Correlating subscribes, unsubscribes, and "everybody who posted in the last month" should be fairly easy when Doug's cooked up his list of threads/messages combined with what I assume are logs of subscribe and unsubscribe that Matt and co. have access to. From that we can work out average turnover, subscription length, lurker %, etc...
-Josh On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 1:48 PM, Anatole Tartakovsky < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Matt, Doug, > > If you can just count subscriptions for the last 9 month, then take out > 2500 of the accumulated difference, you would get unsubscribes. I assume > that you are working off logs, not from the memberships export as it would > remove unsubscribed members within the week (some busy people are really > quick). > > For example if we speculate using your rate of 100 per week it would be 40% > of unsubscibes on 75% annual growth rate if people would not unsubscribe. > The next question would be average length of subscription - ie how many > experienced users are staying in the community. Next it needs to be > adjusted for how many of these 10K members are actually getting their feeds > rather then having it in "Web Only/Digest" mode if that number is > significant - and when do they switch to "Web Only" and "Digest"mode. > > One way or another number of messages in community has to correlate with > the number of "active" members. Once we establish actual "retaining" numbers > we should see the point when/if message number hurts the usability. > > Now, *why am I suggesting 15 groups in place of one*? *Do I really think > all of them would work*? No, but: > 1. We would reasonably quickly find out which ones do - can either fold > the rest of them in "generic" one or combine in more targeted bigger ones. > 2. Make asking person job harder by forcing them to think what kind of > question he is about to ask and what type of person he would like to answer > the question > 3. Instead of making Alex answer the same messages weekly you can get more > moderators with reasonably light load and good handle on the things in their > domain. The model is similar to "Community Experts" except it would be > nominated/driven by community. > > "BOF" groups are better communication platform then "one size fit all" > marketplace. Let the community be its own search engine and provide us with > the metrics - by supporting more natural process of finding information and > networking. > > Sincerely, > Anatole Tartakovsky > Farata Systems > On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 9:20 PM, Matt Chotin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> As far as stats, we've had about 100 people join in the last week. I >> don't know how many folks unsubscribed, that seems to be a little harder to >> track easily and I don't have time to read through all the logs (if someone >> would like to write some scripts to go through the logs and build up these >> kinds of stats let me know and I'll get you access). Also hard to know how >> many of the folks who joined are spammers, but I don't think that many :-) >> >> This is a tough position for me to comment on because we want the >> community to thrive and have a life of its own that isn't controlled by >> Adobe. That said, we clearly want to see it succeed and will involve >> ourselves as necessary to try to make that happen. >> >> Based on the comments I'm seeing in this thread I don't see the big clamor >> to divide the list. I see folks who have figured out workflows that work for >> them, and suggestions for how to make things more manageable. That said, the >> issue that Anatole raises is whether we are preventing new users from >> getting help, or preventing advanced users from participating. Most of those >> folks who have been "hurt" we can assume are folks who are not on the list >> anymore, so it's difficult to really know without some sort of data as to >> why they left the list. If people are willing to wait a few weeks, maybe we >> could work on trying to gather that data and make a decision after. Another >> piece of data we could use is an analysis of the kinds of posts that have >> happened recently, perhaps compared to posts from a year ago, and see if the >> skill level of posters is increasing, how many threads are going un >> answered, semi-subjective view of signal vs. noise. This would help us >> understand if there is meaning behind the low rate of increase in total >> number of members, as well as the generally flat nature of posts per month. >> >> Does doing this kind of analysis interest anyone? Are the folks who >> advocate separating the list interested in waiting for this kind of >> analysis? For me, it seems kind of critical to have real data before making >> this kind of decision, as we're going with hunches as to what's really >> happening here. I'd have a hard time getting behind a real split when we >> don't know if doing so would actually improve things. >> >> Matt >> >> >> On 6/17/08 3:15 PM, "Anatole Tartakovsky" <[EMAIL >> PROTECTED]<anatole.tartakovsky%40gmail.com>> >> wrote: >> >> Doug, >> As far as I know, I am the only one in the NY office who did not >> unsubscribe from the group. Looks at the stats ( provided by Tim) or just go >> to the group page. Also, the number of users if I remember it correctly has >> been in 9K for at least 6 month - meaning you have the same number of people >> in and OUT - obviously you need to ask Matt if he has more detailed stats on >> unsubscribes count. >> Regards, >> Anatole >> >> On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 5:35 PM, Doug McCune <[EMAIL >> PROTECTED]<doug%40dougmccune.com>> >> wrote: >> Actually, this is worth going back to, because your initial email said >> that the group was "stagnant" and has plateaued with the number of new users >> and questions. Except your reason for bringing it up is that the traffic has >> gotten too much for you to read every message. So