What makes someone a good forum member?
I would like to expose some numbers and share my thoughts with you guys regarding the participation in this forum.
Often, when I read very interesting threads or posts made by many of you I feel like I am not a good member here, since I really don't add information to this board but must of the time subtract it. Further more, I mainly participate on off-topic discutions.
Many excuses I could use in order to justify it, but I'll simply skip this part and go on.
Last weekend I was telling my girlfriend about this issue and after some minutes she asked me what would made someone a good member. At first it was a tricky question to know the answer by heart but after a while we agreed on the following:
I)Being polite and patient with other members;
II)Avoiding deviation from original thread subject;
III)Being a frequent visitor;
IV)Quality before quantity;
What do you think about it? What should be added to the list?
Something that was brought into discussion was the ratio of posts by threads started. Is it more valuable to ask intelligent questions or answering them?
I do not want to take this personally on anyone so that today I gathered some data (probably useless) about some forum members that everybody is used to read from. Hope you enjoy it. Here goes the table:
Is there a possible reflexion about these numbers? We can clearly see some patterns of behavior in this table, specially if we look to the extreme values.
I apologize in advance if someone is upset for being mentioned or left out of the board. Perhaps this thread can help us improving our envoirnment here. Again, I am not judging anyone.
yet 6/5 tables have lots of players.
Perhaps I can say it a better way. Jump right in , boys and girls. All polite replies welcome.
There are 270 such threads (and posts), therefore my actual numbers are: 448 posts, 31 threads, and 6.92% (threads/posts)
not just measured by quantity but quality.
I don't like when someone shows up to ask one question and then never appears again.
However, starting threads should be a good thing. A good thread starter follows what happens, moderates the discussion, and keeps it on track. For example, I think HB has done a good job hosting the "weight loss challenge" thread.
other a little trade opinions and comments. There
are always people who contribute more, just like in
real life. It doesn't mean anything. Whats been
fascinating to me in the last 20 years is, you need
at least 2000 members to keep the conversation
going because only about 5% contribute. This forum
has on average about 200 visits by members a day,
but just a few of those 200 post anything. Its that
way on most forums.
Quote: zippyboyMy number is wrong. I have never started a thread here on WoV. Don't know why it says that.
On May 26 of last year you started a thread titled "Mistakes" with a starting post of "edited. deleted." Even though the thread is deleted, it still counts in your stats as a thread you started.
I thank all who post!!!
Quote: WizardI also think my statistic is out of whack, because I split a lot of threads, and I think I'm getting credited as having started the new one.
When a thread gets split, the author of the first post in the offshoot thread is the one that gets credit for it.
Edit: wow that was good timing, it actually was post #100!
Quote: WongBoi think paco is the forum's MVP (most valuable poster). not just measured by quantity but quality.
Thank you for the compliment. I do try to find some kind of fact, or analysis to back up a point I make.
I am not sure that it is a valuable quality to have in life. I once evaluated a weapon for the Navy and I got 3 and only 3 failures in a row out of 30. Knowing that was very unlikely I developed an analysis based on frequency images based specular reflection to convince myself and other people that it wasn't a test equipment failure.
A Captain started screaming at me that I was an idiot, and it was "statistically impossible" (his words) to have 3 failures in a row out of 30 tests. He wouldn't consider the analysis at all because "I was trying to find problems". It was written off to failure of the evaluation equipment. Naturally, I was shut down, and naturally the units failed operational testing at the cost of several hundred million dollars. Just as naturally, no one ever noticed my analysis. I always figured that the test units were not actually in random order. The failure probably had to do with a sloppy assembly person, or a marginal design.
Isn't it encouraging to know that the casual statistics that you talk about in gambling are the same ones being used to make multi billion dollar decisions by the government? Mike worked for the federal government for years. Ask him.
Sherri Shepherd was once asked on public TV "Is the world flat?" She first responded, "I don't know", and expanded that she "never thought about it." Shepherd continued that it was more important to her that she thought about how she was "going to feed her child."
These are the people that seem to be the most successful.
