Hi - very interesting analysis! Another form of contribution is via the mailing lists - it might be interesting to look at posting distribution there, too. Another point - I realize that Karoly wasn't trying deprecate the role of non-posters in the community, but it's probably worth emphasizing that the 'tail' of this distribution is an important part of this 'user-community', namely the users. Perhaps we should think about ways to encourage the silent majority to contribute useful input? I'm also thinking that we humans spend much of our lives 'consuming' before we start 'producing', and this is a typical behaviour when we are introduced to new contexts. Lurking before posting is generally recommended etiquette. So, it might be interesting to look at the distribution of 'lurking while waiting to post' times - the time between signing up and making the first posting. This might help us to get a sense for the future growth of the community. Nice work! Djun On 6 May 2005, at 3:57 AM, Karoly Negyesi wrote:
Hi!
Last night I asked Steven to send me data about how many users have 1 node, 2 nodes and so on.
Of the 22695 users, 18219 have zero nodes. This means that most of the users are just commenting or not contributing at all.
If we want to size the "hard core" of the community, there are 66 users who have written 25% of all nodes, they have at least 39 nodes and 78 nodes in average.
A bigger circle is the 302 user who have written 50% of the nodes. They have written at least 12 nodes, the average is 32 nodes. Given that the definition of "belongs to the community" is a very subjective one, I say we have a 300 user community which is real amazing. 22K, of course sounds better, but those are not active.
Regards
NK