Yeah, it's a bit harsh.

Subject: Yeah, it's a bit harsh.
Author: Huinesoron
Posted on: 2014-04-25 15:23:00 UTC

And has apparently gotten worse in the past... month and a half. Or at least, something has. Here's the number of unique IPs visiting the Board per day since last March:

You can see we had an April-June dropoff last year, followed by a slow climb - followed by a massive collapse beginning at the start of March this year. The number of IPs - and thus, we have to assume, the number of people - visiting the Board has halved in the last two months.

The number of posts, though, don't seem to have followed suit - March had more than any month since, wow, last May. And, actually, April and May last year - the months of the dropoff - had unusually high post totals. The heck, guys? We post more, and less people visit? How does that work?

I did actually find my memory stick eventually, thank the stars - I should probably have mentioned sooner! So I once more have my list of the ~1500 people with recorded posts on the Board, and their precise breakdowns. I even have a new graph calculating the number of current Boarders at any one time (not posters, since people could miss a month or two, but Boarders); it looks like this:

(Note the one-month spikes in '08 and '11 on the blue plot - those are Badfic Games! Also note that this is a far longer timescale than the other graph)

Yeah, that one's a bit depressing, too. I'm hoping it will turn out to be an artefact of some kind.

hS

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On this very day, one year ago... by Ailavyn Siniyash on 2014-04-18 18:48:00 UTC Reply

...I made my newbie post and was showered with gifts.

I just... I've said this before, but I want to reiterate. I love you all so much. This place is the most lovely, wonderful community, and you all are such lovely-wonderful people, and, well, thank you. For being your wonderful selves, and for making this past year amazing, and for making this place the way it is. Good wishes to all, forever. Continue being awesome. *hands out chocolate*

-Aila

Oh, hey, I kinda remember that :) *noms chocolate* by DawnFire on 2014-04-23 20:55:00 UTC Reply

Congrats, Aila! Now you can join the 'we've been here at least a year' club! In honor of that, you get...um...I'm not sure what the standard gift is, actually. If there is one. Let's say you get an urple pen (for reasons) and a certificate and a whole lot of Swiss Bleepolate and Gummyblee Fireworks (yup, they exist. Don't worry, only some of them have the poprocks effect :))

Seriously, though...thanks to you for all the same things you mentioned :) It's good to have you here.

~DawnFire, blatantly ignoring the fact that I've only been a Boarder for about 3-4 months longer than you. :D

I joined just after the Blackout ended. Sort of bad timing. by Ailavyn Siniyash on 2014-04-24 05:19:00 UTC Reply

Oh, thank you muchly! ...I think, whenever someone else makes a post like this, I throw packing peanuts on them, so no harm done. *noms Swiss Bleepolate*

*is filled with warm fuzziness*

-Aila, pointing out that you do, however, have Permission, my lack of which I'm to lazy to do anything about. :D

Nonsense! by Outhra on 2014-04-25 02:15:00 UTC Reply

That means that you were in the prime timeframe to read all of the new Blackout stories fresh from their keyboards! It was fun when I was watching everything unfold, but I think it would have also been a lot of fun to come in as you did, just in the wake of an important yet impermanent event that a large portion of the Board got involved in.
By the way, do you still have the translocator I gave you when you first arrived? i was looking up your newbie thread, and I just found out that I gave you that. I think you're the only newbie I've ever given a teleportation device!

So, this is probably a little late, but happy one-year anniversary! It's already been said that you're pretty awesome, so I don't need to reiterate that, but on a more individual level, it's great to see that someone else who joined around the same time I did is still here! The March-April 2013 batch of newbies doesn't have a lot of members left(Are we the last ones? Maybe.), and I've always liked seeing you around!

And you're not alone in your long wait for Permission. I've never even applied, in part because I'm insanely nervous about the quality of my Permission piece, and in part because any time I try to write one, I either ditch the idea or decide it would be too long for reasonable Permission limits if it was going to be any good. At least laziness is easy to explain.

Oh, drat, I'm making this about me again, aren't I? It's your party, and it should be treated as such. That said, I've prepared a cake! Most people have already eaten, with the free chocolates and all, but I wouldn't want you left out!

Well, there is that. by Ailavyn Siniyash on 2014-04-26 03:53:00 UTC Reply

I come swooping in on the tailwinds of History! (No, I have no idea where that just came from. Just... don't ask, I guess.)

Ooh, that! I think I stashed it in my closet somewhere *rummages* Here it is! And... huh. A ball of yarn, too. And a half-full bottle of the hydrophobic water SeaTurtle gave me. How very odd. I really ought to organise that thing.

*more warm fuzzy feelings* You guys. All these lovely things you're saying about me...
It's so sad how we see so many people come and then never reappear. I decided I was not going to become one of them. Also, *waves to fellow once-newbie from the same temporal slot!* And happy anniversary to you as well!

