If subforums could "level up" (Forum Levels)

[Big Mac]

Nine years ago, I got (over)excited about working out the Forum Ranks (and posting stats for each rank). Now that I've become an administrator, I kind of can't really do that any more, but I've been wondering about what sort of forum ranks the various subforums at The Piazza might have for a while.

There is no system for this, so I thought I'd invent one, for my own amusement. I'm going to post it so that anyone nerdy enough to want to follow what I'm doing can have a look.

I'm using three things as the starting point for my system:

• Ashtagon's minimum topic requirement for a forum is 10 topics (making 10 topics into the "Level 1" requrement),
• British money works with a 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 progression and
• Replies are as important as topics (if not more so) so I'm going with a baseline of "ten replies per topic".

So, working from these rules I have set myself, I'm going to assign forum levels in this progression (rather than try to emulate XP from any edition of D&D):


I will edit the above table, and add more levels, if I need to, but you should be able to work out the progression from that.

The nerdy "Forum Levels" will be posted in the next post (after I work them out).

EDIT: Here is a list of posts with stats:

• Forum Levels for 16 June 2017

[Havard]

I like that you are including both threads and total posts.

I remember being very frustrated at another website back in the days for insisting that only the number of threads should be used in determining status of forums. That meant that forums with lots of long and interesting discussions was actually being punished for that. Glad we are not taking that route!

-Havard

[Big Mac]

I like that you are including both threads and total posts.

I remember being very frustrated at another website back in the days for insisting that only the number of threads should be used in determining status of forums. That meant that forums with lots of long and interesting discussions was actually being punished for that. Glad we are not taking that route!

Well it's only a fun thing anyway.

But if I was going to go on just one thing, I'd go on post count, rather than topic count.

[Yaztromo]

No consideration for the number of views as well???

[Big Mac]

Forum Levels for 16 June 2017 (Forum Order)



Here is the table that explains the forum levels.

I might come back and edit this post and add another version of the top table, with the forums sorted by level (highest to lowest).

EDIT: I just added this:

Forum Levels for 16 June 2017 (Level Order - And Post Count Within Each Level)

[Big Mac]

No consideration for the number of views as well???

I think that is only visible on individual topics.

But feel free to make your own topic and sit down with an adding machine to work out what the views would be.

[Big Mac]

I might come back and edit this post and add another version of the top table, with the forums sorted by level (highest to lowest).

I just did. See the previous post.

[Morfie]

I might come back and edit this post and add another version of the top table, with the forums sorted by level (highest to lowest).

I just did. See the previous post.

Thanks Big Mac.. for answering Big Mac's question.

[Tim Baker]

I love this kind of stuff. Thanks for sharing!

[Big Mac]

I love this kind of stuff. Thanks for sharing!

One forum has already "levelled up" since I posted this.

I used to go to nerdy lengths trying to reverse-engineer Ashtagon's forum ranks (but when she made me into a Junior Administrator I stopped doing that).

And I once worked out a pie chart of the top posters on the forum.

[Tim Baker]

I once worked out a pie chart of the top posters on the forum.

I love visualizations like that.

[Big Mac]

I once worked out a pie chart of the top posters on the forum.

I love visualizations like that.

Here it is:

Freaks of The Piazza motivator by David Shepheard, on Flickr

[Tim Baker]

So 12 people generated nearly half the posts as of 7 years ago? That's crazy!

[Big Mac]

So 12 people generated nearly half the posts as of 7 years ago? That's crazy!

Yes. That's correct. You can look at the memberlist sorted by post count if you want to try to repeat the calculations I used to make that chart.

[Khedrac]

I resent the assumption that the rest of us necessarily have social lives...
(That said, I wasn't a member back then.)

[Havard]

I resent the assumption that the rest of us necessarily have social lives...
(That said, I wasn't a member back then.)

-Havard

[Big Mac]

I resent the assumption that the rest of us necessarily have social lives...
(That said, I wasn't a member back then.)

No social life, huh? That's fighting talk!

Well your "I don't have a social life" number is currently 0.29 ppd. (Mine is 6.24 ppd.)

You are currently behind froglegg on page 7 of The Piazza leaderboard. (Froglegg only has 0.04, so I think you can leap past him. #DYSWIDT)

Alzirus (0.11 ppd) might stay ahead of you for a while, but I think you will eventually catch him. But Mike Myler also has 0.29 ppd, so I think you will struggle to ever catch him.

Sarastro Magnifico has 0.21 ppd, so you will probably catch him eventually, but not too quickly.

Everyone else ahead of you on your page is also listed as 0.04 ppd, so if you want to prove you have no social life, and get onto page 6 of the leaderboard, you might be able to do it, assuming there are some slow people on page 6 that you and Mike Myler can steal the slots from.

[Khedrac]

No social life, huh? That's fighting talk!

Well your "I don't have a social life" number is currently 0.29 ppd. (Mine is 6.24 ppd.)

You are currently behind froglegg on page 7 of The Piazza leaderboard. (Froglegg only has 0.04, so I think you can leap past him. #DYSWIDT)

Alzirus (0.11 ppd) might stay ahead of you for a while, but I think you will eventually catch him. But Mike Myler also has 0.29 ppd, so I think you will struggle to ever catch him.

