|
|
|
filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 12/28/2004 : 16:16:37 [Permalink]
|
Hi, dv82matt. Glad to see you getting your feet wet at last.
As Plyss has stated, don't worry about lame. We all do a lame one once in a while.
Looking forward to your input.
 |
"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
|
 |
|
|
dv82matt
SFN Regular
760 Posts |
Posted - 12/31/2004 : 10:12:59 [Permalink]
|
| Thanks for the warm welcome. |
|
|
|
thecor
New Member
Italy
27 Posts |
Posted - 01/01/2005 : 01:10:40 [Permalink]
|
| As an infrequent visitor who rarely posts anymore, I think I can address the why posed by Cuneiformist at the start of this thread: For me, the answer is Time. To become involved with debates on this site one has to be prepared to dedicate a great deal of time to substantiate any claims or concepts. I find it difficult to justify this expenditure as I still have to work for a living; am raising two teenage girls, as well wishing to read some 10,000 more books before I die. I beleive that there are some very intelligent and informed people on this site who contribute to my quest for knowledge, so I continue to "lurk" gleaning what I can. |
|
|
|
satans_mom
Skeptic Friend
USA
148 Posts |
Posted - 01/02/2005 : 23:17:04 [Permalink]
|
Hey, you know I just realized this..........
I am still here. Although, half-assedly active, I'm still here.
The numbers will grow in the years to come. |
Yo mama's so fat, she's on both sides of the family.
|
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 01/22/2005 : 00:23:18 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Originally posted by me
Would anyone like to do a "mark-recapture" study on the SFN membership, to see how many folks are really active?
Okay, so I finally got off my butt and did the first half of the necessary work for this. If someone can remind me to do the second half in two weeks or a month, it'd be much appreciated.
We can do two related mark-recapture studies here. One for how many people log on, whether they post or not, and the other for how many active posters we've got.
To appease your curiosity (since I know you so well), on just January 21st, 2005, we had 45 members log on, and 35 members post. If he's feeling froggy, @tomic may be able to tell us how many total visitors we had on the same date, and/or the number of Webpage loads. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 02/04/2005 : 23:35:12 [Permalink]
|
Okay, folks. After a two-week period and a "recapture," I ran the Petersen Method of estimating population sizes, and came up with the following results.
Visitors: A 'visitor' is defined as an SFN member who logged in on one of the two capture days (Jan 21 and Feb 4). Note well that I have no quick-and-easy way to track members who don't log in, nor can I track non-members who are just lurking. According to the data and my calculations, we have approximately 57 regular visitors, with a 95% confidence interval (CI) of 48 to 88 members.
Posters: A 'poster' is defined as an SFN member who made at least one post on one of the two capture days. According to the data and my calculations, we have approximately 48 active posters, with a 95% CI of 38 to 70.
Yes, there's a rather large uncertainty in both numbers, as (unfortunately) our sample sizes are small. And, strangely, there was a rather dramatic drop in visitors (29%) and posters (46%) between the Jan 21 and Feb 4 capture dates. Perhaps many of our regulars are wallowing in depression following the State of the Union.
No matter what, our recapture rates for both measures were very high. For example, of the 19 people who posted on Feb 4, 14 of them also posted on Jan 21, for a rate of nearly 74%. Most of the examples I've seen for estimating population sizes work with a rate of about 10%, so the method being used may be completely inappropriate.
I'm not sure, I'm just playing with numbers, here. Perhaps I should do this again in a few months, or better yet in the summertime. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
|
|
|
H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2005 : 04:04:20 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
Visitors: A 'visitor' is defined as an SFN member who logged in on one of the two capture days (Jan 21 and Feb 4). Note well that I have no quick-and-easy way to track members who don't log in, nor can I track non-members who are just lurking.
What about people who are already logged in? I don't normally log out when I leave; I just rely on the cookies to remember who I am the next day. Would that still count? |
"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 02/05/2005 04:04:57 |
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2005 : 09:56:45 [Permalink]
|
| You're counted, H, in all four sets of data. I can't, however, claim knowledge of whether a person who stayed logged in but did not post would count as a visitor. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
|
|
|
beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2005 : 12:57:52 [Permalink]
|
| Interesting work, Dave. It might be worthwhile to look at a small random sample of regular posters and see if they average daily, every 2 days...etc posts. That might give some insight if two capture days were enough. |
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2005 : 14:17:07 [Permalink]
|
One of the assumptions of the Petersen method is that every animal has an equal chance of being caught. Obviously, this won't be the case when some people post numerous times every day, while others post only once a week. But I figure that by not capturing on a big holiday, the odds that any particular person would visit and/or post would be about the same as always, and I didn't have much of a choice in terms of the day-of-week ('cause I had to stay up until nearly two AM - and I cheated a bit on the recapture, but lucked out in that nobody else showed up before server midnight).
By the way, all the data I used I got from the member list, so if anyone else would like to track different data, be my guest. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Topic Locked
