Well the straight dope (and other traditional message boards) was in decline before that. But yeah. I don’t expect to get many new posters until that gets fixed.
I agree with this.
I said what I meant. I think both the mode and the median are 1. (If zeroes are included, they are both zero). I could be wrong, but I think fewer than half of registrants make more than a single post. That’s certainly true if spammers are included.
This sort of exchange is exactly why I, and the teeming millions, love this place!
Okay, teeming thousands.
Teeming hundreds? Yes, hundreds.
Okay, fine. The teeming dozens it is! Sheesh.
I know! As I posted to someone the other day, we love nit-pickery here. 
I read the SD column years ago and always enjoyed its wit and accuracy. It made science fun, and snarky, too. The few topics that I happen to be an expert on myself were well-handled and treated fairly in the SD column.
As to SDMB, I like that it is moderated and the mods really pay attention. I don’t post much because it seemed hard to break in. However, some of the regular posters are really hilarious and seem like great people. At times, people have posted about their personal tragedies and have received genuine compassion. The arguments and debates have different perspectives, often with some eloquence.
I think you are mistaken. Discounting spammers, only a small minority of posters make exactly one post. Even if someone only posts in a single thread, they will usually make at least two or three posts before dropping out. Based on a brief survey, I’d say the mode is 3 posts. And that’s only a minority. The majority post in a handful of threads before dropping out, with about 10 to 100 total posts. (Not including zeroes)
Spot on.
Unfortunately.
I like to think of us as a Patton Tank in a world of Abrams and T-72s / T-80s: a little older, but a workhorse that still has lots of life left for the day-to-day job of layin’ fire onto boredom.
Tripler
Why, yes, I do read talk porn. Why do you ask?
So is talk porn the kind where people talk dirty to each other but never touch? Seems appropriate in the age of social distancing.
I was curious (and bored) enough to gather more extensive data, and at least a plurality (about 40%) of non-zero/non-spammer posters make just one post, not a “small minority.” Only around a third make more than 10 posts. The mode is pretty certainly 1, although I admit not the median, which is probably 2. I arbitrarily checked 100 registrants in sequence, and the results were:
0: 48
1: 14
2: 5
3: 1
4: 3
5: 1
11: 1
19: 1
26: 1
75: 1
167: 1
170: 1
252: 1
667: 1
2680: 1
Banned: 19
So that’s 14 single-post posters out of 33 with one or more posts, excluding zeroes and bannees.
I excluded Banned posters since they were almost all spammers. Most would have made a single post if any. Three or four were quickly-banned trolls with a small number of posts.
I’ve always been mystified why so many people register without ever posting.
The limited amount of social media I consume takes me to the point of interaction. I see the latest post, I enter at the latest post. Back in the day, jBBS and Mailing lists did the same thing, in a different way.
I’ve always thought that a BBS like the Straight Dope should do the same thing, but was blocked by technology and tribalism: Old BBS systems handled it by selective downloading, mailing list readers handled it by concealing early posts, newsreaders handled it by deleting early posts, Vbulletin handled it by deleting threads (moving them to the archive).
Unfortunately, the mailing lists and news lists were full of mailing list and news list assholes who attacked anyone who committed the unforgivable sin of ‘top posting’, indicating that they weren’t using the approved software that handled that automatically, and their rancour poisoned the world. Now, old time users of old time systems like the SDMB find it hard to imagine a world in which the latest post is displayed first, by default, with precedents following.
The consequence is that users, even experienced users, find themselves interacting with old posts first, which is the opposite of successful social media, even if they weren’t being criticised for doing so.
Also of course, my young relatives don’t read for pleasure. I saw a thread somewhere where someone was claiming that reading was never really popular, always a minority activity. Well actually, a 100 years ago… But more to the point, even 20 years ago… Now we have Netflix and online games in the home.
Registering makes it easy to keep track of what you read.
Well, yeah, there’s not much night life going on in Panama.
Which hundred did you pick?
I did a similar survey Collibri is user number 10115, so I started with #10116, and went forward from there. Ignoring zeroes, only counting those with 1 or more post, and going forward until I had over a hundred actual examples, which happened around #10275.
Results: spoilered for brevity
10116- 10125
1, 199, 23, 13, 16, 73, (4x0)
10125-10150
3, 1037, 7273, 6, 2, 9, 102, 1, 382, 5762, 3, 2, 1, 3, 188, 2284, 3, 12, 2, 99, (5x0)
10151-10175,
73, 4836, 1, 43, 1, 2847, 3, 34, 19, 72, 1, 2, (13x0)
10176-10200
3, 7, 1038, 13, 1, 1, 511, 4, 1, 106, 2, 633, 1, 506, 1, 1, 7, 5 (7x0)
10201-10225
2, 12, 7, 15, 1644, 7, 2, 1, 1, 1, 151, 918, 14, 102, (14x0)
10226-10250
121, 1, 3, 1, 2, 73, 417, 2, 4, 1, 33025, 38, 10, 16, (11x0)
10251-10275
398, 1, 75, 3, 694, 24, 7, 1, 64, 1, 1, 4444, 4, 50, 4, 1, 7, 2, 539, (6x0)
1x23
2x10
3x7
4x4
5x0
6x1
7x6
8x0
9x1
10x1
So, that’s about half the registered posters with no posts.
Out of those who posted at all, about 23% have 1 post, about the same number have 2-6 posts, the median is 7, about 25% have 10-100 posts, and another 25% have over a hundred posts. 10% became long term posters with over a thousand posts, and some of them are still around. I also noticed at least one person with only a small number of posts, but showing as online as I type.
What surprises me are those who register, make one post and never return to the board (based on the last activity timestamp). Aren’t they at least curious to hear what others think of their ideas?
Goddamned autocorrect. :smack:
Tripler
Because apparently, “tank porn” is not in common parlance on cellphones.
But aren’t the timeouts greatly related to the advertisements?
I have uBlockOrigin and other adblockers installed*, and I hardly ever notice timeouts at all. There was a 1-2 day period not so long ago where I did notice timeouts – I think I saw 3-4 of them – but that’s all I recall of timeouts.
I know that websites have to pull the content of advertisements from other locations on the internet, and that the sites have no control over what advertisements appear on their site. Couldn’t those extra access requests to get the advertisement content contribute to the timeout problems?
*A couple of years ago, I was in the hospital for a few days. After nearly dying of boredom, I discovered a lounge area containing a computer. I used that to access a few sites that I liked, including SDMB. I found them almost unusable, being so infected with ads, popups, etc. I couldn’t imagine how people could stand to use the Internet that way.
I have always been leery of using adblockers for ethical reasons. (I don’t want to be a free rider: same reason I don’t torrent music, movies, or TV shows.) But the difficulty in the user experience does test my patience for that ethos at times. Increasingly there are pop-ups that obscure the text I’m trying to read, autoplay videos that blare, and–maybe most annoying of all–ads that load at various rates all over the screen, moving the text around so that I have to keep adjusting it. God forbid I try to click anything, as it will probably be moved from resizing at the split instant before I try. :smack:
Well said!
Many important discoveries and contributions to society have been made by people with too much time on their hands. Well done! 