Curiosity

Having had a long experience with Forums. They provide help and an atmosphere of being a member of a community.

My attitude to Forums is asking or otherwise dealing with serious questions, mainly about computer matters or engaging in chat and fun stuff as a pleasant diversion. This post is aimed at all Forums, not just this one.

This post is not intended to provoke in any way, but only to satisfy my personal curiosity. I have noticed that many Forum members have 100`s, 1,000`s, 10,000`s or even a greater number of posts. One guy has over 50,000 posts in 5 years !

To achieve 50,000 posts in 5 years is 10,000 posts per year or 200 posts per week - 30 posts per day ! Mostly on chat subjects. The guy must sit at his keyboard like some Zombie, plonking away making irrelevant posts to his beloved Forum all day long. For anybody who leads a normal life, this is both hyper-eccentric, unhealthy and practically impossible.

Could anybody give me a logical explanation how these people spend so much time plonking away at their keyboards dedicating their entire lives to posting irrelevant comments on Forums ? Because I cannot comprehend such behavior. Loneliness ? Perhaps.

Yes, I've asked myself that same question too. But is sitting glued to the box every night any different?

Speaking for myself, I tend to frequent forums when I'm trying to waste some time before going on vacation again. Usually though, something happens like a certain moderator deleting my posts for example - yes, you know who you are - which makes me depart these shores before time.

I don't think I'd want to spend my whole life hanging around forums to the degree that I'd clock up even 1,000 posts, let alone 50,000.

You are making assumptions about someone you don't know. Your idea of normal and my idea of normal may be two very different things.

You don't know what the circumstances of life are for the people who post here and in other forums. It could be that making posts on a forum is a way for someone to de-stress or relax after a hectic day. Maybe someone is ill, disabled, not able to get out the house very often and the computer is used to keep in touch with the outside world. It's their way of "conversing" with others.

I know some people who suffer from insomnia and use the night time hours as computer time. One can get a lot done on the computer during those hours.

30 posts a day is not really that much and it is not an entire life. You might consider posts "irrelevant" but they may not be irrelevant to the one making them. If I wanted to I could make 30 posts in an hour or two, depending on how long the post is and the subject.

As for clocking up 1000 posts, it doesn't take long at all to reach that number when one posts on a regular basis. A little bit here, little bit there and before you know it that milestone is reached.

I think what I disagree with the most is the labelling whereby someone who posts 'X' number of messages somehow or other becomes an 'expert' in their field simply by the number of posts they've made, regardless of the fact that the content of those posts may have been both misleading and pure nonsense.

The other problem is plagiarism which places a given poster is a beneficial light simply by copy/pasting someone else's solution to a problem which works, but not linking to it and then passing it off as their own. The danger there is that it enforces the notion that everything else that that individual posts is perceived as being a qualified and therefore trustworthy when in point of fact, they don't have a clue of what they're talking about.

Thanks QueeniE and FR, you have both made some excellent points that I appreciate fully.

It looks like an odd post of mine, but it is an observation I have been aware of over the years and still am.

QueeniE`s points are more humane in terms of recognizing the more unfortunate reasons for a person to spend all day plonking the keys and engaging in a likeable chat show. It must help them enormously.

FR makes the kind of points that I myself tend to concentrate on. He is quite correct under our normal profiles of life, but we tend to ignore the "medical" therapeutic side of Forum chatterboxes that provide comfort rather than addiction.

There is absolutely no way that such massive post totals could be achieved on technical matters. Knowledgeable people in the technical and scientific stream do not have lifestyles which allow them time to punch the keyboard every day on Forum matters, although they do take a valuable part when they can.

I know of one person being a current member of a certain Forum who must qualify as the worlds top genius in virtual computer systems, but only has a handful of posts to his name. Genuine experts excluded, the number of accumulated posts is totally irrelevant. Remember David ? Well, little David DID kill Goliath.

FR`s point of assumed status and authority relative to the number of posts made is not an imaginable assumption - IT IS FACT !

I could easily have posted this question on certain other Forum`s and the inherent gang members who are always looking for trouble and hate Newbie upstarts, would have gone for gold. AND that attitude is also present in quite a few Moderators and Admin`s.

So I am so grateful to you for your constrained and constructive replies.

We have a member on this forum who has over 80,000 posts. They are part of our malware removal team and they (along with many other members of that team) do a fantastic job helping people deal with malware problems. I can assure you that the overwhelming majority of those 80,000 posts are specifically related to technical matters.

You said in your original post that you did not wish provoke, but you then go on to accuse people with a high post count of being hyper-eccentric and unhealthy. Personally I do not see how that statement could do anything other than provoke.