Sarastro Magnifico has 0.21 ppd, so you will probably catch him eventually, but not too quickly.

Everyone else ahead of you on your page is also listed as 0.04 ppd, so if you want to prove you have no social life, and get onto page 6 of the leaderboard, you might be able to do it, assuming there are some slow people on page 6 that you and Mike Myler can steal the slots from.

I assume ppd is posts per day?

Yes, I have a couple of problems with pushing it up - one is that my main board to lurk at is GiantITP so I post there rather more often than here, and I am also more of a lurker than a poster
The other is that my work varies between "working flat out with no time to look at the PC with internet access" and "spend (nearly) all day on the internet because I have nothing to do" (our part of the project is effectively done so we spend most of our time waiting on others). Now this latter sounds good, but my work PC usually gets a network access error on these forums whenever I browse into a sub-forum, something it doesn't seem to do anywhere else. It's not a blocked website as that is a different message (found that out with Project Gutenberg), it just rarely works from my office. It could be something to do with the routing as the network portal is usually in Germany even though I work int he UK (which really messes up listening to the cricket on the BBC).

So yes, just because I don't spend my life posting on here doesn't mean I have a social life (one of the reasons why I grabbed a custom forum title last year) but I will see what I can do to rectify my miserly post count.

[Big Mac]

No social life, huh? That's fighting talk!

Well your "I don't have a social life" number is currently 0.29 ppd. (Mine is 6.24 ppd.)

You are currently behind froglegg on page 7 of The Piazza leaderboard. (Froglegg only has 0.04, so I think you can leap past him. #DYSWIDT)

Alzirus (0.11 ppd) might stay ahead of you for a while, but I think you will eventually catch him. But Mike Myler also has 0.29 ppd, so I think you will struggle to ever catch him.

Sarastro Magnifico has 0.21 ppd, so you will probably catch him eventually, but not too quickly.

Everyone else ahead of you on your page is also listed as 0.04 ppd, so if you want to prove you have no social life, and get onto page 6 of the leaderboard, you might be able to do it, assuming there are some slow people on page 6 that you and Mike Myler can steal the slots from.

I assume ppd is posts per day?

Yes it is. I abbreviated it. The forum writes it in full.

Yes, I have a couple of problems with pushing it up - one is that my main board to lurk at is GiantITP so I post there rather more often than here, and I am also more of a lurker than a poster

Giant in the Playground do some cool stuff. I don't blame you for hanging out over there. And there is nothing wrong with a bit of lurking. But it is nice when people delurk and you can have a chat with them.

The other is that my work varies between "working flat out with no time to look at the PC with internet access" and "spend (nearly) all day on the internet because I have nothing to do" (our part of the project is effectively done so we spend most of our time waiting on others). Now this latter sounds good, but my work PC usually gets a network access error on these forums whenever I browse into a sub-forum, something it doesn't seem to do anywhere else. It's not a blocked website as that is a different message (found that out with Project Gutenberg), it just rarely works from my office. It could be something to do with the routing as the network portal is usually in Germany even though I work int he UK (which really messes up listening to the cricket on the BBC).

That's odd. I do occasionally get problems with a page on The Piazza loading, but if I immediately reload the page, it usually loads the second time.

There was a time, in the past, when I was using Internet Explorer and I kept loosing my posts. I use Firefox now, and have much less problems, although my work PC just went a bit weird with some other websites. (We swapped it out, as we got asked to test Windows 10, so that's fixed that problem.)

If you can try using a different browser, I would suggest giving that a go.

So yes, just because I don't spend my life posting on here doesn't mean I have a social life (one of the reasons why I grabbed a custom forum title last year) but I will see what I can do to rectify my miserly post count.

I'm glad you got that title. Those custom titles are fun. But, seriously, it's more about cool ideas here, than post count. So if you have any great ideas, please do share them.

[Yaztromo]

So 12 people generated nearly half the posts as of 7 years ago? That's crazy!

Yes. That's correct. You can look at the memberlist sorted by post count if you want to try to repeat the calculations I used to make that chart.

WOW! I just found out I'm already in the second page!!!

[Tim Baker]

WOW! I just found out I'm already in the second page!!!

Congrats! I just took a look and saw that I just made it onto the second page, too.

[Big Mac]

WOW! I just found out I'm already in the second page!!!

Congrats! I just took a look and saw that I just made it onto the second page, too.

When you start looking at the "posts per day" of the people above you, to see if you think you can catch them up, that's when it's time to join Postaholics Anonymous.

[RobJN]

Missed the top ten by that much -> 1

[Khedrac]

When I look at the memberlist I can see the date of joining and the total post count, but I don't see a "posts/day" column - is there one in a view I am missing, or are people dropping this into a spredhseet and adding a calculated formula?

[RobJN]

When I look at the memberlist I can see the date of joining and the total post count, but I don't see a "posts/day" column - is there one in a view I am missing, or are people dropping this into a spredhseet and adding a calculated formula?

It's calculated on the Profile Viewer page, found by clicking on the user's name.