TNP Post activity over the years and a brief 2011 revival

[Eluvatar]

Today after updating the forum to xF 2.1.10, I stumbled across an admin control panel interface for statistics. Out of a sense of curiosity, I twiddled with the dials until I got a graph of when all the posts on this forum were posted (going back to the move to the s13 "TNP" invisionfree forum in November 2005). Below is the graph I found:

Discussing this graph on IRC, there was interest in what exactly the February 2011 spike was. To answer that, I poked around directly in the database, and found who made posts and where they made them that month:

Username	Posts
IndieGirl	2307
Blackshear	1139
Fibonacci	1049
syber rad	727
Vilnoia1	428
Rock McLargeHuge	383
Honeysheep	254
Democratic Donkeys	163
Felasia	56
Grosseschnauzer	28
Moany Old Gits	20
Westwind	17
Cakatoa	16
FALCONKATS	14
Dalimbar	10
Pasargad	8
Great Bights Mum	7
King Durk the Awesome	7
Topid	6
Aisli	5
Sydia	4
Dyr Nasad	3
A mean old man	3
Whamabama	3
Govindia	2
Biyah	2
genaty	2
Wilkshire	2
sedge	1
Sensemillistan	1
Blue Wolf II	1
NewLumos	1
King j	1
Flemingovia	1

And the topics, linking to the first post in the topic from February 2011:

Topic	Posts
I Just...	383
I Have...	371
I Am...	359
Favorite Things!	335
I Feel...	316
Describe the Person Above You	305
Pet Peeves	272
I WISH.....	267
I think...	262
You Might Not Know...	249
I Am Not...!	246
Flatter The Person Above You...	230
What should you be doing instead of being here?	219
I lied...	218
Word Association	213
Things You've Always Wondered...	204
Word Disassociation	181
What Song Are You Currently Listening To?	165
Questions Only	159
Who Posts Next?	158
Choose	125
I Learned	104
Describe The Person Below You!	104
What's Under Their Bed?	102
Tell a Lie About the Person Above You	90
Truth or Dare?	85
The North Pacific Kissing Booth	84
Action Thread! (cue Explosions)	74
Nostalgia	74
Your Favorite Songs	74
Give the above poster a useless superpower	73
Playlist Word Association	56
What TV Show Are You Watching??	49
What would you buy?	48
Post A Song Lyric Telling How You Feel...	39
Updating Law 30 on the Security Council	37
TNP OOC Quotes: Best Of	31
Three Word Story	31
Tangents!	30
News from the Delegate	25
Silly Old Conversations	19
Where Am I?	18
VOTE: Legal Code and Constitution Review; CLO Reference	18
VOTE: Emergency Review of Executive Action; Clarification of procedures;	18
The Last Book You Read...	13
Drawrings	9
Indie's Inanities	9
Bonjour	7
In The Last Four Years I Have...	7
Post the first 5 random tracks!	6
Old R.A. Member Application thread	6
Dear DD	6
FORUM CHANGES	5
Socks & Undies	5
Song Quotes	5
Boo?	5
Security Council Votes	5
Aloha from TSP	5
Regional Update- February 2011	5
C-Log	4
Need advice on how to play more actively	4
FD: Emergency Review of Executive Action; Clarification of procedures	4
Embassy of Equinox	4
Security Council Applications	3
Appointments to the State Council of The North Pacific	3
Reports	3
Ask Opa!	3
FD: Legal Code and Constitution Review; CLO Reference	3
So... What have we done for the last 4 years?	3
Mardi Gras in Equinox	3
Regional Update	3
Share Your Photos Here!	2
Radio TNP	2
Oaths of Office	2
Housekeeping Legislation	2
News Stories	2
Fan Page in facebook	2
Blackshear for Vice Delegate	2
Assembly Membership and Seniority List	2
*prances in on a glorious white stallion*	2
Regional Update	2
The Lieb thread	1
Legal Provisions Governing the Security Council	1
GA At Vote: Military Freedom Act[Archived]	1
Sign In	1
Hey Guys!	1
The North Pacific Army	1
Embassy of The Rejected Realms	1
Where are they now?	1
Directory of Positions in The North Pacific	1

 

[Praetor]

Discussing this graph on IRC, there was interest in what exactly the February 2011 spike was.

Old habits die hard huh?

Cool graph though.

 

[Syrixia]

The future is now, old man!

Very interesting. I have some follow-up questions for you if you ever get bored enough to look into it

1. Why were there so many posts at the beginning, at a rate it took 12 years to surpass?
2. What caused that surpassing? IE: What caused the high rate in 2017?
3. What caused the high rate in 2019?

 

[Eluvatar]

1. Why were there so many posts at the beginning, at a rate it took 12 years to surpass?

I can guess an answer to this one easily: because people were copying all the essential topics from Old Blue (rules, laws, constitution, spam topics...), and breaking in the new forum with a good amount of spammery. I can check if I'm right later.

 

[Bobberino]

Anecdotally it would check out that 2019 had a good spike in posts. MadJack's spam week was very effective.

 

[Gorundu]

Anecdotally it would check out that 2019 had a good spike in posts. MadJack's spam week was very effective.

The spike was November 2019, quite a while after MadJack's spam week. Nothing significant happened in November, so I assume it might have just been an active period on the spam forums.

 

[Janus]

A few things regarding OP.
IndieGirl, the original Spam Goddess, was newly back (she had very serious health issues) and lot of people here cared for her quite a bit, and Honeysheep and DD were both present and active. No one could locate Sydia, a TNP friend of IndieGirl's, unfortunately, at least as of Feb. 2.
Unrelated, but all of the following may be linked:
Biyah was here at that time as, of all things, Secretary of Intelligence Analysis.
Westwind was here (previously Lewis and Clark of the Crimson order coup) in the position of VD. I don't know if that was their highest position in TNP since the coup as I was CTEed at the time most likely.
Durk and Dali were here, but not very active, perhaps occupied elsewhere. May not have anything to do with anything here.
Flemingovia looks to have been quasi-active with only one post (and possibly numerous IRC postings,) though Grosse looks to have been pretty active, as was Moany Old Gits, but the other members of the SC were also only quasi-active forum-wise: GBM and Pasargad.
Edit stuff and further analysis.
Edit whatever: most spikes at that time and previous ones directly correlate to summer vacation for students. Someone else can verify that. Drama invariably spiked forum activity as well, namely coups and coup attempts.

 

[lilith]

getting -

 

[Janus]

Edit whatever: most spikes at that time and previous ones directly correlate to summer vacation for students. Someone else can verify that. Drama invariably spiked forum activity as well, namely coups and coup attempts.

I was basing this statement on my own experience and that of what others told me quite some time ago. Looking at it today only a couple of spikes match this.

 

[El Fiji Grande]

Just saw this - that's an interesting graph, Elu. I wonder what that graph would look like if we removed all spam activity.