We have a member on this forum who has over 80,000 posts. They are part of our malware removal team and they (along with many other members of that team) do a fantastic job helping people deal with malware problems. I can assure you that the overwhelming majority of those 80,000 posts are specifically related to technical matters.

You said in your original post that you did not wish provoke, but you then go on to accuse people with a high post count of being hyper-eccentric and unhealthy. Personally I do not see how that statement could do anything other than provoke.

OK, I accept your comments entirely, but do not necessarily agree with them.

When we statisticians talk about "populations", we observe the Gaussian principle of distribution , the bell curve, where general blanket comments refer to the 68% or even higher central portion and exclude the +/- extremes.

So my comments are quite correct in my experience over many years and I stand by them. The majority of massive posters ARE chatters and NOT technical. Your example of the high post counts of your technical team, lay outside the limits of Gaussian reference by virtue of their specific role and are irrelevant.

Provocative and accusative ? Not at all if one fully understands the context in which the comments are made.

I did NOT intend to provoke, but in order to adequately describe the subject, it is necessary to provide examples, statements and even assumptions. Unsupported assumptions or opinions are part of everyday life and a freedom we all enjoy, at least in my country. If you disagree, then go ahead and disprove them.

Provocation, like beauty, is often in the mind of the beholder. Controversial statements and opinions are always "provocative" by nature, but that does not mean that rational people engaged in discussion have to lose their cool. It is only irrational people who do that or people who label "provocative" anything they disagree with.

I feel that the replies received have adequately covered my query and I thank you all for your contributions.

It is obvious that 85-90% of Forum punters are not specialists and either seek technical help or are simply compulsive chatters. Many of these punters have an obsession to achieve a monumental number of posts. either for personal satisfaction purposes or to achieve a misconceived status of veteran level of respectability by the erroneous conception of "The biggest posters are the most knowledgeable Guru`s".

Unless some other posters have a rational and non-argumentative contribution to make, I consider this matter closed.

High number of posts ? I could not care less.

One can certainly use statistics to examine post count, but to attribute motives, especially common motives, to explain very high counts is tenuous at best.

High number of posts ? I could not care less.

Via your "curiosity" and reason for posting this thread, you do care or are at least interested, and you are now contradicting yourself

Could anybody give me a logical explanation how these people spend so much time plonking away at their keyboards dedicating their entire lives to posting irrelevant comments on Forums ? Because I cannot comprehend such behavior. Loneliness ? Perhaps.

Why don't you ask them? I'm sure they all have their own answers.

To achieve 50,000 posts in 5 years is 10,000 posts per year or 200 posts per week - 30 posts per day ! Mostly on chat subjects. The guy must sit at his keyboard like some Zombie, plonking away making irrelevant posts to his beloved Forum all day long. For anybody who leads a normal life, this is both hyper-eccentric, unhealthy and practically impossible.

I fail to see how this is impossible. I spend on average 9 hours a DAY on a computer, whether it's programming java or posting here or playing games, I don't spend as much time here posting as I used to mostly because of java but I still manage to read most topics here and I still lead a normal life with a job and school and my family. Now just because I spend that long on a computer (note that way back when, I used to make 30 or so posts on a good day) I am still fit and healthy and still go out and ride a bike as well as workout. Also take note of my age. It's a forum.. You post information and chat with others some choose to use forums for help such as here and others use it to chat. What I fail to understand is why it really matters to you what others choose to do in their own life's. Oh and in order for you to post what you did above you had to spend time to type it.. And it does nothing to help anyone.
Again forgive me for not seeing the true reason behind your original post..

Knowledgeable people in the technical and scientific stream do not have lifestyles which allow them time to punch the keyboard every day on Forum matters, although they do take a valuable part when they can.

So you know all these people personally and know for a FACT this is true? If you don't you are again making assumptions about someone you don't know.

Bleeping Computer has MANY members in the technical "stream" who DO find the time to "punch the keyboard everyday" here. Their lifestyle clearly allows them to do so.

Some of those people may still be employed and working.

Others may be retired-after working for many years they now have a lifestyle that allows them to do what they want when they want to do it. And if posting here or other forums is what they choose to do more power to them. Most of the retirees I know (including my husband and I) do not sit around all day long staring at the ceiling.

Unsupported assumptions or opinions are part of everyday life

That is exactly what you have provided here with your statements which put all "knowledgable people" into the don't have time/lifestyle category.

