Volunteers needed for DU research project

[ComerPerro]

Fully funded by the ComerPerro Research Endowment for Killing Time (CPREKT)

As you may or may not know, I am now newly unemployed (and enjoying it). Last year in February (when I discovered this site) I was a college student and therefore spent tons of time posting here. I think I had a thousand posts within a month.

Then I went home for summer, and worked. Therefore, I was rarely online, and was a ghost around here most of the summer.

I got back to school, but decided to work for a while instead. So while I looked for a job I was posting here like it was going out of style, built up another thousand within a month.

But in late September, I got a full time job. My posts dropped to ten a day.

Now I am unemployed again, and today alone I have posted about 200 times.

So:

The Proposal.

My hypothesis:

Posting frequency is inversely proportional to hours worked (can be time working, time doing school work, house work, kids, etc).


Any testimonials to support this?

Testimonials to the contrary?

I am somewhere around 5,000 now (I think), and if I don't find work soon I might hit ten thousand in no time.

[Rowdyboy]

1. I began posting in the summer of 2002...

since that time I have kept track of my posting (vaguely) and they have remained remarkably consistent: approximately 300 per month or ten per day. There are days that I don't post much at all, and days that I seem stuck to the keyboard but the average remains the same.

Whether busy or not, I find the time to express myself.

[ComerPerro]

2. Hmm, interesting

It looks as though despite surts and downtime in posting, you still maintain a nice average.

Ten per day is a good, healthy number.

Now, the question is, what do you think is the onset of these posting storms? How would you explain a day with, say, perhaps fifty or 100 posts? Also, how would you explain a day with zero or no posts?

Is the discrepancy related to subject matter on DU, or are the factors more external?

[Djinn]

3. may get to test that theory

when I get the sack for spending too much work time here!

[ComerPerro]

4. Ahh, but if you post AT work

Then will being terminated result in you posting more (because you aren't distracted with pretending you don't post here) or will you post less because you are actually doing something productive...

Breaking...

This could be important to either proving or disproving my theory.

[Djinn]

5. good question

well I don't actually have a PC at home - which is why I'm still at work an hour and half after knock off on a Friday night (btw I'm too poor for fun this weekend, I'm not normally this pathetic) so I probably would have to post less, until I got another job though - the sort of work I'm in means full internet access (and all the media players that make it so much fun) pretty much comes with the territory.

[Rowdyboy]

6. Subject matter plays a HUGE role

Some mornings there are simply no threads that make me care enough to post.

Other days, as a professional house husband, I simply can't participate as much as I'd like because there really IS life outside of DU.

When my partner goes to visit his mother for the weekend, my posts spike upward. When he's here, they trend downward. If the weather is nice, I'd rather be outside gardening. If it's cold or rainy or hot or humid, I'll just stay inside and read DU.

If my partner feels good and is free of responsibilities (grading, making out tests, averaging etc) then I don't post. If he's working, or exhausted and napping,, or gone to bed early, then I post on DU.

I post when its convenient, but, regardless, I'm driven to post.

[Rowdyboy]

7. kick

for ComerPerro