Heh. Mostly it's laziness, for me, but there's also the fact that my potential agents are constantly changing in my head. Communicating through projected emotions is not particularly good for snark. Perhaps a far more talented writer than I could pull it off, but... Yeah. All over the place.

(I don't mind!) And ooh, cake! What kind is it? *noms Generic Cake* *tries to figure out flavour*

-Aila
You pretty much are. by Huinesoron on 2014-04-25 11:20:00 UTC Reply

Having checked the files, I can confirm that. Specifically, between Feb and May '13, we had 29 newbies:

Boarder (Joined) ----- Last posted
stripeycat (Feb 2) ----- Mar-13
Silken Dawn (Feb 4) ----- May-13
Moonbather (Feb 5) ----- Feb-13
j.laurel.johnson (Feb 10) ----- Feb-13
Myrddin (Feb 12) ----- Sep-13
nedben (Feb 13) ----- Feb-13
Bausiren (Feb 22) ----- Aug-13
Quantum (Feb 27) ----- Mar-13
Khaosity (Mar 5) ----- Apr-13
Outhra (Mar 10) ----- Mar-14 (currently #13 on 'most extant posts of all time')
Pauline07 (Mar 16) ----- Aug-13
Joseph Stuewe (Mar 17) ----- Mar-13
Cobalt (Mar 18) ----- Mar-13
AelinTheAmazing/Impossible (Mar 22) ----- Sep-13
exterminatecake (Mar 27) ----- Apr-13
Nue Houjuu (Mar 28) ----- May-13
KittTheCat (Apr 7) ----- Jul-13
Ailavyn Siniyash (Apr 20) ----- Mar-14
Voyd211 (Apr 21) ----- Aug-13
a-rubra (Apr 21) ----- Aug-13
Time Engineer (May 3) ----- Mar-14 (after a hiatus since Aug-13)
LimboBoy (May 4) ----- Mar-14 (after a hiatus since May-13)
Casey (May 9) ----- May-13
Nathanc_a (May 11) ----- May-13
Jackalope (May 12) ----- May-13
Lenore Snow (May 19) ----- Feb-14
DemonFiren (May 21) ----- Mar-14
EK3 (May 25) ----- Jun-13
Hanako-san (May 30) ----- Jun-13

Left in same month: 8
Stayed 1-3 months: 9
Stayed 4-6 months: 5
Stayed 6-12 months: 2
Still present: 3
(Plus two long-hiatus)

So it's just you two - and you, Outhra, are way up in our most prolific posters (with recorded posts - I'm pretty sure a whole bunch of 2003-2005 posters would leave the current 'top' posters in the dust, but the archives don't hold the data). Actually, given that the next three above you are eiher gone or not frequent posters, another month or two should bump you into the top ten.

(For comparison's sake: you had made 1141 posts as of the end of last month. Neshomeh, sitting firmly at #1, has 3162 recorded posts - and of course did a lot of posting which has been lost from the archives. I have 2902 recorded posts, and estimate my total since joining to be somewhere on the order of 7000; unfortunately, my most prolific posting was late '04 to early '06, and there's practically no information for the 'golden year' of 2005. Alas. :()

hS, full o'facts

Wow. Huinesoron, master of charts, strikes again! by Outhra on 2014-04-25 13:57:00 UTC Reply

So out of that full third of a year, there are only four people who stuck around into 2014 without falling into the "long hiatus" category. The newbie turnover rate is even higher than I'd expected. Granted, not a lot higher, since I had already anticipated being among the last of my batch, but there are even more never-realized newbies than I thought there would be. Well, if you're anywhere nearby, DemonFiren and Lenore Snow, feel free to help yourselves to the anniversary cake!

Did you find your flash drive with all of the Board post data saved on it, or did you make a new one? I remember you saying that you lost it a while ago, and if you haven't found it again yet, compiling all of the thousands of Top Fifteen Poster posts must have taken a lot of work!

Yeah, it's a bit harsh. by Huinesoron on 2014-04-25 15:23:00 UTC Reply

And has apparently gotten worse in the past... month and a half. Or at least, something has. Here's the number of unique IPs visiting the Board per day since last March:

You can see we had an April-June dropoff last year, followed by a slow climb - followed by a massive collapse beginning at the start of March this year. The number of IPs - and thus, we have to assume, the number of people - visiting the Board has halved in the last two months.

The number of posts, though, don't seem to have followed suit - March had more than any month since, wow, last May. And, actually, April and May last year - the months of the dropoff - had unusually high post totals. The heck, guys? We post more, and less people visit? How does that work?

