Lurker statistics - Myth Busted! The real story

Regularly i read messages where people discuss the existence of the "Lurker", or people who read the messages but don't post to the message.

I hate to burst the bubble, but in the vast majority of cases, there are surprisingly few lurkers. People judge the number of lurkers from the number of "Message views" for the message.

The statistics for how this works.

For the purpose of the math here, we use an example of a message posted by 1 person that is always viewed by 4 others who are genuinely interested in reading the message and maybe posting. Thats 5 people in total that will always read the message.

Message No.1 posted = 1 view by poster
4 readers = 5 views

1 person replies and the other 4 read the second message = 10 views

1 person replies and the other 4 read the third message = 15 views

1 person replies and the other 4 read the forth message = 20 views

1 person replies and the other 4 read the fifth message = 25 views

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Now thats all very simple. 5 messages posted, each message viewed by 5 people = 25 views

So where is the Lurker you ask?

To add to our total 25 views, many people will post their message, exit the message and re-enter to read what they posted again. They may do this to check spelling, edit their message or to re-think what they just wrote. Some people will re-read the same message several times for a variety of reasons.

This practice is far more common than you might think! About 30% of people will keep doing this re-visiting thing further clocking the number of message views!

In our case, we can add roughly 10 more views to our count.

25 + 10 = 35 views

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Then there are moderators who have to read all messages, lets add another 3 views for the moderator.

35 + 3 = 38 views

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Then there are search engine robots like Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc, etc. All these bots will also clock the view counter on your message.

There are about 16 very popular bots that scour the internet recording everything every few hours. There are thousands of other robots that that periodically do the same thing.

Here is a list of the most popular search engine robots;

MSNbot Media, Google [Bot], Yahoo [Bot], MSN [Bot], Ask Jeeves [Bot], Google Adsense [Bot], Heritrix [Crawler], Baidu [Spider], Majestic-12 [Bot], Alexa [Bot], psbot [Picsearch], WiseNut [Bot], Gigabot [Bot], YahooSeeker [Bot], W3C [Validator], AdsBot [Google].
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So our message also gets "Crawled" by bots, we can add another 10 hits in a 24 hour period.

38 + 10 = 48 views

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Summery and conclusion;

Total message views = 48 message views in a 24 hour period for the message with 5 readers and 5 messages posted.

There are almost zero lurkers viewing your message!

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The real Lurker

There will always be a few real lurkers, but the real lurkers are you, the message posters! Unless the particular message has been "advertised" somewhere else bringing in extra traffic, there are almost zero lurkers!

Lurkers: Myth Busted!

John.
[I might view this message several times to check spelling :) ]

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just added 10 more views by clicking back and forth on my arrows

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

LuRk lUrK!

First post in 11 days. I wasn't going to post today except to prove a point.

The point is I'm lurking...

Lurk! :)

Lurkers: Myth Busted!

LuRk lUrK!

First post in 11 days. I wasn't going to post today except to prove a point.

The point is I'm lurking...

Lurk! :)

If there are no lurkers what is the percentage of crunchers who then use the forums? 0.01%? Better to go green and shut down the boards.

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me@rescam.org

Lurkers: Myth Busted!

LuRk lUrK!

First post in 11 days. I wasn't going to post today except to prove a point.

The point is I'm lurking...

Lurk! :)

If there are no lurkers what is the percentage of crunchers who then use the forums? 0.01%? Better to go green and shut down the boards.

uh huh - some things never change . . .

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BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

Lurkers: Myth Busted!

LuRk lUrK!

First post in 11 days. I wasn't going to post today except to prove a point.

The point is I'm lurking...

Lurk! :)

If there are no lurkers what is the percentage of crunchers who then use the forums? 0.01%? Better to go green and shut down the boards.

I'm sure there are hundreds of lurkers that go to number crunching to find out why the servers are down and to find answers to other problems. Number crunching and questions and answers are a necessity. The others could go but I personally like them. A forum without a general chat area is boring.

uh huh - some things never change . . .

BOOGA! BOOGA! ;)

uh huh - some things never change . . .

Some things do. Like New Jersey.

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me@rescam.org

BOOGA! BOOGA! ;)

A good example of a NC lurker. Now magnify that by hundreds.

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me@rescam.org

I finally had to post. I have been lurking since day 1. I started to read number crunching for years before I made my first post there.
The same goes for Cafe Seti. I think I was posting in number crunching for a couple of years before I allowed myself to post here.

I finally had to post. I have been lurking since day 1. I started to read number crunching for years before I made my first post there.
The same goes for Cafe Seti. I think I was posting in number crunching for a couple of years before I allowed myself to post here.

According to the helicopter flying MIB you don't exist. It was the planet Venus reflecting off some swamp gas.

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me@rescam.org

Late breaking news - looks like the current upload logjam is breaking up -
Man your Upload Stations Everyone!
just lurking!

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Classic WU= 7,237 Classic Hours= 42,079

Late breaking news - looks like the current upload logjam is breaking up -
Man your Upload Stations Everyone!
just lurking!

The auto upload station is always manned and it beat me to in on one machine.
As for the other some dang eager beaver made another logjam!
Likely have the weekend crash before it clears.
back to lurking this thread

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Jessie Ventura and Alex Trebek showed up at my door, wearing all black. Then next think I knew I had a craving for pie. I then remember eating a slice of pie at the local all night diner. But the waitress there told me I ate an entire pie. Very strange. And who is Lord Kinbote?

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me@rescam.org

Jessie Ventura and Alex Trebek showed up at my door, wearing all black. Then next think I knew I had a craving for pie. I then remember eating a slice of pie at the local all night diner. But the waitress there told me I ate an entire pie. Very strange. And who is Lord Kinbote?

Question is, which game are you playing? Or What drugs are you on?

Jessie Ventura and Alex Trebek showed up at my door, wearing all black. Then next think I knew I had a craving for pie. I then remember eating a slice of pie at the local all night diner. But the waitress there told me I ate an entire pie. Very strange. And who is Lord Kinbote?

Question is, which game are you playing? Or What drugs are you on?

Likely up 72 hours straight hitting the retry button. :)

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I've been Lurking in and out of this thread every since i posted it.

Its funny but, maybe I'm wrong, this Lurking thing is cool! Makes forums go very quiet when it happens too much though. Then they die and the Lurkers stop turning up altogether.

I think we all Lurk a little from time to time.

John

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I've been Lurking in and out of this thread every since i posted it.

Its funny but, maybe I'm wrong, this Lurking thing is cool! Makes forums go very quiet when it happens too much though. Then they die and the Lurkers stop turning up altogether.

I think we all Lurk a little from time to time.

John

. . . 'Officially' Thanking You, John for the Beautiful work on the Unofficial BOINC Wiki Sir




<lUrxz MODe oN>

bye-bye & l8Tr . . .

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BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

well ive been lurking here since you started it.

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[/quote]

Old James

I'm not admitting to anything ;)

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Nobody is nobody. Everyone has something to offer