Quote: JBWhen a thread gets split, the author of the first post in the offshoot thread is the one that gets credit for it.
I am sorry for the distortion created by the table. At least we are learning about the mechanism of the forum. Thanks JB!
Unfortunately, we also have a few members that are not and they bring down the whole. I will never understand why the same people repeatedly, on different topics, resort to sarcasm, ridicule, and name calling when they cannot defend their positions with logic and facts.
I admit that I resorted to some of these tactics when I first started participating, because I felt the need to respond in kind. I quickly realized what a fool I sounded like. All it did was weaken my position. I would like to participate more, but I have chosen not to waste my time when I know that a serious discussion on the merits of a topic will subject me to these people.
We have a wide spectrum of life experiences here which we can all learn from with a common interest in gambling. Lets all treat each other better.
Quote: EvenBobWhats been
fascinating to me in the last 20 years is, you need
at least 2000 members to keep the conversation
going because only about 5% contribute.
I concur on this and it always amazed me. It is though some people are super-shy and just want to listen. Back in college I was in the VAX-room where we logged on and I am checking the local usenet-BBS, minding my own business. Dude next to me looks at me, then at his screen that shows who is logged on, then back at me. Just as I get the feeling I am being watched he asks, "hey, are you *username*?" I reply that I am and he says, "hey man, you write good stuiff, I enjoy it!"
Now, I had little idea anyoe read much without posting. Even then we had the same 8-10 people posting 90% of the time.
Although social sciences are soft sciences, that is not the same as saying that they are useless. Any time you can get repeatable data, you have the basis for knowledge and understanding. I implore anyone who is remotely interested in understanding exactly what happens in forums, and how behavior can be understood (and actually engineered for), to read Clay Shirky's essay, A Group is Its Own Worst Enemy. It is very long, and very worthwhile. Here is an excerpt from part one:
Quote:Part One: How is a group its own worst enemy?
So, Part One. The best explanation I have found for the ways in which this pattern establishes itself, the group is its own worst enemy, comes from a book by W.R. Bion called "Experiences in Groups," written in the middle of the last century.
Bion was a psychologist who was doing group therapy with groups of neurotics. (Drawing parallels between that and the Internet is left as an exercise for the reader.) The thing that Bion discovered was that the neurotics in his care were, as a group, conspiring to defeat therapy.
There was no overt communication or coordination. But he could see that whenever he would try to do anything that was meant to have an effect, the group would somehow quash it. And he was driving himself crazy, in the colloquial sense of the term, trying to figure out whether or not he should be looking at the situation as: Are these individuals taking action on their own? Or is this a coordinated group?
He could never resolve the question, and so he decided that the unresolvability of the question was the answer. To the question: Do you view groups of people as aggregations of individuals or as a cohesive group, his answer was: "Hopelessly committed to both."
He said that humans are fundamentally individual, and also fundamentally social. Every one of us has a kind of rational decision-making mind where we can assess what's going on and make decisions and act on them. And we are all also able to enter viscerally into emotional bonds with other groups of people that transcend the intellectual aspects of the individual.
In fact, Bion was so convinced that this was the right answer that the image he put on the front cover of his book was a Necker cube, one of those cubes that you can look at and make resolve in one of two ways, but you can never see both views of the cube at the same time. So groups can be analyzed both as collections of individuals and having this kind of emotive group experience.
Now, it's pretty easy to see how groups of people who have formal memberships, groups that have been labeled and named like "I am a member of such-and-such a guild in a massively multi-player online role-playing game," it's easy to see how you would have some kind of group cohesion there. But Bion's thesis is that this effect is much, much deeper, and kicks in much, much sooner than many of us expect. So I want to illustrate this with a story, and to illustrate the illustration, I'll use a story from your life. Because even if I don't know you, I know what I'm about to describe has happened to you.
You are at a party, and you get bored. You say "This isn't doing it for me anymore. I'd rather be someplace else. I'd rather be home asleep. The people I wanted to talk to aren't here." Whatever. The party fails to meet some threshold of interest. And then a really remarkable thing happens: You don't leave. You make a decision "I don't like this." If you were in a bookstore and you said "I'm done," you'd walk out. If you were in a coffee shop and said "This is boring," you'd walk out.
