Author Topic: Statistics about when Forum Members were last active  (Read 2144 times)

Ozzyjack

  • Eulexic
  • ***
  • Posts: 4579
  • Redlands, SEQ
    • View Profile
Statistics about when Forum Members were last active
« on: April 11, 2018, 08:52:42 PM »
 :-H
So did they actually de-register or simply stop playing without any words of farewell?

You can get an idea from the weirdest of places.  This set me thinking because I had noticed members had not been active for several years and were still registered.  To get a better picture I put together two tables about when people were last active.

YEAR LAST ACTIVE BY PERIOD OVER WHICH ACTIVE
                                     31-   361-   1801-      
YEAR   TOTAL    0-1    2-7   8-30    360   1800   3600   3601+  


2007      31     17      2      3      9      0      0      0
2008      22      9      0      0      8      5      0      0
2009      36     10      2      4      7     13      0      0
2010      14      3      0      0      6      5      0      0
2011      29      5      7      4      6      7      0      0
2012      28      7      5      4      3      7      2      0
2013      25      9      4      0      2      7      3      0
2014      22      3      3      0      6      6      4      0
2015      10      3      1      0      2      3      1      0
2016      21      6      0      2      7      2      4      0
2017      13      4      1      1      1      0      4      2
2018      64      2      0      1      5     24     19     13
2007-18  315     78     25     19     62     79     37     15

KEY:
Total      – Number of members recorded as last active in that YEAR.
“0-1”      - Number last active (NLA) within 1 day of date of
             registration (DOR)including those recorded as never active.
“2-7”      - NLA within 2 days to a week from DOR.
“8-30”     - NLA within 2 weeks to 1 month from DOR.
“31-360”   – NLA within a month to roughly one year of DOR
Etc.


YEARS LAST ACTIVE BY NUMBER OF POSTS
                   0      1-5    6-10   11-100  101-1000  1001+
YEAR    TOTAL    Posts   Posts   Posts   Posts   Posts    Posts

2007       31       13      14       1       3       0        0
2008       22       10       6       1       4       1        0
2009       36       15       6       4       6       4        1
2010       14        6       1       4       3       0        0
2011       29       15       7       0       4       3        0
2012       28       12      11       1       3       1        0
2013       25       10       7       1       6       0        1
2014       22        6       5       3       7       0        1
2015       10        5       3       1       1       0        0
2016       21       10       4       5       1       1        0
2017       12        3       5       1       1       2        0
2018       65        6       6       6      21      18        8
2007-18   315      111      75      28      60      30       11


Analysis of these tables raised a number of questions of which I had almost no definitive answers although I could make some guesses which I will do in a subsequent post.  This is for no  purpose other than idle curiosity.  There is no doubt that if Les and I were cats we would have been killed long ago. ;D

There is one question to Alan which is more than idle curiosity.

Do you have any plans for further improvement of the forum in which we, the members. could be of assistance to you?  

It might be as simple as a restatement of guidelines which we transgress, sometimes unknowingly.
« Last Edit: April 11, 2018, 09:26:44 PM by Ozzyjack »
Regards, Jack

Ozzyjack

  • Eulexic
  • ***
  • Posts: 4579
  • Redlands, SEQ
    • View Profile
Re: Statistics about when Forum Members were last active
« Reply #1 on: April 11, 2018, 09:11:42 PM »
A high number of registered players do not stay active past the first week.  I am struggling to think of a reason for this.  Many registered but didn’t become active which is even more puzzling.

I can understand why a number of people register even if they have no intention of posting.  It leaves the option of posting if something comes up.

I can see there are many reasons why people want to be active in the forum.  Perhaps the most important one aligned to the prime objectives of the game is to debate on the status of words.  Are they allowed, are they common or are they rare? 

A lot of us enjoy the banter. As well, here is a fair amount of information to gained, especially from different national views.

Of course to enjoy these things vicariously, you don’t have to be an active member.  The information is available to guests.  Every time I check to see who is online there is mostly a ratio exceeding 10:1, or more, of guests to forum members.  In fact, I suspect many guests are forum members who for some reason or other haven’t logged in. I can't figure out why.

It is more understandable why even frequent forum posters drop out from time to time. Some obvious reasons are those that they banter with drop out.  They might find they do not have the time any more  because of family, work or other interests. We have at least one instance of a person dropping out for nine years returning and this is obviously an argument for not de-registering members who have been significant users in the past for inactivity over several years.

Just one member I would like to bring to attention is www.cgreality.ru .  Last active 4minutes after registering.  If you follow the link it belongs to a Castle realty group.

