Slashdot, a user-generated news, analysis, peer question and professional insight community. Tech professionals moderate the site which averages more than 5,300 comments daily and 3.7 million unique visitors each month.
As I said before, we don't have a really good idea on the number of unique IPIDs visiting the site, but we do have solid numbers for our daily comment counts. Here's the graph as generated by slashcode for a biweekly period:
(due to a quirk in slashcode, the graphs don't update until 48 hours later; our comment count for 04/01 was 712 comments total).
Taking in account averages, we're roughly getting a little less than 10% of Slashdot's comment counts, with a considerably smaller user base. As I said, the OkCupid story made me take notice. Here's the comment counts at various scores between the two sites
| SoylentNews | Slashdot.org | --------------------------------------- Score -1 | 130 | 1017 | Score 0 | 130 | 1005 | Score 1 | 109 | 696 | Score 2 | 74 | 586 | Score 3 | 12 | 96 | Score 4 | 4 | 64 | Score 5 | 1 | 46 | ---------------------------------------Furthermore, I took a look at UIDs on the other site, the vast majority of comments came from 6/7 digit UID posters. Looking at CmdrTaco's Retirement Post as well as posts detailing the history of the other site most of the low UIDs are still around, and are simply in perma-lurk mode.
(Score: 2) by mmcmonster on Wednesday April 02 2014, @02:54PM
There's something to be said about statisticians lying...
There are a lot more 6 and 7 digit UIDs commenting on stories on /. because (wait for it) there are a lot more 6 and 7 digit UIDs than there are 4 5 and digit UIDs. Period. In fact, there are probably an order more 6 digit UIDs than there are 5 digit UIDs. ;-)
The number of comments on this site are lower. Hopefully the number will continue to grow. Until the number grows, the number of mod points in the 'pool' should be higher so that interesting comments get risen up faster, spurring more conversation.
I am not a lurker (obviously). But I go into lurk mode when the number of comments on a topic are low and also when I feel I'm going to be insulted based on what I say (even if the replies are tagged as troll (-1)). The first problem should go away as more readers start commenting more. The second is something that anyone commenting on any forum has to deal with.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Wednesday April 02 2014, @05:10PM
The math doesn't add up.
I should be seeing a rough 1/10 distribution in accounts for UIDs 1-5. I'm not. Plus Slash is in the mid 8 UIDs now, and those aren't heavily active either ...
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by mmcmonster on Thursday April 03 2014, @10:25AM
You also have to take into account people just growing away from the site.
UIDs 100K are greater than 10 years old. How many forums that you went to 10 years ago do you still frequent? Also, /. tends to attract (especially in the early days) the older tech crowd. How many of the first 100K died in the last decade?
Another thing: Earlier on, I created a /. UID with my real name. It's got a 5 digit UID. I realized a couple years later I should be anonymous on the site, given that the things I say may bite me later on. Maybe there are others like me? The web was more trusting earlier on...
I'm not saying that lurking isn't a real thing. I'm just saying that expecting people from 10-15 years ago to be as active on a site as they were in the beginning is a little unexpected. ;-)