Thoughts on passing the 300,000 post mark.

[Martin]

Today we passed 300,000 posts! congratulations Blike (SFN owner), Dave (admin), and everybody.

 

Especially congratulations to people who have had ideas for some really intriguing provocative threads, which people liked to discuss about.

 

At the risk of being unfair, I will mention a couple of people who have had some interesting ideas that have stimulated discussion. Bascule, IMM are two that come to mind.

 

but then there are obvious other devisers of lively threads and i don't want to get into a long list, so apologies to Pangloss and other worthy thread-wrights.

===============

 

well, does anyone have ideas about what sorts of discussion contribute to a lively forum and a high POSTS PER DAY number?

 

the last 4 days, from 9:30 PM Monday to 9:30 PM Friday the post count (at the bottom of the welcome page) went from around 299,610 to about 300,050. In other words in 4 days it climbed by 440. this is an average of

110 POSTS PER DAY.

 

It is a simple measure of energy and vitality-----not perfect but a handy indicator. I used to keep track more carefully. For example during the month of April 2005 the average was 411 POSTS PER DAY. Some days it was more and some less, but between 1 April and 1 May of 2005 that is what the daily rate averaged.

 

Does anybody remember what we were talking about back then? does anyone have any ideas about what may have been different, so that there was more posting going on? was there more controversy?

 

Well those are the questions that cross my mind, as we pass the 300,000 post mark.

 

Also, would you say there are advantages to a calmer, quieter board? Do you perhaps LIKE it at this level of energy? Personally I think I would prefer it to be more lively, less sedate, but others may feel differently.

[aj47]

Out of interest who wrote the 300,000th post?

[bascule]

I just have this natural tendency to dominate any forum in sheer volume of posts. Given enough quantity, it's only natural that I'll put forth some gems.

 

And I'm lucky #13 overall, eh?

 

http://scienceforums.net/memberlist.php?&order=DESC&sort=posts&pp=30

 

Well watch out Martin, I'm about a dozen posts away from you, heh

 

For example during the month of April 2005 the average was 411 POSTS PER DAY. Some days it was more and some less' date=' but between 1 April and 1 May of 2005 that is what the daily rate averaged.

 

Does anybody remember what we were talking about back then? does anyone have any ideas about what may have been different, so that there was more posting going on? was there more controversy?[/quote']

 

Well, I can tell you what memes drew me here. During December 2004 I saw Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe NOVA special, and subsequently picked up his book Fabric of the Cosmos days later and began to read it. Shortly after I bought Einstein's Relativity and worked my way through it, finding it now quite easy to comprehend thanks largely to Brian Greene taking all of Einstein's metaphors for relativity and restating them using characters from The Simpsons, which made them all fun and interesting to someone like me. Where S and S' are merely abstract concepts, it becomes far easier to keep track of what Einstein is describing when these concepts are replaced by more meaningful placeholders... in Greene's case Itchy and Scratchy, or Bart and Lisa Simpson.

 

It was Greene who finally made the concept which really unified relativity in my head clear to me for the first time: the reason light appears to go the same speed in all reference frames is because the rate at which time progresses varies with your relative velocity, so while you can exert great energy trying to chase a photon, in the end it will go the same speed because in the process time will have slowed. Nobody but Greene had ever made this clear to me.

 

While now my passing interest in string theory has waned almost completely, I'm still quite grateful to Brian Greene for taking the worlds of relativity and quantum physics and condensing them into a metaphor and pop culture-laden book designed specifically for making very difficult, abstract mathematical concepts accessible to the layman.

 

I think Smolin may have done something similar with The Trouble with Physics, but I won't get to that book until I finish Jeff Hawkins and get back to finishing Smolin's Three Roads to Quantum Gravity. Unfortunately I've been very busy lately and haven't had much time to read.

 

Anywho, that's where I was coming from... just looking for an environment in which to put forth questions that came from my newfound conceptual/intuitive understanding of physics. And along the way I've picked up various science-for-the-layman books whose ideas I've wanted to bounce off of people... for example Mokele was a great person to bounce ideas off of which I picked up from Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale. I think overall there's been an increasing focus among various members of the scientific community to produce books like this... taking the state-of-the-art of a scientific discipline, dumbing it down and wrapping it up in a way laymen can understand. For me it's been really great and I hope the trend continues.

[YT2095]

General Science, Engineering and Chem has made quite a bit of improvement over ther last few weeks, and that`s good to see!