You're sitting at a party, you decide "I don't like this; I don't want to be here." And then you don't leave. That kind of social stickiness is what Bion is talking about.
And then, another really remarkable thing happens. Twenty minutes later, one person stands up and gets their coat, and what happens? Suddenly everyone is getting their coats on, all at the same time. Which means that everyone had decided that the party was not for them, and no one had done anything about it, until finally this triggering event let the air out of the group, and everyone kind of felt okay about leaving.
This effect is so steady it's sometimes called the paradox of groups. It's obvious that there are no groups without members. But what's less obvious is that there are no members without a group. Because what would you be a member of?
So there's this very complicated moment of a group coming together, where enough individuals, for whatever reason, sort of agree that something worthwhile is happening, and the decision they make at that moment is: This is good and must be protected. And at that moment, even if it's subconscious, you start getting group effects. And the effects that we've seen come up over and over and over again in online communities.
Now, Bion decided that what he was watching with the neurotics was the group defending itself against his attempts to make the group do what they said they were supposed to do. The group was convened to get better, this group of people was in therapy to get better. But they were defeating that. And he said, there are some very specific patterns that they're entering into to defeat the ostensible purpose of the group meeting together. And he detailed three patterns.
The first is sex talk, what he called, in his mid-century prose, "A group met for pairing off." And what that means is, the group conceives of its purpose as the hosting of flirtatious or salacious talk or emotions passing between pairs of members.
You go on IRC and you scan the channel list, and you say "Oh, I know what that group is about, because I see the channel label." And you go into the group, you will also almost invariably find that it's about sex talk as well. Not necessarily overt. But that is always in scope in human conversations, according to Bion. That is one basic pattern that groups can always devolve into, away from the sophisticated purpose and towards one of these basic purposes.
The second basic pattern that Bion detailed: The identification and vilification of external enemies. This is a very common pattern. Anyone who was around the Open Source movement in the mid-Nineties could see this all the time. If you cared about Linux on the desktop, there was a big list of jobs to do. But you could always instead get a conversation going about Microsoft and Bill Gates. And people would start bleeding from their ears, they would get so mad.
If you want to make it better, there's a list of things to do. It's Open Source, right? Just fix it. "No, no, Microsoft and Bill Gates grrrrr ...", the froth would start coming out. The external enemy -- nothing causes a group to galvanize like an external enemy.
So even if someone isn't really your enemy, identifying them as an enemy can cause a pleasant sense of group cohesion. And groups often gravitate towards members who are the most paranoid and make them leaders, because those are the people who are best at identifying external enemies.
The third pattern Bion identified: Religious veneration. The nomination and worship of a religious icon or a set of religious tenets. The religious pattern is, essentially, we have nominated something that's beyond critique. You can see this pattern on the Internet any day you like. Go onto a Tolkein newsgroup or discussion forum, and try saying "You know, The Two Towers is a little dull. I mean loooong. We didn't need that much description about the forest, because it's pretty much the same forest all the way."
Try having that discussion. On the door of the group it will say: "This is for discussing the works of Tolkein." Go in and try and have that discussion.
Now, in some places people say "Yes, but it needed to, because it had to convey the sense of lassitude," or whatever. But in most places you'll simply be flamed to high heaven, because you're interfering with the religious text.
So these are human patterns that have shown up on the Internet, not because of the software, but because it's being used by humans. Bion has identified this possibility of groups sandbagging their sophisticated goals with these basic urges. And what he finally came to, in analyzing this tension, is that group structure is necessary. Robert's Rules of Order are necessary. Constitutions are necessary. Norms, rituals, laws, the whole list of ways that we say, out of the universe of possible behaviors, we're going to draw a relatively small circle around the acceptable ones....
Are there some exceptions, in this group? Maybe a few. The sex talk is muted. But the common enemy? Caesar's, Wynn, Atlantic City, systems, religion, atheism. Religious veneration? The odds, advantage play, atheism, religion. It's all there. And it's not there because we chose it; we didn't get to choose. It's there because it is a repeatable pattern of human behavior, it's part of the way we're hard wired. And you have to know it if you want to understand how people function in small social groups. Otherwise, you're just guessing.
