UB Breaks 1,000 Members!

[jms]

completely valid, but that is common everywhere. Perhaps there is a formula to calculate a quantifiable measurement of forum activity.

percentage of the average number of posts of all posters who posted in a given period.
lets say in the last 30 days you posted 15 messages. and the average number of posts from everyone who posted a message within the last 30 days is 30 then your rating would be 50%

If you couple that with the car rating system you can assign additional weight based on forum activity which will virtually elimate the non-posting voters who are dumping the 1's on everyone.

So at the time of the rating you had an activity rating of 50% and you voted a 7 your vote counts as six 7 votes and someone with no activity votes 1 it would count as 1 couple that with the natural log and you end up with the 1 vote just about being thrown away.

[doughboyea]

oooo, i like it, sounds logical, however, poor Komodo will have to deal with that assuming it's economical (time wise) to put together. But wouldn't that effect sponsorship? Meaning, if "we" say that we have 1000 posters, the sponsor will look at that value as 1000 possible clientel. However, if we adjust that value according to your statisical analysis, then that number would drop to a value much less, resulting in Komodo's presentaion of posters to a lower figure reducing the amount of possible clientel to outside vendors.

You know, jms, it could be that we are just thinking about this way too much, making it way to complicated and beyond laymans needs. But, I do like your view on it, assigning a value to the number of posts a person does to support the forum. That value has feedback in terms of more "respect." And I put that in quotes because YOU ARE NOT YOUR POST COUNT. We don't want a bunch of N00bs going around posting one word posts and racking in 1000's of posts. I'm just concluding that your reasoning makes sence, to me at least. It could even be something that can help maintain attendence and participation. The forum that "pays" you back... haha.

But yes, to much thought, too much time...

Dough

[DEATH2000]

Originally Posted by komodo

A mari usque ad mare.

What does that mean? i dont speak latin

[komodo]

Doughboy/jms... great thoughts, however I don't know how that would work in practicality (being the devil's advocate for a second). As dough said, some sponsors decide based on numbers alone (for better or for worse). For example when I approached umnitza a long time ago, they said come back when we have 1,000 members.

If we did that, it'd probably be best to introduce a new number completely, such as a forum active ratio count, but that wouldn't mean much to very many people, and most wouldn't take the time to read about it.... so at the end of the day, would it be worth all the programming and time invested? It might be a "cool" feature, but when you balance the positive benefit from it with the effort it would take to make it, I'm not sure if it results in a good answer.

And Death, "A mari usque ad mare" means "From Sea to Sea", Canada's motto.

[DEATH2000]

^^ i see, kool stuff

[jms]

Originally Posted by komodo

Doughboy/jms... great thoughts, however I don't know how that would work in practicality (being the devil's advocate for a second). As dough said, some sponsors decide based on numbers alone (for better or for worse). For example when I approached umnitza a long time ago, they said come back when we have 1,000 members.

If we did that, it'd probably be best to introduce a new number completely, such as a forum active ratio count, but that wouldn't mean much to very many people, and most wouldn't take the time to read about it.... so at the end of the day, would it be worth all the programming and time invested? It might be a "cool" feature, but when you balance the positive benefit from it with the effort it would take to make it, I'm not sure if it results in a good answer.

And Death, "A mari usque ad mare" means "From Sea to Sea", Canada's motto.

Agreed, It would be strictly an internal number. You still approach advertisers with the general membership number and for internal things maybe some graphic in the profile or enhanced priveledge. What to do with it is more difficult than it's execution. I came up with it on a tangent thought that had no purpose in being other than it was.

the execution is pretty simple. on a daily basis you calulate average postcount for the past 30 days from all members who posted.

first create a new table which serves as the calculated data. consisting of post_count(int) and user_id(int) we'll call it monthly_post_count execute a cron with the following and have it occur nightly. shouldn't take long to execute. (we do this because the values only change daily, you could of course calculate it in real time but that level of granularity shouldn't be required. Of course this could always be done more frequently as load permits)

[CODE]
insert into monthly_post_count(post_count,user_id)
select count(post)as p_count, userid from posts where
post_date > date_sub(curdate(),INTERVAL 30 DAY)
and p_count > 0
group by userid[/CODE]

you now have a list of all members and posts for the last 30 days who have posted.
and from this table you simply execute
[CODE]
select avg(post_count) as avg_post from monthly_post_count
[/code]

I'm sure you have application level variables that you set from time to time. That's where this would go.
then when you want to use it simply divide the user's post count by the average time 100 and you have a value
[CODE]
select round(post_count/<value of avg>*100) as activity_level
where user_id = <value of user_id>
[/code]

of course I have made some assumptions and my mysql is weaker than my MSSql but It does the job with the minimium of disruption and code. now where you do profile you can just call a simple query and do with it what you will. At the very least it is a useful report.