WHOA: My Study of CreditNet Members

CreditNet Member Demographics: My Study

Using the member list made available by CreditNet's webmaster pbm here, I collected the public usage data of every one of us, all 1079 members as of Saturday, 10/20/2001. With that data, I pulled together some basic descriptive statistics that I thought some people here would enjoy. So, without further ado, here are some interesting tidbits:

Who takes the prize for the all-time greatest number of CreditNet discussion board postings? Is it supershawn?
Just kidding, Shawn. Nope, it's (drum roll, please)... our old buddy GEORGE who came in with an impressive 3,998 postings since he first joined CreditNet! And every single one of those postings was an angry response IN ALL CAPS to being denied for another credit card despite a perfect payment history since 1949. Only joking, George. Let's all be on the lookout for George's 4,000th post which, if the statistical record holds, will occur TODAY! Who brought the champagne?

Ok, so if George came in 1st, who was 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th? Surely supershawn must be in there somewhere, right?
I know, I know, it's hard to believe, but Shawn doesn't rate the top 20 all-time list of CreditNet posters. A list of that elite club follows. Are YOU a member?
1) GEORGE -- 3,998 posts
2) roni -- 3,271 posts
3) breeze -- 2,905 posts
4) Momof3 -- 2,805 posts
5) sam -- 2,104 posts
6) bbauer -- 1,985 posts
7) NanaC -- 1,964 posts
8) MP$40 -- 1,765 posts
9) Saar -- 1,608 posts
10) Jim -- 1,511 posts
11) Lizardking -- 1,424 posts
12) lbrown59 -- 1,236 posts
13) dogman -- 1,225 posts
14) Marie -- 1,206 posts
15) LKH -- 1,090 posts
16) Nave -- 1,074 posts
17) Erica -- 954 posts
18) creditwork -- 881 posts
19) DaveLV -- 844 posts
20) marci -- 748 posts

What about a more complicated statistic, Doc? Betcha can't easily come up with the list of the people who post the most number of postings PER DAY, can you?
Sure, a piece of cake. I simply let the stat program figure out how many days every single person has been a member. Then I divided each person's total number of postings by the total number of days they've been here, which produced each person's NUMBER OF POSTS PER DAY statistic. Then I ranked those in descending order from greatest to least.

Barf, please don't throw any more math at me. I just want to know who posts the most per day.
Ok, the prize for the GREATEST NUMBER OF POSTS PER DAY goes to (drum roll again)... bbauer. That's right, Bill Bauer has posted an average of 11.5 posts per day since the day he joined one fine day in late April 2001. Practically tied with bbauer was (drum roll)... breeze with an average of 11.4 posts per day since she joined in early February 2001. Funny, it does seem like Bill posts 11.5 per day, while it doesn't seem like breeze posts nearly 11.4 posts per day. Hmmm. Hmmm. I'll say nothing more about this peculiar point of cognitive psychology. As chelechele has ably noted elsewhere on this board, some things really do just make you sit back and go hmmm.

Wow, that is interesting, Doc! Ahem. So who's on the rest of the list of the top 20 busiest posters
Glad you asked. (I'm sounding a bit schizophrenic now, I realize. That's ok. Some of my best patients are schizophrenic.) Here's the full list of the Top 20 Busiest CreditNet Posters:
1) bbauer -- 11.5 posts/day
2) breeze -- 11.4 posts/day
3) KHM -- 9.4 posts/day
4) NanaC -- 9.3 posts/day
5) chelechele -- 8.9 posts/day
6) roni -- 7.9 posts/day
7) GEORGE -- 7.1 posts/day
8) Bill B -- 6.7 posts/day
9) Bkev -- 6.7 posts/day
10) Lizardking -- 5.8 posts/day
11) lbrown59 -- 5.2 posts/day
12) Momof3 -- 4.9 posts/day
13) Nave -- 4.6 posts/day
14) supershawn -- 4.4 posts/day
15) author_22 -- 4.3 posts/day
16) MP$40 -- 4.3 posts/day
17) CAmove -- 4.1 posts/day
18) Cyprigirl -- 4.1 posts/day
19) DaveLV -- 3.9 posts/day
20) Mist -- 3.7 posts/day

