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There. That's a good thread title 
and I'll explain what it's referring to in a minute. What I just did was, for several categories, sum up the total number of posts and total number of threads, and took the average posts/thread. I think this has a lot of significance regarding the character of a forum. First, here are my results:
Total threads: 87433
Total posts: 2090820
Total average: 23.91
OT threads: 18736
OT posts: 779997
OT average: 41.63
Civ3 threads: 27456
Civ3 posts: 509203
Civ3 average: 18.55
Demogame threads*: 9082
Demogame posts*: 215883
Demogame average: 23.77
Apolyton/Community threads: 3749
Apolyton/Community posts: 80792
Apolyton/Community average: 21.55
RoN threads: 1342
RoN posts: 12812
RoN average: 9.55
GalCiv threads: 362
GalCiv posts: 3878
GalCiv average: 10.71
MoO3 threads: 1401
MoO3 posts: 20812
MoO3 average: 14.86
Civ2 threads: 9670
Civ2 posts: 187199
Civ2 average: 19.36
SMAC threads: 6850
SMAC posts: 188321
SMAC average: 27.49
CtP2 threads: 4149
CtP2 posts: 51324
CtP2 average: 12.37
CtP threads: 2782
CtP posts: 82402
CtP average: 29.62
Alt. Civs threads: 1572
Alt. Civs posts: 28338
Alt. Civs average: 18.03
Now, what conclusions could I hope to draw from this?
First let us look at the stats for all of Poly. Average of 23.91 posts per thread, or slightly over one page per thread. There are two possible causes for this (at least that I can think of). First, people in general dislike going to two pages. Second, on average, the active interest of people in a thread is just enough to carry it for that long. I think it is a combination of the two.
Now, let us look at RoN. It has a measly 9.55 posts per thread. That's not even half a page. I think that with such a small and not-quite-disinterested demographic, there aren't enough people or interest to keep a thread going very long. People in the civ3 strat forum have HUGE threads discussing a specific strategy. RoN doesn't have enough interest or people to accumulate that many posts about one topic.
Compare this to the OT, with 41.63 posts per thread! Just over two pages. People in OT are used to longer threads, for one thing, but that's a chicken-and-egg problem. I think people in the OT are serious enough about what they're debating (a bit too serious, sometimes, but what else are mods for?
) that they aren't discouraged until the third page pops up. And many aren't discouraged there, as evidenced by the 500-posts-and-it-dies rule.
There are anomalies. Notedly, SMAC and CtP. I've never really browsed those forums, but since they're small you'd think they'd be like RoN et al. SMAC's high posts per thread average could be due to the recent demogame, which could significantly counterbalance the rest of the forum. However, looking at the stats for the demogames, they come out at 23.77 posts per thread, very close to the overall average. It could be that back then the default threads per page was 25 back then, but look at the Civ2 forums. It's a mystery.
and I'll explain what it's referring to in a minute. What I just did was, for several categories, sum up the total number of posts and total number of threads, and took the average posts/thread. I think this has a lot of significance regarding the character of a forum. First, here are my results:Total threads: 87433
Total posts: 2090820
Total average: 23.91
OT threads: 18736
OT posts: 779997
OT average: 41.63
Civ3 threads: 27456
Civ3 posts: 509203
Civ3 average: 18.55
Demogame threads*: 9082
Demogame posts*: 215883
Demogame average: 23.77
Apolyton/Community threads: 3749
Apolyton/Community posts: 80792
Apolyton/Community average: 21.55
RoN threads: 1342
RoN posts: 12812
RoN average: 9.55
GalCiv threads: 362
GalCiv posts: 3878
GalCiv average: 10.71
MoO3 threads: 1401
MoO3 posts: 20812
MoO3 average: 14.86
Civ2 threads: 9670
Civ2 posts: 187199
Civ2 average: 19.36
SMAC threads: 6850
SMAC posts: 188321
SMAC average: 27.49
CtP2 threads: 4149
CtP2 posts: 51324
CtP2 average: 12.37
CtP threads: 2782
CtP posts: 82402
CtP average: 29.62
Alt. Civs threads: 1572
Alt. Civs posts: 28338
Alt. Civs average: 18.03
Now, what conclusions could I hope to draw from this?
First let us look at the stats for all of Poly. Average of 23.91 posts per thread, or slightly over one page per thread. There are two possible causes for this (at least that I can think of). First, people in general dislike going to two pages. Second, on average, the active interest of people in a thread is just enough to carry it for that long. I think it is a combination of the two.
Now, let us look at RoN. It has a measly 9.55 posts per thread. That's not even half a page. I think that with such a small and not-quite-disinterested demographic, there aren't enough people or interest to keep a thread going very long. People in the civ3 strat forum have HUGE threads discussing a specific strategy. RoN doesn't have enough interest or people to accumulate that many posts about one topic.
Compare this to the OT, with 41.63 posts per thread! Just over two pages. People in OT are used to longer threads, for one thing, but that's a chicken-and-egg problem. I think people in the OT are serious enough about what they're debating (a bit too serious, sometimes, but what else are mods for?
) that they aren't discouraged until the third page pops up. And many aren't discouraged there, as evidenced by the 500-posts-and-it-dies rule.There are anomalies. Notedly, SMAC and CtP. I've never really browsed those forums, but since they're small you'd think they'd be like RoN et al. SMAC's high posts per thread average could be due to the recent demogame, which could significantly counterbalance the rest of the forum. However, looking at the stats for the demogames, they come out at 23.77 posts per thread, very close to the overall average. It could be that back then the default threads per page was 25 back then, but look at the Civ2 forums. It's a mystery.
Smiley 
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