I would also like to put in a word for the top five posters. I enjoy Paco's informative posts especially; Nareed can write better than 99% of native English speakers; I enjoy EvenBob's anecdotes; FleaStiff can often be hilarious; and DJTeddyBear is a very thorough and thoughtful contributor.
Of course the Wizard and JB do an excellent job of pulling everything together and keeping it on track. Thank you.
Quote: DocI haven't even figured out whether the table in the original post is supposed to suggest that a high ratio is a good thing or a bad thing. Nareed is right in the middle, and pacomartin and EvenBob are well onto the same side of center. It boggles my mind to think about what that implies.
The same happens to me, Doc. I could not make any asumptions based on the data I gathered. The Wizard clearly said that he considers positive the creation of new threads, but I had the impression that starting too many threads could be considered as 'expecting more answers' then being able to contribute in fact.
I don't start threads as I don't really have new ideas. I don't think that's a bad thing.
Paco's stuff is informative. I don't always agree with his analysis. EvenBob is crumondgeony, but I generally like him, nonetheless. DJ is extremely thoughtful and stays out of the crap, for the most part, which I should do more often. Nareed loves to argue, which bothers me sometimes. And FleaStiff posts are unpredictable, which gives me a kick.
What I hate the most about people in general and about this forum is the inability to sway. People are dug in in their positions and will not change, I think, for the sake of not changing. I've been swayed on many issues that have been talked about in this forum, both gambling related and unrelated, and I think it's for my betterment. Others are so dug into their views, whether it be that a gambling method can buck the house edge, what constitutes a cheat, or a political view that they will never change, even though their reasoning can be found as faulty (and no, AZ, I'm not talking about you).
But extremists are a part of life and a vibrant part of this forum.
'YOU NEVER LEARN ANYTHING WHILE YOU'RE TALKING!'
(I didn't learn anything posting this.)
Quote: teddysNareed can write better than 99% of native English speakers;
Thank you. That has to be the best complient I've ever received about my writing.
So that being said can I make an appeal to some of you to stop with the mean, outrageous, and unhelpful statements about the priesthood, faith, religion, or God in general. I realize that there are some here who for a multiude of reasons (some legitimate) have strong and bitter feelings about God and/or religion. No amount of discussion will seem to even cause the slightest sway in their position; maybe the religion threads are not for you? I am all for spirited discussion, factual statements, informed opinion and even witty, sometimes sacrastic, and powerful put downs. However, awful angry comments and insults are non-productive and seem to throw a wet blanket over good discussion.
Thank you all again for welcoming a priest into your midst. I very seriously try to not focus on faith exclusively and participate in many other types of threads, but you all know so much more about gambling that I often better enjoy just reading and enjoying. God Bless the WoV forum!
- Not criticizing others spelling / punctuation
- Not saying things like "But what does this have to do with Vegas / Gambling"
Quote: FrGambleSo that being said can I make an appeal to some of you to stop with the mean, outrageous, and unhelpful statements about the priesthood, faith, religion, or God in general.
Sure, just as soon as you stop preaching and trying
to convert everybody in sight to your way of thinking.
You do it without even realizing you're doing it, I
think. A live and let live guy you're not. You're a 'my
way or the highway' type. You think you've found
'the way' and anybody who doesn't line up behind
you is a dolt.
You know its true...
Quote: AZDuffmanIt is though some people are super-shy and just want to listen.
This is the internet, you can say anything
you want to somebody and they really
can't know who you are. This frightens
the vast majority of people from saying
very much. You have to have a tough
hide to suffer the slings and arrows that
will be flung at you. A strong sense of who
you are is needed or you'll take offense at
everything said to you and you won't last
long. People are also terrified they'll look
like idiots if they post very much, so they
keep quiet. The rest of us already know we're
idiots, we might as well confirm it every day.