Yada, yada, yada. But who's been a member of CreditNet the longest (other than pbm of course, cough, cough)?
There were two people who joined that fateful day, one March 15, 2000 when pbm first opened this discussion board. They were (drum roll...) Alex and J. Edgar! Alex has posted 74 times, while J. Edgar has posted 452 times. Who's Alex? Well, he's still around -- his last post was on September 14. Some people here would recognize Alex as the webmaster of CreditInsiders.com, the site that advertises "Free Credit Repair Help!" J. Edgar, the other distinguished individual tied for the Oldest CreditNet Member award, is also still active and last posted October 7. Statistically neither one of these guys is in a league with bbauer or breeze -- so say their intimate partners. OOF! THROW DOC OFF OF CREDITNET NOW! Sorry, I was kidding. My stats say nothing about their offline capabilities for goodness sakes. Now, back to the task at hand. As I was saying, neither Alex nor J. Edgar rank in the big leagues for number of postings per day, however J. Edgar posts 0.8 per day (almost once a day), while Alex posts 0.1 per day (or about once every 10 days).

So who were the rest of the very earliest CreditNet members?
The earliest members sport taglines which read "74 posts since Mar 2000" (using member #1, Alex, as an example). Here's the list of those honored few (in alphabetical order): Alex, Cathy, Chris, Cindy, creditwork, curiouser, dave, David, dogman, Don, Donna, Doris K., GEORGE, glenn, J. Edgar, JacquiG, jason, jen, Jim, joe, john, Karen, Kelly, Marie, Matt, mba, Melissa, Mike, miles, Momof3, rick, Robert, Ron, sam, Shirley, steve, and Terry.

Can statistics reveal who has been the glue of this community since the very beginning? Who are the rocks of Gibraltar among us since Day One?
Of the list of our members with most seniority, six have posted more than 1,000 times or at least twice a day. These six individuals have had the distinction of seeing others come and go, but they've remained for the long haul, holding the community together since its inception. Those on this honored list are, in alphabetical order, (drum roll...) dogman, George, Jim, Marie, Momof3, and sam. Please, everyone, a rousing round of applause for these six CreditNet luminaries.

Wow, that last group was pretty elite with a tough set of demographics -- members since the first month and at least two posts every day since. Whew! What if you relaxed the requirements just a bit and included people who joined during CreditNet's first FOUR months (rather than just one) and posted at least ONCE per day (rather than twice). Would anyone else be on that list of luminaries?
Yes, but only 8 more would meet the expanded criteria. Those additions would be creditwork, dave, Donna, Erica, LKH, miles, Reshod, and Saar -- certainly honored and respected long-time members who deserve to rate among any list of CreditNet luminaries.

To heck with the old members. How about equal time for the newest of the newbies? Who are they?
Well, the newest of the new is nicknamed cmbrady. How about a rousing CreditNet shout-out to cmbrady who just joined today while I was putting this demographic study together!!!!!!!! From one humble CreditNet member to another, welcome aboard! Others who joined during the past week: Arbitrage, bokido, BRIANQUIET, CaptBuf, cheers1215, cmbrady, deep, dsemler, fand123, freedom777, ICRBRUCE, jaxtar, joannegmur, Joykiller, liesel, mfinder, MVALLE99, redione, SHARISE, stacylee12, Turiyan, and xdam. A rousing round of applause for the newbies.

