The Forums. The Vocal Minority.

I was reading a post here when I decided to look at the forum statistics and make a few rough calculations.

As for me, I found myself at about page 7. That's about #200!

Wooot!



Mind you, there are 10,617 pages.... And at about 30 avatars per page... That's over 300,000 avatars...



That sounds GREAT, until you notice that only 615 pages of people have posted. At least once. Ever. That's about 18,000 people who have posted on the forums.



And only 160 pages of people have posted more than 10 times. That's about 5,000 people there.

And as to forum regulars. People who have posted more than 100 times?

42 pages. 1200 people.


When you cut down the number of people activly posting anymore. What do you think the number is?

500 perhaps?

Less?

I'm not saying that the forums are not a useful medium for discourse, just that we need to take ourselves with a grain of salt. We are NOT Second Life. We are the part of second life that uses forums.

Big differance.


And for the record. There are only about 7 pages that have over 1000 posts. Again, that's about 200 people.

I shall get to 10 bazillion posts yet and pwn t3h forums!

And yet, with an hour of overtime a week, you could afford a website and create your OWN forums and REALLY own it.

Hmnnnn?

Got my own website already, but it's not as much fun

In truth, the numbers of people who post on the forums is not what we should be looking at, if we wish to decide if the opinions expressed herein actaully are representative of the overall SL population in grid.

The numbers of people who post on the forum may seem small, but considering the size of grid as a whole, they are a rather good sized statistical sampling. Far greater percentage than are used for most polls and statistical studies.

The real question is whether or not those who post on the forums represent an accurate cross-section of the overall population on issues, concerns and opinions.

Suppose we had a more forum-like means of communicating within the SL client. Multiple-line text entry and persistent chat streams - so you join a group's chat session and see what people had said a while ago. Would people use such a thing?

Now THAT's a nice idea! Groups have thier own forums, inside of SL. The group officers are mods and control the forum, allowing long term discussion.

I kind of like that. It could even be used for community news and such. Has an interesting ring to it!

Indeed, this is a good, useful, positive idea.

What the hell is it doing in the forums?

I have it in the feature suggestions forum, where it is being met with less enthusiasm than it got here.

/13/59/120701/1.html

<Choke> <sputter>

YOU owe me a Dr. Pepper, Keyboard, and nasal cavity. Damn you!

(Ignore this, just a test)

Now calculate the S/N ratio

There are tons of useful, productive posts in the forums.



You just have to look in the right forums.

Lets see...including this post, I have 21 posts.
Not bad for only reading the forums for about a week.

About the same ammount that they use the forums.

You would really have to tighten control on the chat in group chat to make a history useful.

Hey, Sue! That's an interesting idea, and it's something I find myself pondering sometimes. What would be the point though? What's the advantage of an in-world forum window over a normal web browser window? It's still just another window, right?

I've stated in other posts that those of us here on the forums are not the major voice of SL. Not numerically, at any rate.

We are the ones who care enough to come here and read and post and dicuss and, yes, rant and rave.

Can't force people to become involved. Most know the forums are here. I'd say well over half don't care. More can't be bothred, and some don't have the time.

Only us loudmouthed ones who want to get carpal tunnel typing seem to be here *grins*

~Jessy

Lots of people use SL on computers that bog down a bit when switching from application to application, so including the forum-like system in the client addresses that problem.

Just having a forum-like system built into the program would likely greatly increase the use of the forum-like discussion system.

The text streams could be tied to inworld groups or to parcels or estates, unlike an totally external forum system like this.

Inventory items could be sent directly to people in the inworld forums. Just drag from inventory onto the posters name, or give out a freebie, just drop the item in a post.

Take a snapshot, drop in into the inworld forum-chat message to show everyone in the forum-chat session.

Arrive late for a scheduled group meeting, slide back to the part of the discussion that ocurred before your arrival.

Foolish,

Your breakdown of the numbers of forum posters is undoubtably correct, but when I was reading it, I was reminded of a bad old joke about asking the boss for a day off:

"So you want a day off. Let's take a look at what you are asking for:

There are 365 days per year available for work.

There are 52 weeks per year in which you already have 2 days off per week, leaving 261 days available for work.

Since you spend 16 hours each day away fron work, you have used up 170 days, leaving only 91 days available.

You spend 30 minutes each day on coffee break which counts for 23 days each year, leaving only 68 days available.

With a 1 hour lunch each day, you used up another 46 days, leaving only 22 days available for work.

You normally spend 2 days per year on sick leave. This leaves you only 20 days per year available for work.

We are off 5 holidays per year, so your available working time is down to 15 days.

We generously give 14 days vacation per year which leaves only 1 day available for work. I'll be damned if you are going to take that day off!"

At first, I thought you were retelling the joke and going to point out that the entire forum is actually just Torley.

...and actually display a 3D object in a post! Like a "small stellated dodecahedron"?

As for including a portal to the forums, well, as long as you include an effective mute thread feature.............. Really, it's hard to justify posting in threads that quickly become contest of intelligence or popularity. While few may actually post, I believe much simply browse and read, we don't need the drama.

Provide an interface that would let people host inworld forums tied to groups, parcels, and estates, displayable in the mozilla broswer.

Might be able to work it so that the inworld forums were available on the web.

These forums here are accessable to every SL member, The inworld forums could be access controllable to specific groups, parcels, and estates, with access incorporated in the new group tools and the parcel and estate controls.

I see this topic bantered about a lot in other forums. The problem is that the "forum minority" is a misnomre.

We aren't a community unto ourselves, completely separate and isolated from the rest of the users in SL. We ARE a valid cross-section of the Greater SL residents who just happen to be willing to use this venue to communicate. It doesn't mean that other people who do not choose to communicate here don't share our views. The fact is that many do. I know I bring up topics discussed here in our little community in SL all the time, with only 1 in 20 of the people in it even viewing the forums. For the most part, we are all on the same page about our thoughts and feelings on the various subjects of the game. I have people who have sought me out after reading my miniscule posts in the forums to comiserate, or to discuss the issues further.

Anyway, the upshot is this: Yes, only a small minority of the total accountbase (though I would argue that the ACTIVE playerbase isn't much more than 10-25 times the size of the active forum userbase) are active here in the forums. However, that does not make the voices here any less valuable for finding out what the Greater playerbase would say. We ARE a representative sample, and the sample size is more than sufficient for any statistical analysis.

Do you have any information concerning studies about forum users that points to this being scientifically verified? I am not disagreeing. I am seriously asking.

Its an important and useful point, especially to game developers in the industry that are often trying to determine if the reactions of forum users represent the reactions of the majority in the games.

There is no valid reason to assume this to be true (or untrue) without actual data. It is possible that those who use forums tend to be more "reactionary" as some have tried to say to dismiss the uproars that often occur among a forum userbase. It is also possible that a million other personality traits or habits that of forum users could potentially make them somehow different statisically from the whole in their opinions. Is forum use like other social habits that can affect studies? I am unsure as I am unaware of any such studies (though they may certainly exist).

As an example, setting up a study that uses Internet cafes as a sole source of participants in a study about religion may bias the study because it is unlikely you will find many internet cafes outside major metropolitain areas. Thus you miss the rural populations opinions on religion which can vary drastically from the urban opinions in many cases.

Is forum use in itself somehow a factor in biasing any attempt to use forums as a gauge of gridwide reactions? Its too hard to say without more information I think.