Any enlightenment on the issues raised or other insights arising out of the tables would be appreciated.
Regards, Jack

Alan W

  • Administrator
  • Eulexic
  • *****
  • Posts: 4961
  • Melbourne, Australia
    • View Profile
    • Email
Re: Statistics about when Forum Members were last active
« Reply #2 on: April 12, 2018, 11:21:14 AM »
Wow, OJ! You must have spent ages compiling this information. Intriguing. But what does it all mean??

One thing to bear in mind is that not everybody online is a real person. I'm not suggesting that there are Russian troll farms posting carefully contrived misinformation designed to manipulate views in western countries about which words are common and rare. But there are lots of "spambots" scouring the internet for forums, and trying to join up so they can put advertising links on the forum, in a post or in a member's profile. There are also lots of "web crawlers", or "searchbots", programs run by search engines and others to maintain an index of the entire Web. These programs follow every link on a site, so in the forum they look at every thread and post, and every member profile. (To some extent the spambots are targeting the searchbots - if they can get the same link on a thousand forums, hidden away in member profiles, they probably think it will boost the search engine ranking of that link.)

So the "People Online" numbers include a lot of non-people. Click on the line saying "xx Guests, yy Forumites" and you will see that a lot of the guests have descriptions that reveal them to be bots. Some of the others are probably bots too - of the more spammy kind.

Also, those who have joined the forum and posted 0 or 1 times include some spambots. Where I spotted a spammy link I deleted it, but I didn't always delete the forum member. Eventually there were so many bogus members joining up that I had to introduce a manual check in the registration process. People are asked to name some of their favourite word games. Generally the spammers will either not give an answer (in which case they can't complete the registration form) or fill in some gibberish. Occasionally they will give an answer that looks suspicious but could be genuine - e.g "Lexigame" - so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Fortunately for me the number of bogus registration attempts has dropped off quite substantially over recent months.

Of course some of the forum members who have never posted or even never logged in are genuine people. As you say, they may have wanted to be a member in case they later decided to join in a discussion. Or they may have joined up in order to take part in a current discussion, but by the time their membership was approved the moment had passed. Or they might have joined up not realising that they can read all the forum posts as a guest.

As for my plans for the forum, I don't think I have any, but I may discuss this in a separate post.
Alan Walker
Creator of Lexigame websites

Ozzyjack

  • Eulexic
  • ***
  • Posts: 4579
  • Redlands, SEQ
    • View Profile
Re: Statistics about when Forum Members were last active
« Reply #3 on: April 12, 2018, 08:55:49 PM »
Alan, Yes it did take some time but not as much as you would think.
 
Why do it?  Wordsmiths do games like chihuahua to keep mental acuity at a high level. Others do number games and logic problems.  People who were systems analysts, albeit forty odd years ago, like the opportunity to develop processes to achieve an output to see if they can still do it.  If the result is useful, that is a bonus.

The data collection was conceptually simple. 
1.   Copy the 11 pages of the members data base to a spreadsheet
2.   Split the screen into 2 – spreadsheet on one side; browser on the other
3.   Click the username of the first member, bringing up the profile in the browser
4.   Copy the date last active to the spreadsheet
5.   Repeat for each member

Then you have all the data you need to produce the tables with simple spreadsheet manipulations.

Publishing the tables without attaching a spreadsheet, word processor or PDF document proved more difficult.  I wanted to use the instructions of Bulletin board Coding system to set up the tables.  I found an insert table tag but in the end it, or my knowledge of it, proved it to be unsuitable.  So I dumped the table into the post, converted the text font to courier, a fixed-width font, with the font tag and formatted it by inserting spaces to line up the columns.

It was an enjoyable exercise.  I am just a bit sorry it didn’t turn out to be useful.
Regards, Jack

oldpaul

  • Neophyte
  • *
  • Posts: 17
    • View Profile
Re: Statistics about when Forum Members were last active
« Reply #4 on: April 12, 2018, 10:27:42 PM »
Ozzyjack,

I’m afraid I’m a bit thick.  In your first table in the 2018 / 3601+ entry you have the number 13.  What exactly have these 13 members done?
In the second table, in the 2018 / 1001+ posts entry, you have the number 8.  I also cannot comprehend what this means.  What have these 8 members done?

Cheers,
Oldpaul

Alan W

  • Administrator
  • Eulexic
  • *****
  • Posts: 4961
  • Melbourne, Australia
    • View Profile
    • Email
Re: Statistics about when Forum Members were last active
« Reply #5 on: April 12, 2018, 10:40:11 PM »
There is one question to Alan which is more than idle curiosity.

Do you have any plans for further improvement of the forum in which we, the members. could be of assistance to you?  

It might be as simple as a restatement of guidelines which we transgress, sometimes unknowingly.

This is the text of the agreement everyone is asked to accept when they join the forum. I don't think the wording has changed since the forum started in 2007.