Dammit, I didn't make the list. I want to know where I stand. If you made a list of every CreditNet member who has posted more than, say, 150 times, where would I be on that list?
Well, of the 1,000+ members, only 105 have posted more than 150 times. Here's the list. Find yourself. (I've put your rank immediately preceding your name. Hey, look, PsychDoc is # 49 -- whoa, I made the top 50!)
1 GEORGE, 2 roni, 3 breeze, 4 Momof3, 5 sam, 6 bbauer, 7 NanaC, 8 MP$40, 9 Saar, 10 Jim, 11 Lizardking, 12 lbrown59, 13 dogman, 14 Marie, 15 LKH, 16 Nave, 17 Erica, 18 creditwork, 19 DaveLV, 20 marci, 21 dave, 22 MikeB, 23 the other, 24 miles, 25 Dani, 26 Donna, 27 godaddyo, 28 Shantel, 29 Cyprigirl, 30 chelechele, 31 molly, 32 Crdt Dfnse, 33 mother2, 34 Ender, 35 Ron, 36 Doris K., 37 Bkev, 38 Reshod, 39 Hope, 40 Mist, 41 Hal, 42 J. Edgar, 43 supershawn, 44 dlo64, 45 leo728, 46 Mike, 47 river, 48 MartysGirl, 49 PsychDoc, 50 tom65432, 51 jamie, 52 Kelly, 53 G. Fisher, 54 JacquiG, 55 AnnMarie, 56 judyputy, 57 mj, 58 Doug, 59 Geo, 60 matty61184, 61 MikeG, 62 author_22, 63 steve, 64 PSUgirl, 65 Mirage, 66 Bill B, 67 RichGuy, 68 David, 69 ShyGuy, 70 keltexx, 71 Sorin, 72 VJ, 73 Chet, 74 Cindy, 75 brad, 76 tmitchell, 77 Newcomer, 78 jfpruitt, 79 Dustin, 80 eddie, 81 MiamiBlues, 82 chriscraft, 83 Quixote, 84 OtherTerri, 85 jason, 86 Kittw1, 87 SisterGirl, 88 Concerned, 89 Don, 90 marvin, 91 jonesing, 92 kim, 93 me, 94 greyfox, 95 Becky, 96 jshimmer, 97 curiouser, 98 Terry, 99 KristyW, 100 nursie, 101 Melissa, 102 fingrrrl, 103 Tuit, 104 Shirley, and 105 texastrini.

Well, that's it. I hope you enjoyed this. I study behavior for a living. Your number was up.

Doc

 

Re: WHOA: My Study of CreditNet Mem

breeze, how did you know I don't like football!? You mindreader you! Actually, I live in the heart of Vols country -- east Tennessee -- home of the University of Tennessee and its never-ending orange-and-white football mania. I hate football. I think that may be one of the three main reasons my wife married me. The other two: I can have sex for at least 72 hours straight before needing food or water. Plus, I make her laugh.

Ok, I was exaggerating about making her laugh.

As for the CreditNet study, here's the real reason I did it: I have a paper I'm supposed to present at a psychology conference next week, and I'm procrastinating. Somehow I ended up reading the postings on CreditNet -- an addiction I developed during the past few months. After clicking the wrong link and discovering the public list of members, I was off to the races. Data. Unanalyzed. It had to be done. The professional paper could wait. I thought the results were interesting though, lol.

Here are a few more I left out:

1) What percentage of people who actually take the time to join CreditNet NEVER make a post? (This doesn't count the people who read this board and never join, by the way.) I'm talking about our TRUE LURKERS -- not the people who simply pass through. These folks are real members, but they just NEVER post anything. The number of these lurkers is surprisingly high -- more than one-third of the membership, 35% to be exact, some 377 individuals.

2) Of that list I posted of the 105 members who have posted at least 150 times, what overall impact do they have on what goes on here? Well, that erudite group only represents 9.8% of the membership. (My apologies to the 90.2% of everyone else I left out.) But this small 9.8% group is responsible for... a whopping 80.6% of all posts on the board.

3) Even better than that, GEORGE is responsible for 5.1% of all messages all by himself. (But every one is a treasure.)

Ok, I'll stop. I could probably diddle these numbers at least 72 hours straight without food or water. This is unhealthy. The end.

Doc