Quote: FinsRuleMy additional critieria to being a good forum member:
- Not criticizing others spelling / punctuation
Not with you on this one. If someone is not a native English speaker then more leeway should be given, but when people are constantly misspelling words it makes us all look bad. Plus, I think we all formulate an image of other members of the board based on their posts, and if you have poor spelling/grammar/punctution it makes me think you are an idiot. That said, there is always a polite and rude way to say something...
Quote: bigfoot66If someone is not a native English speaker then more leeway should be given, but when people are constantly misspelling words it makes us all look bad..
How long does it take to learn that 'lose'
isn't spelled 'loose'. Yet some people never
spell it correctly, even after they've been
shown the difference.
Quote: bigfoot66Not with you on this one. If someone is not a native English speaker then more leeway should be given, but when people are constantly misspelling words it makes us all look bad. Plus, I think we all formulate an image of other members of the board based on their posts, and if you have poor spelling/grammar/punctution it makes me think you are an idiot. That said, there is always a polite and rude way to say something...
I agree. One of the other internet communities I participate in is a blog for a specific sports team with a very active comments section (it's not technically a "forum" but it is still a collection of people with similar interests). On this blog they have a rather strict spelling/punctuation policy to encourage a higher level of intelligence than the average internet forum. Over time it's been a great boon to the site in terms of the people who show up and stick around.
It's a fine line to be walked. You don't want to jump all over someone for one mistake in a post, but in my opinion, someone who puts no effort into a post in the form of no capitalization, bad spelling, and bad punctuation is not deserving of well-thought out responses. Put some time and effort into your posts and you'll get better responses.
And I would like to say I pride myself on using proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation. So if you ever see a mistake in one of my posts, feel free to correct me.
Quote: AcesAndEights...someone who puts no effort into a post in the form of no capitalization, bad spelling, and bad punctuation is not deserving of well-thought out responses... ...So if you ever see a mistake in one of my posts, feel free to correct me.
My answer is then to not respond to someone who you don't think is worthy of a response. Berating them for their spelling won't make them a better speller. I just feel like it is talking down to them, which is unnecessary.
As for the compliments to Nareed. She makes a mistake in pretty much every post. Which is completely fine. But she is given a pass because she is not a native speaker. Well, I think people who were not given a good education with good teachers should be given a pass. And how do we know who is a native speaker and who is not? Just my two cents...
And finally, I think my spelling, grammar and punctuation is pretty good as well. So if you ever see a mistake, don't worry about it, it's just a mistake and I'm not perfect.
Quote: hook3670gotten used to leaning on spell check to correct my mistakes(not saying that is a good thing).
Why isn't that a good thing? I'm a good speller and I
constantly make mistakes that spell check catches.
I also spell words wrong when I know how to spell them
correctly. Anything that helps you communicate better
is a good thing. None of us are born knowing how to
spell, every word has to be learned somewhere.
Quote: hook3670This may be a far fetched idea and completely impossible to implement, but is there a way to have a spell check for these posts? Either as they are being typed or just at the end with the click of a button?
Most modern browsers come with a spell checker.
I misspell anyplace I write it, even here.
Quote: EvenBobI use Firefox and it underlines in red any word
I misspell anyplace I write it, even here.
Yet it doesn't tell you that you can use the whole width of the screen when you post. Just teasing... sort of...
Quote: aluisioI agree, buzzpaff. It's very common for me to feel like I have little to add in value. I will try harder from now on!
I fear that "trying harder" may produce undesired results. Note that I do not mean you specifically, but it might be a good thing that there are people that read without contributing much. After all, if this forum gets too bogged down with "contributions," it may become something that loses it's value.
Or as Yogi might say: "Nobody contributes there anymore, there's too much to read..."
Thanks.Quote: teddys...and DJTeddyBear is a very thorough and thoughtful contributor.
Thanks.Quote: boymimboDJ is extremely thoughtful and stays out of the crap, for the most part, which I should do more often.
I hope the fact that I haven't posted on this topic yet is not perceived as my thinking that this topic is "crap." The truth is, I've been in a no-WiFi zone for the last couple days. I was in Atlantic City. Expect a full trip report in a couple days.