Quote
The purpose of this forum is to make the Lexigame websites more enjoyable places to visit. Please keep this in mind when contributing to the forum.

Robust discussion is welcome, but all messages should be courteous and respectful of others. Any message that includes solutions to a current puzzle on the websites must have the word “SPOILER” in capitals in the Subject line.

The forum is not to be used for spam, scams, chain letters or other advertising material. Racism and other forms of bigotry are not acceptable in the forum. Naturally, all applicable laws regarding defamation, copyright, etc, should be observed.

The forum administrators reserve the right to remove any unsuitable contributions and to suspend the membership of anyone submitting flagrantly inappropriate material. However the forum is not monitored continuously, and the administrators cannot be held responsible for material appearing in members’ submissions. This policy applies to member profile information as well.

In any case, views expressed are those of the people contributing them and are not necessarily shared by the owners of the Lexigame websites.

Any complaints about material in the forum should be sent to the administrators, who will consider them as promptly as possible and take any necessary action.

Also note that the software places a cookie, a text file containing information (such as your username and password in an encoded form) on your computer's hard disk. This is used only to keep you logged in/out.

I think I was quite prescient in dealing with spoilers near the beginning of the agreement. This has been a cause of heated discussion on a few occasions. I've rarely felt it necessary to delete anything from the forum, and I think that's only been because of the spam rule.

I do feel the forum might sometimes be a bit off-putting to potential new participants because of the, shall we say, chaotic way some conversations develop, with topics drifting far from the stated subject of the thread, with remarks in one thread being responded to in another thread, etc. However I haven't made much effort to persuade forumites to be more disciplined because I'm sure that many people enjoy the free-wheeling style of the forum.

One thing I have thought I should do to improve the forum is to implement a layout that is easier to read on a small screen. I don't know if this is an issue for others, but I do a lot of my browsing on a smallish tablet these days, and reading a long forum post requires me to zoom in and scroll repeatedly from left to right - so I generally leave it until I'm at a desktop computer. Reading the forum on a phone screen would be a nightmare.
Alan Walker
Creator of Lexigame websites

Ozzyjack

  • Eulexic
  • ***
  • Posts: 4579
  • Redlands, SEQ
    • View Profile
Re: Statistics about when Forum Members were last active
« Reply #6 on: April 13, 2018, 12:09:01 AM »
I’m afraid I’m a bit thick.  

Oldpaul,

Not at all, if there is a problem it is because I have not explained the table clearly enough.

Quote
In your first table in the 2018 / 3601+ entry you have the number 13.  What exactly have these 13 members done?

They have done two things.  First, they have been last active in 2018, maybe , even today.  Second, they registered more than 3601 days before the date on which they were last active.  If they have been active today then they would have registered before 2 June 2008.  In general terms, they are still active and are the longest serving forum members.

Quote
In the second table, in the 2018 / 1001+ posts entry, you have the number 8.  What have these 8 members done?


As in the previous table, they have been active in 2018 and they have posted in the forum more than 1000 times.  i.e. they are our most prolific posters.

Your place in both tables is along the 2018 row.  In the first table, you are one of the 5 in the 31-360 column as you registered 257 days ago.  In the second table , your are one of the 21 members in the 11-100 column as you have posted 13 times.

Cheers

P.S.  The days count above are one out because I didn't notice it had turned midnight while I was composing. ;)
« Last Edit: April 13, 2018, 12:13:50 AM by Ozzyjack »
Regards, Jack

Les303

  • Guest
Re: Statistics about when Forum Members were last active
« Reply #7 on: April 13, 2018, 10:39:06 PM »
I know that I actually initiated the question but I did not really expect an answer from anybody other than Alan.

Alan ( the very wise man that he is ) has stated on several occasions that he generally ignores all of my posts except for the odd one that might be a genuine word suggestion, so Jack I was quite surprised to see your very detailed response.

I can only imagine that it must have been a wet weekend, all the golf was cancelled, too wet to walk the dogs & you were probably in the shit with the missuses for " something " so why not retire to the sanctuary of the computer room & come up with these tables of statistics which were quite frankly as clear as mud to me.

My understanding is that Alan developed the forum to primarily allow users to debate the classifaction / inclusion of words & all other matters linguistically related but he also provided a couple of other options where players could interact with each other on any subject of their choosing.
The original players jumped on it straight away & created their own threads such as " forumites changing light bulbs "

This allowed for some very funny & at times quite intense exchanges on a broad range of subjects.

I joined up to this site to play Chi because i love word games.

The last thing that i expected was, firstly all the suppport that i got when i first joined up & then to come to " know ' all these wonderful people, not only from Australia but from throughout the world.