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[JohnW2]

I've no idea how long it's been the case, but during the 5 or so years I've been contributing to this forum, it has been extremely rare, probably almost unknown, for a thread to get no replies at all.

There are 909 with no reply, 120 on your watch. Some will be locked, but most are still open and devoid of answers.

Thanks. I presume that's out of totals of about 55280 and 17550 respectively - so about 1.6% overall and about 0.7% "during my watch". In context, I reckon that probably counts as 'extremely rare'. I must say that even 120 during my period here rather surprises me - that's one every couple of weeks on average, and I didn't think it was anything like that common.

Those figures (lower % since I started contributing) might be said to kill another of stillp's theories but, to be fair, I imagine that 'no reply' was inevitably more common in the early days, simply because of a reduced number of members available to do any replying. To test that idea, are you able to tell us how many 'no reply' threads there were in the first 'few thousand' (your choice!)??

Edit: I've just been wondering - under what circumstances would an OP with no replies get locked? If it were an 'unacceptable' OP, wouldn't it just be removed?

Kind Regards, John

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Thanks. I presume that's out of totals of about 55280 and 17550 respectively

Dunno.

I imagine that 'no reply' was inevitably more common in the early days, simply because of a reduced number of members available to do any replying. To test that idea, are you able to tell us how many 'no reply' threads there were in the first 'few thousand' (your choice!)??

No more (or less) able than you....

It would be a little tedious to jump back and forth through the form sorted in different ways to find how many posts with & without answers in each year, but it could be done. Searching is of no use as there's a limit on the number of results returned.

But I'm not sure it would tell us much - whilst the number of members does increase with every passing year/month/week/day I don't get a sense of a likewise increasing number of regular responders.

I've just been wondering - under what circumstances would an OP with no replies get locked? If it were an 'unacceptable' OP, wouldn't it just be removed?

I think that the mods didn't have (maybe still don't have) the authority to delete threads, only to edit or delete posts, and to lock. Or maybe they did - there is no way of detecting threads which have been deleted. I only looked at a few, and the moderator had left a message such as "No advertising", or "Don't duplicate", so it's possible that some they just delete and in some they leave a message for the miscreant.

 

[JohnW2]

Thanks. I presume that's out of totals of about 55280 and 17550 respectively

Dunno.

I assume my figures were roughly correct. At the time I wrote, 55,280 was the total number of threads in the forum, of which about 17,500 had been started since I started participating.

...To test that idea, are you able to tell us how many 'no reply' threads there were in the first 'few thousand' (your choice!)??

No more (or less) able than you....

Fair enough. Since you had been able to quote the number of no-reply threads in the last 5 years, I thought that you may have found a quick and easy way of doing it, such that you would be able to easily produce a figure for, say, the first year of the forum.

But I'm not sure it would tell us much - whilst the number of members does increase with every passing year/month/week/day I don't get a sense of a likewise increasing number of regular responders.

That's probably largely true now (and probably has been true for a long time). However, in the earliest days there would have been so few members that I would have thought that an appreciable number of no-reply threads will have been inevitable. Don't forget that the difference you have illustrated between overall no-reply rate and the rate in the past 5 years might possibly all be attributable to the first few months (or year or two) of the forum.

I think that the mods didn't have (maybe still don't have) the authority to delete threads, only to edit or delete posts, and to lock. Or maybe they did - there is no way of detecting threads which have been deleted. I only looked at a few, and the moderator had left a message such as "No advertising", or "Don't duplicate", so it's possible that some they just delete and in some they leave a message for the miscreant.

Maybe, but it certainly seems that some inappropriate posts (like advertising) often simply 'disappear' before there are any replies (and before many people have even see them). The mods here certainly have the ability to move threads into different 'places' (usually forums). Whenever I have been involved in forum administration, no-one has had the ability to literally 'delete' (destroy) threads or posts. Instead, we have moved them to some 'hidden place', so that they could 'be scrutinised by higher authorities' and remained available as 'evidence'.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Fair enough. Since you had been able to quote the number of no-reply threads in the last 5 years, I thought that you may have found a quick and easy way of doing it, such that you would be able to easily produce a figure for, say, the first year of the forum.

Sort by reply count - home in on the page where it goes from 0 to 1, work out how many there must be.

It looks as if when sorting by reply count it sorts by date within that, so finding the pages where years change would be at worst a tad tedious.

 

[JohnW2]

Sort by reply count - home in on the page where it goes from 0 to 1, work out how many there must be. It looks as if when sorting by reply count it sorts by date within that, so finding the pages where years change would be at worst a tad tedious.

OK. Looking back, my 'theory' about the earliest days breaks down a little, since it appears that "breezer" replied to almost every thread for at least the first few months!

Kind Regards, John