Standard curve of views/replies for SDMB threads?

This is borderline ATMB, but since I am not expecting an official answer, I figured this is the place for it.

Has anyone bothered to estimate a standard curve of views/replies on the threads here? Would it vary by forum? What would you make of threads significantly over or below the curve?

Is this of any interest?

Threads significantly below the curve are generally the ones started by me.

Guess you’ll find out based on the views/replies to this thread. :stuck_out_tongue:

Totally. I could imagine a dozen different interesting angles you could analyze if given access to do the right SQL queries against the database. Slice it by forum, by ratio of views to replies, by reply/view rate decrease rate, by OP post count, by average thread length for other threads started by OP, by average post length, by length of time between OP and followups, etc, etc. Is there a correlation between a thread’s activity level (measured various ways) and the level of participation of its contributors (is it good for a few people to have a high percentage of the posts in the thread or for more people to contribute)?

I dig poring through piles of numbers that are connected to real things to see interesting patterns.

Of course, there is pretty much zero chance of getting direct access to the db, so forget that. :slight_smile:

I don’t think it matters whether or not an “official” reply is expected. Since this is basically about this board, it’s better placed in ATMB than GQ.

Regarding the OP, many years ago I recall someone did an analysis, and the views/replies did differ substantially by forum. IIRC the Pit had one of the highest ratios.

If someone wanted to make the effort, a few pages of threads from each forum would probably provide enough data to calculate the basic ratios for different forums.

Moving to ATMB.

Behold Useless SDMB Statistics (June 2004) post #8 courtesy of Earthling:

The OP, one of several statistical magna opera from the Earthling canon, gives the context for the above post.

Scary and fascinating effort from Earthling. Thanks to him for that thread, and thanks to you for the link.

Yeah, the guy has a prodigous talent for the arcane discipline of SDMB Usage Analysis.

For those who haven’t read the link, in post #17 Earthling goes on to discuss the noble art of threadkilling. Not content with giving weighted results (he excludes moderators because they are threadlockers) he gives statistics on threadkilling efficiency.

There follows a table of the most successful threadkillers (May 2003 - May 2004).

In post #21 he refers to a study on membership statistics he plans to publish shortly. Whether he did, this I don’t know.

Ok. After studying that thread, my question is, Is views per reply a linear thing? I would expect longer threads to have more views per reply, as everybody who has posted to it keeps peeking in to see what is going on.

And 4% of GQ threads go unanswered?! That’s way too much. Not even a silly joke or a bump or anything. It has happened to me, btw.

Sapo, this might help you: http://boardreader.com/sp/Straight_Dope_Message_Board_11709.html
Go to forum and click on their Forum profile and you get the following:
Site: Straight Dope Message Board
(site profile, domain info straightdope.com)
Title: General Questions
Url: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/forumdispla
Users activity: 66 posts per thread
Forum activity: 554 active threads during last week

Posting activity on General Questions:
Week Month 3 Months
Threads: 554 2,388 6,703
Post: 3,976 15,882 44,176

Top authors during last week:
Name Posts
Really Not All That Bright 59
Sapo 43
KneadToKnow 36
beowulff 31
Markxxx 30
Chronos 30
sailor 28
Giles 28
Santo Rugger 27
Gfactor 26

It varies with subject matter. Sex-related threads, for example, tend to have a lot of people who read them but don’t want to post anything in them. GD threads that are interesting questions with definite answers may get a lot of views (people who want to know the answer) but not many responses (because there’s nothing more to say).

Yeah, I have an unanswered one there now.

Second most prolific poster in GQ? Time to shut up a little, I guess. I don’t remember actually answering any questions.

I guess there are lots of different factors that affect view/replies, as InvisibleWombat says. I am sure they all start with a surge of view but no replies, then replies climb and then there is the A-B conversation finale that creates even more replies with minimum views.

Would it be possible to harvest info on the climb of views on a thread when it is locked? I confess I cannot see a locked thread and not want to peek in to see why it was closed.

That did seem a fraction high, so I had a look.

During the past month there have been 1,153 threads started in GQ. This number excludes those that were moved out. It also ignores the first two pages. 33 threads attracted zero replies. The percentage is 2.86.

For what it is worth.