clearly the level of >> traffic isn't stagnant. Unless what you're saying is that about 6 months ago >> the traffic reached a critical level where you couldn't deal with the >> traffic but then it stopped growing. >> >> So I guess I'm saying I question the claim that this list is "stagnant". >> Almost 10,000 members and an average of 100 messages a day. Are you saying >> that these stats have been the same for the past 6 months? And even if that >> is true (although I'd like to see numbers before I accept that) then I don't >> even necessarily think that this indicates that there's a problem. There's a >> simple fact that a ton of questions have already been accurately answered by >> this list. I would hope that the archived knowledge of the list serves to >> answer more and more questions that newcomers have, meaning they don't need >> to post the questions over and over. >> >> What is the real problem? I haven't heard anyone say that the traffic on >> this single list has stopped them from asking any questions (although I'm >> open to the possibility that this is true, and just hasn't been voiced). And >> largely I think that the number of people answering questions has remained >> high and the response times are still good. I have heard that the traffic >> level has stopped people from reading the questions that others ask (I >> certainly skim and sometimes skip entire days). I'd argue that a combination >> of self-moderated subject tagging, as well as more aggressive pointing >> repeat questions to cached answered (and then tagging the entire thread as a >> repeat) will largely solve this problem. >> >> So do you have numbers that indicate the stagnation you are worried about? >> >> Doug >> >> On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 1:28 PM, Anatole Tartakovsky < >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] <anatole.tartakovsky%40gmail.com>> wrote: >> Matt, >> Let us review the goal - in the original post I explained that single >> group causes stagnation. If you agree with the numbers and reasoning behind >> it, let us look at the proposition in that light. IMHO, the mentioned >> measures while staying within the same single group would probably extend >> the number of users by 20-30% byhoping to reduce number of posted messages >> by the same percentage - but it is hardly the goal we are trying to achieve >> here. >> >> Realistically Adobe should be looking for place public pace to exchange >> ideas and networking as well as getting trivial help. The product and >> community are just too big for one group. Let us split it up and let each >> subgroup speak their own language. I would gladly moderate standalone >> enterprise/j2ee/best practices track. But looking few times a day @ the >> whole stream to fish out what might be related to the topic and having some >> messages falling through the cracks might be not the recommended "best >> practices" solution. >> >> Sincerely, >> Anatole >> >> On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 1:48 PM, Matt Chotin <[EMAIL >> PROTECTED]<mchotin%40adobe.com>> >> wrote: >> Hey folks, let's calm down a little here, K? >> >> Alright, based on what I've been seeing people say, here's my suggestion. >> >> 1) Let's get an FAQ going that can be edited by moderators or members of >> the community. This will be about common problems that folks run into. One >> suggestion of course from me would be that we use the Cookbook for "how-to" >> type questions. But for things that don't seem like they're cookbook >> appropriate, we can put them in the FAQ. I like the idea of doing it in >> Buzzword, though Buzzword docs won't come up in Google. Long-term I think >> the right place might be in whatever we set up in the Adobe Developer >> Center. But for now how about we just allocate a page off of the opensource >> wiki. We can pick some moderators who can edit the page and I will get them >> added so they can take care of it. We can also add the link to the FAQ to >> the bottom of every email. >> >> 2) Some folks suggested that you either mark in the body or in the subject >> something that indicates what you're talking about. Seems reasonable. We >> could use some of the topics that were being suggested. [UX], [Enterprise], >> [Data Services] [Announce], etc. We don't need to limit this, but by >> following a convention of placing the general area of discussion, folks will >> know if they're going to be capable of getting involved in the thread. The >> more people follow this convention, the more efficient it will become. >> >> 3) We can get aggressive on the moderation. Rather than just scanning for >> spam, moderators can actually look at the posts by new users and decide if >> they meet the general criteria for asking a question. If they don't, the >> moderator can reject the post and point the user to the forum FAQ which has >> posting guidelines. >> >> 4) We can update the flexcoders FAQ (which is actually linked at the >> bottom of every single post) to include the updated posting guidelines and >> remove the common questions section so that the forum FAQ is only about >> forum etiquette and the coding FAQ is about the actual problems. >> >> If this sounds OK then what we need are the two kinds of moderators: >> >> 1. moderators for the forum itself who are willing to really look at all >> posts that are in moderation and analyze whether they should be passed >> through. If it is a poorly formed question, the post should be rejected with >> a pointer to the forum FAQ. >> 2. moderators for the FAQ who can pay attention to common questions and >> update the FAQ as appropriate. >> >> If we're all on board, send those moderators to me and we can get things >> set up. And folks can start following the tagging convention instantly in >> the meantime. >> >> Matt >> >> > > -- "Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee." :: Josh 'G-Funk' McDonald :: 0437 221 380 :: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
