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TLDR: This years freshman crop is 40% smaller than last years, yet averages 16% more posts, posting 2 1/2 times more often! also: fall noobs > spring noobs
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The NumbersTotal Noobs
05-06 - 340
06-07 - 203
Total Noob Posts
05-06 - 6,878
06-07 - 4,763
Average Posts Per Day
05-06 - 1.10
06-07 - 2.93
The Next Level Message Board Annual Immigration Report: 2007
Less Noobs, More Posts
By Doctor John Henry Holliday
Our message board on The Next Level has seen significantly less immigration this year than the previous year. Curiously, however small in numbers, the new members have landed a greater footprint on the board's discussion compared to their direct upperclassman.
Both years showed a trend where fall and winter months (Aug-Jan) gain more new members than the spring and summer months (Feb-Jul), with September and October being the strongest months and February and July being the weakest. When grouped my month, this years greatest addition came in October with a mere 34 new members compared to last October's 44. The weakest month for the 06-07 season came in February with only 5 new members. Last year's low point was August with 18 new members, over triple that of February! To be brief, despite the fact that the seasons start off with a boom and end with a bust, this year still failed to gain as many new members as the last year. This can be seen visually with charts A and B.
You would expect the total number of posts from new members to follow the same pattern as above, only increasing with time (as older members have longer to post). This is not the case. Posters from over half of the months in 06 have fewer posts despite being on the board a year longer. The exception being November 05 and May 06, having large tallys due to regular posters Tenchimo Dos and Rem. If you remove these two posters (as well as 07's top posters: Type Ryan and torgo) from the list however, 06 freshmen fall short of 07 freshmen by a smashing 141 posts! The one standard is June and July, which still prove to be two of the weakest months, having a total of 269 posts from forty-five 06 posters and 203 from twenty 07 posters. See charts C and D.
The above figures should instantly conclude that 06-07 freshmen have a larger post per day. This is the case. The average month in 05-06 had a crop of new members with a total 1.10 ppd. 06-07? 2.93 ppd! Well over two and a half times more! Charts E and F.
Our latest wave of immigration has been minuscule in terms of numbers. But as the numbers show, this small draft of registrations has certainly been contributing. If the trend continues, we will eventually see enrollment become a rarity, yet those that do enroll will be engaged, quality posters, visibly active on the boards.
Data was collected at 7:30 AM CST 8/2/2007 from the member list sorted by join date, 8/1/2005 to 7/31/2007. Tommy Tallarico and 4 other joke accounts were removed from the list. The member list does not include memberships with 0 posts.
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