18 of 30 - Statistics Revisited

[aggienaut]

   A year ago in the study published in my 18th 30 in 30 entry I found that otimus had no less than 750 people on his friends list, with 143 friends-of, and 49 livejournal entries. This gave him the whopping ratio of 5.2 to 1 friends/friend-of. A year later I ran the numbers again, and this time otimus has 23 friends, 193 friends-of, and 37 entris. Whereas before he had had about five times the ratio of anyone else, now has by far the smallest ratio at 0.119 to 1.
   Also the deleted entries have caused his comments / entry to rocket up to about 88 / entry. Compare this to the next highest, apoplecticfittz with 48.6 and the average of 11. But did this craziness succeed in what I'd imagine its intended purpose was, to give him a throbbing friends-of list? Last year he had an average of 5.1 people friending him per month, now its 4.8.

   A year ago emd was new to the blogosphere and had a friends/friends-of ratio of 1.66, with comments per entry at 3.69. Since then she has quadrupled her friends-of list, and developed a bulging friends/friends-of ratio of 6.89, and not through any kind of trickery either -- her friends list itself has increased 176%, the highest increase of those studied, except for thetalesend who went from 6 to 13 friends and fucked up the numbers. Now emd gets 8.34 comments per entry

   The study was expanded from 20 to 25 livejournals studied, with three of the originals either inactive or no longer displaying their friends-of information (tingsquared!). Its important to note of course that these livejournals were not randomly selected, so comparative numbers might not be representative of the entire blogosphere. I bet someone with some computering skills could make a program or something that would run all these numbers rather than me being required to enter things by hand into excel. Then I could go on a statistical rampage.


   I already rather explained my thoughts on the statistics last year, but I'll go over them again in brief: my conclusions are that friends/friends-of ratio is a bogus indicator of blogging quality, because it encourages bloglitism (pronounced "blog-leet-ism") in keeping one's friends list low purely for the numbers. Many people who fancy themselves to be be kings or queens of the blogosphere and feel inadequate about the size of their friends-of will actually hide it from the world. Its perfectly healthy to have a ratio as high as the 1.2:1s, so don't be afraid, show off your blogsecurity and blogconfidence instead and whup out your friends-of list for all to see. If one is below .6(:1) though one is either awesome or bloglitest. (average of group studied: 0.91)
   Comments per entry is in my opinion the best indicator of someone who is an outstanding member of the blogosphere. High comment levels either indicate discussion inducing entries, or a livejournalist with great convsersational skills.... either that or they've been running around flaming people. 36% of those studied had less than four comments per entry, 56% had less than 6. Then there's a group with between 6 and 12 (24% of total), after which numbers hoot up with the top 20% averaging 45 comments per entry. (Average of group studied: 11.4, but the bottem 80% only averages 4.98)
   The other thing I think is a noteworthy indicator of megablogging skill is friends-of / month, which is kind of like looking at the friends-of list and then weighting it for time the livejournal has been existant. Top two in this category are giantlaser who was blogging from Iraq, and theuglyvolvo, with 16 and 13 respectively. In third we have emd with 8.7. I'd imagine this number starts out high with new livejournals and then decelerates, so far there have been only three livejournals studied at less than a year of age, two of which got exactly 7.00. (Group average: 4.42)


   In the past year my own comments have increased from an avg of 5.43 to 9.66 comments per entry over the last year. Friends list increased 136% while friends-of list increased 135%.


   And now I've probably bored you to tears. I'm sorry, I just wanted to see how things had changed since last year. Someone with skill, write me a program to do this. Otherwise, if you're interested in seeing how you compare to everyone else, ask me, and if you've already been included or ask really nicely, I'll tell you.


Previously on Emosnail
   Two Years Ago Today: Naught but a Meme - those things are only fun if you edit the results
   Year Ago Today: 4 of 30 - Discussion Topics - What a good idea. I should do that again. I posted a bunch of questions for the readers to answer, like which member of the US Executive Office would be most likely to grow an awesome mohawk, or which band would Saddam Hussain most likely to be a part of?

Comments

[rote.livejournal.com]

This is an amazing post. I love your dedication, but why didn't your study my blog?

[rote.livejournal.com]

you

your stats

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

Actually you were included, though you weren't last year.

And your results are consistent with a successful megabloggist. You have 27.1 comments per entry, putting you at fourth highest in that category. You have the smallest ("best") friends/friends-of ratio of anyone except otimus, at 0.214. In comments received to made however you have 0.438 received comments to made comments, meaning you're making way more comments than you're receiving, and people are leaving yhou hanging -- you have the second lowest ratio in that category. Friends-of per month is relatively high, sixth highest at 6.39 new friends-of per month. Also sixth highest for friends-of per entry, at 0.815. And finally, you make an average of 8 entries per month, which is the seventh least frequent rate, not that there is anything qualitative in that number.

Re: your stats

[rote.livejournal.com]

Well thank you! That was enlightening. I'd disagree with your statement that people leave me hanging, though. Considering where a good many of these comments were made (communities, trolling random blogs, and not on my friends' blogs), I don't think it's too bad.

Also, I'm generous with my comments! Commend me :(

Re: your stats

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

As long as you're secure in your commenting skills I'm sure there's nothing to worry about. And your other statistics are quite impressive, consider yourself commended!

Re: your stats

[emd.livejournal.com]

I think you should choose blogging as your major.

Re: your stats

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

Haha. English with an emphasis on blogging? It does rather make me wish I hadn't avoided statistics like the plague. I spent a little bit of time trying to remember how to make a graph on excel but in the end I was defeated )=

[apoplecticfittz.livejournal.com]

I fucking agree!

LjDrama

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

In completely unrelated news, I think rote is totally moving in on your ljdrama action. He's whipped up a frenzy of drama it appears.

[apoplecticfittz.livejournal.com]

You were wrong about this boring me to tears at least...I am enthralled by this entry! Well done.

[otimus.livejournal.com]

The Blogosphere is a lie, and megablogging a megafascist term created by idiots.

[otimus.livejournal.com]

Also, let it be noted that I had wiped my journal clean a month or so ago, out of a really lame fit of depression, and I intended to just drop off the blogging planet, until some folks begged me to join them in 30 in 30. That's why my friends list shrunk, and the whole comments/friends/thing/whatever/sandwich.

Additionally, I went out of style in 2002!

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

trembyle went on a livejournal deletion rampage as well. I think he wasn't included in the research though because he hid his friends-of.

[otimus.livejournal.com]

He shouldn't be included because he's a drunk fascist!

trembyle

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

a drunk fascist catapulistic poet?

Re: trembyle

[otimus.livejournal.com]

Yes.
And a terrorist.

Re: trembyle

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

Hey why did you have 750 friends anyway?

Re: trembyle

[otimus.livejournal.com]

I've had a few reasons for massive friendings in my history. Either it's to gather around a lot of people for ATTACK.. or just to offend a lot of people en mass. Or I was very depressed, and tried to increase my chances of getting someone to listen to me whine.

[emd.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm all for making some stuff friends only, like i did, BUT DELETION IS WRONG.

[emd.livejournal.com]

I would like this amended. I get the same amount of comments as I always did sorta, average of 15 to 20ish counting my replies, a year ago it was probably 10-15ish, and have never surpassed 50 comments.
I am comment POOR kris.

Comments

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

The numbers don't lie!! Maybe you just very consistently get 15-20 comments. Shit man I don't get 10-15 comments per entry!