And that I stay out of some threads is not to be perceived of am me thinking it's crap, so much as my having little interest in the original topic, or lost interest in the direction the thread has gone.
'"How long have you known me, Jack? And you still don't know how to spell my name." -- Upon receiving a check from Jack Buck made out to "bearer.""
As far as having too much input, I don't think that will ever be a problem here. I am just amazed at the fact that sometimes people have valuable information to share, but are ignorant of it.
Many years I was at the racetrack and ran into this voluptuous barmaid. She worked at the Brig bar, literally in the basement of a guy named Irv. He was the biggest bookie on the east coast at the time. His last named ended in " ski" and that is all I remember about him. His silent partner was Blaze Starr's husband. Anyway i have given her and the other ladies in the bar bottles of expensive perfume.
They had cost me nothing as my brother-in-law gave me half a dozed or so. He said they fell off the back of a truck. LOL
Anyway, the first race was won by a longshot that paid over $60. She showed me $200 of tickets on the winner she had bet for Irv. When i asked why she didn't tell me that, she said " Why would you want to know that ?? Yes, she was a blonde !
Quote: rainmanA word from the bad grammer guy. spelling and all that goes with it including typing skills are learned. I chose pathes in my life where these skills were not so important. I also have a lack of basic education due to being a heavy partier in my youth. However i can build a house from start to finish, rebuild any subaru engine. My point is this dont get too excited over your good or my bad grammer.Its kind of not so important compared to content. This forum is a foreign world to me. Im definitely out of my league here. but i imagine most of you would be too if we were in my shop rebuilding the engine in your car. I have a interest in gaming. I look forward to every chance i get to read the posts in here so that i may learn from all of you. so please dont refuse to answere my questions beacause of spelling skills etc. They are important to me. where else am i going to find a bunch of people with big fat IQ"S t talking about a subject i love and have a opportunity to ask them questions. its highly valuble too me. condensed version of the above [Help me get smarter dont kick me in the head and make me dumber]
Hmmm, I feel like I didn't really accurately represent my point in my original post about spelling and grammar. I did not mean to come off so uppity, which on re-reading it myself, I do.
Rainman, you are entirely correct that I would have no idea what to do with an engine or how to build a house. I'm not good with my hands or with tools at all. Also I would say that since you got here a few days ago, your spelling and grammar have improved marginally, so it's obvious you're making an effort. Keep it up, it makes your posts easier to read! That's really the main thing to me...put in some amount of effort, and you'll make better posts and get better responses.
Honestly I read almost every post on this forum anyway, regardless of spelling/grammar/etc. mistakes. Unless the original topic doesn't interest me at all (like the hockey thread) or I'm not interested in putting in the time and effort to keep up with discussion (health care thread), I'll usually read everything. Even on those threads, I'll click through and skim every now and then just to see if the topic has drifted.
Quote: FinsRuleMy additional critieria to being a good forum member:
- Not criticizing others spelling / punctuation
- Not saying things like "But what does this have to do with Vegas / Gambling"
When you finish points, put periods at the end of your sentence. What does this have to do with gambling?
;)
Nothing, per se, but everything to do with getting a point across. And that, in turn, can kill an otherwise great conversation.Quote: boymimboWhen you finish points, put periods at the end of your sentence. What does this have to do with gambling?
I, too, get irritated by spelling and grammar errors and typos, but I tend to ignore them since it had taken me a long time to get as proficient as I have become.
however the punctuation thing is an entirely different matter because if youre busy reading a run on sentence that doesnt include periods or commas or anything it becomes a chore simply to read and understand the point being made I mean if you read something and you then say to your self what was that how does that help the conversation another thing that irritates me are people who do not double space between paragraphs i mean are you paying attention at all do you not see other members keeping their paragraphs down to just a couple sentences and then leave a blank line between it why do you think they do that i mean get a clue buy a vowel figure it out we do it just to make it easier to read combine that with speeling errrors or tpyos and your gonna have a reel prolbem getting peeple to understand it
Have I made my point yet?