I did actually find my memory stick eventually, thank the stars - I should probably have mentioned sooner! So I once more have my list of the ~1500 people with recorded posts on the Board, and their precise breakdowns. I even have a new graph calculating the number of current Boarders at any one time (not posters, since people could miss a month or two, but Boarders); it looks like this:

(Note the one-month spikes in '08 and '11 on the blue plot - those are Badfic Games! Also note that this is a far longer timescale than the other graph)

Yeah, that one's a bit depressing, too. I'm hoping it will turn out to be an artefact of some kind.

hS

Ooh, charts! by Ailavyn Siniyash on 2014-04-26 03:55:00 UTC Reply

I was wondering when we'd see more of these.

-Aila

Dude. by SeaTurtle on 2014-04-25 08:54:00 UTC Reply

If you're worried about the quality of your Permission piece, you really shouldn't be. Your contributions to the New Caledonia and Purim* RPs are top notch and I really like your agent concepts.

Just go for a basic intro or slice-of-life piece and I'm sure you'll pass with flying colours. Believe in yourself!

*Speaking of that RP, what did Copernicus have to say about New Caledonia? I'm still interested! :P

Thanks. I probably needed that. by Outhra on 2014-04-25 19:45:00 UTC Reply

I tend to agonize over things like this, but if I don't actually get anything sent in, I'm never going to see if I would have succeeded. Actually, I think I'm going to roll up my prompts with the new Permission system now. Even if I don't get to them for a few days, it'll be a first step, and the way most of the new prompts are structured, I'd definitely be able to keep them to a manageable length.
Hmm. The grid I landed on after my random roll is kind of one-character-centric. Would I be able to choose a second prompt to be centric to the other character, which would make three stories total? I don't want to show character moments leaning too steeply toward only one of my agents in my Permission request, but I don't know if it would be a bad thing to throw the chosen prompt/random prompt dichotomy out of balance.

Oh, right, I never actually sent that next RP post! Argh! I will write it up tonight. Should I just attach it to this thread? I imagine it would be annoying for both of us to look for the original Purim RP thread in the future. It's probably four pages away by now.

While I'm at it, I should get around to finishing the Dalek-centric Continuity Council Epilogue that I was planning to put up somewhere when everyone else was writing them, didn't finish in time, and never found a spot where it would be appropriate to bring up. Fearn is fun to write, but as it stands now, he sort of just went away after the time streams were put back in place, with it being ambiguous whether he actually accomplished anything. That won't do.

I'm sure nobody will mind the thread hijack. by SeaTurtle on 2014-04-25 22:38:00 UTC Reply

...as you said, the Purim RP is so far down the Board it would be a pain to search for it. Just a question: for how long do you want the exchange to continue? I'm game as long as you are.

As for your Permission piece, I'd suggest choosing a prompt that gives equal screen time for both of your agents. After all, they are the stars of the show and the PGs want to get a feel for both of them.

A Dalek-centric Continuity Council spinoff? That sounds like a lot of fun! I'm looking forward to that...

Re: I'm sure nobody will mind the thread hijack. by Outhra on 2014-04-25 23:38:00 UTC Reply

I'm not sure how much longer I'd prefer. I'd like to see the exchange go on for a little longer, but since the rest of the party is over, I'm not sure how far a continuation would best work. Then again, since one of the conversants is a Time Lord and the other is temporally sensitive, we could easily use this as an opportunity for time-displacement meta-shenanigans.

I'd like that as well, but it looks as though part of the point of the new process is that one part of the new Permission piece-set would be randomly selected to ensure that the applicant is able to adapt. Just choosing all of the Permission prompts that one would use during the request might defuse that concept. This is assuming I didn't misinterpret its intent, of course.

It was only going to be one of the epilogues. I do have a Dalek Council-based sequel in mind, but at this point I have no idea how it's going to end, which is going to be a problem because endings are sort of super-important, and a few of the plot elements I'm working with are currently ambiguous at best. Don't expect the sequel for a while, essentially.

For the RP continuation... by SeaTurtle on 2014-04-26 09:36:00 UTC Reply

...how about we have three replies each and we see if we want to go on from there?

Point taken on the Permission prompts. Looking on the list, the ones that I would suggest are 1-5-(2), 1-6, and 2-6-(2)... if you decide on doing the not-random-prompt approach ~~which kinda flies in the face of the original point of random prompts but whatever~~. There's lots of potential for a two-agent interaction with each of these situations.

*noms chocolate* (nm) by son_of_heaven176 on 2014-04-22 02:52:00 UTC Reply
I wasn't here back then, but thanks for the chocolate! :) (nm) by Legacy on 2014-04-21 19:53:00 UTC Reply
I'll take that chocolate by Tigeress on 2014-04-18 20:18:00 UTC Reply

I'll be doing this, too, in about a year. *grins*
Aaaanyway, chocolate is delicious!