# Post count stats

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-count-stats/20097>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [May 21, 2000, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-count-stats/20097 "2000-05-21T06:08:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Danielinthewolvesden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Danielinthewolvesden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danielinthewolvesden)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2000, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-count-stats/20097/1 "2000-05-21T06:08:15Z")

</div>

How many members do we have? How many are 'active"? Of those, what is the most # of posts? The average? the mean?  
Anyone feel like mining these out for me? Or does one of the Staff have this info on hand? Please? 😃

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2000, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-count-stats/20097/2 "2000-05-21T12:42:32Z")

</div>

Oh, no, **Daniel~,** you’re not going to trick the SDMB into giving up any personal information on the Internet! Why, just yesterday they were reading the latest issue of _PC_ magazine, and it said never never never tell anybody anything on the Internet.

What, are you moonlighting for ThermoPane Windows or something?

😃

P.S. You might offer to give the SDMB a little gift in exchange for their mom’s credit card numbers–I hear that works well.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [May 22, 2000, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-count-stats/20097/3 "2000-05-22T06:13:38Z")

</div>

Well, according to the [main forum page](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/), there’s currently 471,454 posts, and 6564 registered users, which would be an average of 71.8 ppu.  
Average and mean mean the same thing-- Perhaps you meant median?  
As to “active” users, I’m not sure how you’d define that… Posted within the past month, perhaps? In any event, you could probably mine that data from the database, but I’m too lazy to go to that much trouble right now 🙂

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Danielinthewolvesden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Danielinthewolvesden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danielinthewolvesden)\
**Post date:** [May 22, 2000, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-count-stats/20097/4 "2000-05-22T06:56:01Z")

</div>

Chronos: thanks for the #s, even if they were not everything I wanted. And “average” and “mean” do not always have the same meaning.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [May 23, 2000, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-count-stats/20097/5 "2000-05-23T04:59:55Z")

</div>

Hmm, I’m thinking of sum of all data points divided by number of data points… What other definition did you have in mind?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![zut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zut/32/2875_2.png) [@zut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zut)\
**Post date:** [May 23, 2000, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-count-stats/20097/6 "2000-05-23T12:42:01Z")

</div>

Well, my dictionary gives, as the definition of mean, “3. Math. a. A number that represents a set of numbers in any of several different ways determined by a rule involving all members of the set; average. b. The arithmetic mean.” The dfinition of average is, "1. Math. a. A number that typifies a set of numbers of which it is a function. b. The arithmetic mean.

Huh. I learned something.

My interpretation of these definitions is that “average” is a loose term that **could** refer to the arithmetic mean, the median, the mode, or some other “typical” number, while the “mean” could be the arithmetic mean, or perhaps the root-mean-square, or some other function.

However, I’d assume that, in the absence of additional description, both “average” and “mean” imply “arithmetic mean,” i.e., as **Chronos** said, the sum of all data points divided by number of data points. Seems to me, **Daniel** , that, if you really intended “mean” and “average” to imply different terms, you’ve gotta specify.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\
**Post date:** [May 23, 2000, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-count-stats/20097/7 "2000-05-23T13:01:23Z")

</div>

> [@](#):
>
> Zut  
> A number that typifies a set of numbers of which it is a function.

The arithmetic mean is one of a number of measures which may serve as a summary statistic meaning “typical value” or measurement of central tendancy.

The median or the mode of a distribution _may_ give a better idea of the typical value. Take “average earnings”: since the distribution of earnings is highly skewed, the arithmetic mean gives a less satisfactory picture of typical earnings than does the median.

Here, it would be nice to know a whole host of statistics. I would like to know mean and median posts of all those who have posted over the last month (to exclude the downward bias of those who register but never/ no longer post). This would give a fair idea of what active posters do. Just sticking to the mean would over-represent those who post a great deal.

picmr

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![zut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zut/32/2875_2.png) [@zut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zut)\
**Post date:** [May 23, 2000, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-count-stats/20097/8 "2000-05-23T13:51:59Z")

</div>

**picmr**

> [@](#):
>
> The median or the mode of a distribution _may_ give a better idea of the typical value… Here, it would be nice to know a whole host of statistics. I would like to know mean and median posts of all those who have posted over the last month (to exclude the downward bias of those who register but never/ no longer post). This would give a fair idea of what active posters do. Just sticking to the mean would over-represent those who post a great deal.

Oh, you’re not going to get any argument from me. Previously, I was commenting on the definitions of “mean” and “average,” rather than the appropriateness of using the arithetic mean as a representation of typical activity. Seems to me that the median figure you propose above is about the best single-figure statistic I could come up with. The nice thing about the mean calculated by **Chronos** is that it’s easy to determine and most people understand what it means. I suppose, if I had my druthers, a histogram of average (in the “arithmetic mean” sense) posts per day would be preferable, but I’m only mentioning this to pad out the length of this post so I’m not quoting more material than I’m writing.