When we statisticians talk

As far as statistics, I do not and never have put much stock into them. ANYONE can make the statisics say what he/she wants them to say.
Statisitics boils down to WHO is being asked for data to be used to compile the statistics and HOW the questions are asked.

"There are three types of lies - lies, damn lies, and statistics."

attributed to Mark Twain, Benjamin Disraeli, and others

It is obvious that 85-90% of Forum punters are not specialists and either seek technical help or are simply compulsive chatters. Many of these punters have an obsession to achieve a monumental number of posts. either for personal satisfaction purposes or to achieve a misconceived status of veteran level of respectability by the erroneous conception of "The biggest posters are the most knowledgeable Guru`s".

That is true. BC exists to HELP those aksing for it. If they were specialists they probably would not be asking for help.


The last time I checked we have no requirement that states "those that help must be specialists".

Bleeping Computer® is a community of individuals of all ages who are here to learn new information, to help each other, and to help their fellow peers.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forum-rules/

Now, define "specialists". Do they need to have a ph.d, do they need to work in the industry, in order to be a "specialist"? Excluding the Malware Removal team here at BC because they do go through a training program, what would qualify one to be a specialist?

I am not a "specialist" in tech matters. I am a "specialist" in things I have experienced. If I can contribute anything based on MY past experiences (about anything whether it be technical, cooking, or the best laundry detergent to use) and what worked for me I will. And I have an advantage over many of the specialists-I present things in plain simple language that anyone can understand. "Specialists" in their fields tend to forget that not everyone will have a clue what "advanced" terms means.

So what if someone wants to "chat"? It doesn't impact you in any way. What another does and why they do it is really none of your business unless it does impact you.

How many people have YOU asked "do you have an obsession to achieve a monumental number of posts? Why do you want to do so?"

You are assuming ulterior motives to those who may have none.

Can't have the statistics until you do ask them.

edit to add: here at BC those who post tenuous "advice" are usually spotted rather quickly by those others who KNOW it may not be the best advice.

I frequent this & a few other (non-computer related) forums on a daily basis, about 3-4 hours/day in total. As the primary care giver for an elderly parent it provides me a pleasant/relaxing diversion. If I learn something/help someone along the way, so much the better.

I frequent this & a few other (non-computer related) forums on a daily basis, about 3-4 hours/day in total. As the primary care giver for an elderly parent it provides me a pleasant/relaxing diversion. If I learn something/help someone along the way, so much the better.

Been there, done that, totally agree with you on the diversion.

This goes back to my statement in my first post in this topic.

It could be that making posts on a forum is a way for someone to de-stress or relax after a hectic day.

I'd like to give my point of view on this (very interesting) subject as I'm a forum member with a fair amount of posts. For the record, I joined in 2007, but only became a regular in 2009, so at this point I have been active a bit more than three years at BC.

I am not employed at the moment, which doesn't mean I have 24/7 to spend on a forum as I have a family to take care of including a small kid with all that entails. I am also not an anti-social person and certainly not a nerd. I simply enjoy helping others in the free time I have and learning more about computers every day.

I won't go in debate about my (lack of) expertise nor about my chattiness; as I have plenty of public posts I would invite everyone curious to go and see for themselves what I post and how relevant/helpful that is. Does that mean every post is constructive? No, of course not (as an example, I suspect that at least 20 % of my posts are standard closing messages in the malware removal forum). Does that matter? No of course not, because post count itself doesn't mean anything, it says nothing at all about the quality of those posts, which is what truly matters.

"The biggest posters are the most knowledgeable Guru`s".

In conclusion this statement makes no sense, post count does not say anything about how knowledgeable someone is.

If I may chime in here I would like to post my stats

1,291 (13.01 per day)
Most Active In:
Forum Games (861 posts)
Joined:
26-January 12

I have (according to my profile) 1,291 posts as is evident by these numbers taken from my profile. Of the aforementioned number, 66% of those posts do not count as to my total (forum games stats do not count and reasonably so) I bring this up because of what both Union_Thug and Queen-Evie mentioned in regards to diversion from the daily stresses of life. Although I'm a retired senior citizen I chose to enhance my knowledge by enrolling into the malware removal program this site has to offer. The program is intensive for me because of my limited knowledge (I'll be the first to admit to my lack of computer knowledge and am no expert by any stretch of the imagination) and I personally, when not studying logs or doing an exercise, will often go to forum games to wind down (much like a runner after a race does). While these posts don't count toward my accumulative post count, it is indicative of me relieving stress and/or relaxing. I don't see what the issue is that made you want to comment on members' post counts, but all I can say is there is no criteria or obligation to post here or any forum that I am aware of, it's up to each individual's personal preference.