have fun for the 80!

Dave

[pyritechips]

Would be great if I could make a living in the 20% and have fun for the 80!

Talk to Candy! I here there are a few pool boy openings available!