 

there`s also been no Reported posts and little to Zero chat in the Moderators area either since the religion sub got taken down, now THAT alone speaks volumes!

 

Overall I`m perfectly happy with the way things are going right now

[Martin]

thx to the three people who responded!

Anyone have other thoughts on the occasion of SFN passing 300,000 posts,

or is that it?

[Severian]

Why is passing 300,000 posts more interesting than passing 299,999?

[insane_alien]

i say we wait for the 500,000 mark then have a forum party of some kind. not sure how it would work but it seems like a good idea.

[Martin]

I just have this natural tendency to dominate any forum in sheer volume of posts. Given enough quantity, it's only natural that I'll put forth some gems.

 

And I'm lucky #13 overall, eh?

 

http://scienceforums.net/memberlist.php?&order=DESC&sort=posts&pp=30

 

...

 

Hi bascule, that is an interesting link. I had not seen member listed by number of posts before. Didn't know about that feature, or how to use it.

 

we could also try "&sort=threads"

and see who has started a lot of threads.

 

Even though the topic here is nominally POSTS and you might think that I am interested in what sort of person and which people make a lot of posts,

 

actually I am wondering which people make a lot of threads---and particularly theads that take off and develop some momentum.

 

an example is IMM. Often she will start a thread and she won't even post in it very much. it will more or less "go by itself" and a bunch of people will join in---and then maybe she comes back later and adds some comment, or maybe not. that is just my vague impression, I havent been watching closely and I don't have any particular examples to illustrate.

 

I will try taking your link and modifying it

 

http://scienceforums.net/memberlist.php?&order=DESC&sort=threads&pp=30

 

let's see if that works

 

=============================

EDIT: Nope.

doesnt work.

you cant sort memberlist in descending order by numbers of threads initiated------you can only do it by numbers of posts posted

[YT2095]

Martin, when we had a Stats page, that feature was on there, Top post count, top Thread count and some other things too.

[Martin]

Ahhh, I see. At least the *top* thread-starter would be shown.

 

===============

 

well, anyway, a propos "thoughts on passing 300,000" topic:

 

Does anyone have any GENERAL thoughts about message boards?

 

In very general terms, what does a message board do for individuals, for society?

 

Maybe no one is interested in that-----or maybe the answer is obvious to everybody----but maybe not. In his response, bascule indicated some things that participating does or has done for him IIRC (I think it was a particular educational function he was talking about---in any case that's just one example)

[YT2095]

it`s a Community, you make Friends here. some you will interact with in Real Life too (I have done with several here).

you also get to share here too, I have quite a few Thank You PMs from folks that I`ve helped without even knowing it, one guy went from a Fail to an A- on the strength of one Chem post I made years ago, it`s little things that out of the blue that make it worthwhile.

you also get to clear the mental cobwebs here and ideas that you Thought were correct but aren`t.

My Chem knowledge since joining here has Broadend to even more wonderfull things I wasn`t even aware of, I was pretty much Focused in a particular area before I joined but knew there was More, here I Found that "More".

There`s a LOT of good people here!

 

so why would anyone choose to be away from that?

[Skye]

The good thing about message boards is that they are focused on particular topics and that you have some time to think about your replies. This means that the conversation can be at a higher level. And if it's not the posts can be deleted.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Now let's just work on higher-level conversations and better discussions and I'll be happy.

 

Oh, and.... (inside joke)

PARTEH!!!!111

[Royston]

In very general terms, what does a message board do for individuals, for society?

 

I can't vouch for all message boards...but generally it's a place for like-minded people to chat, debate and 'learn'. The latter, especially true of SFN.

 

In fact, if it wasn't for me joining SFN last year and being inspired by some of the people I've chatted to, I would not be studying towards a degree in physics. SFN has helped me immensely, and I thank anyone who has helped putting me on the right track...it's also been a pleasure sharing what small amount of knowledge I have to others and getting feedback (Paranoia I promise to send you some links for origins of life...and Gutz I will post more on the Quarks / Leptons thread, been quite ill the last week.)

 

So as cheezey as it sounds, SFN has shaped my life, and given me direction towards the goal I was seeking as a kid. So to anyone that's shared their knowledge with me, I'm incredibly grateful.

[Martin]

sounds good, Snail.

You made constructive use of the board (things like that surely tend to be the person's own doing)

glad to hear this!

[ecoli]

I <3 SFN. Forever and for always. Not much to add to the above, sorry.