PropertyChat is 4 years old!

larrylarry · 23rd Jan, 2020

Simon Hampel said: ↑

Hopes and wishes?
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There was so much talk about Brisbane. I was unmoved.

MTR · 19th Jun, 2021

Simon Hampel said: ↑

17. Posts per day - top 50% of posters vs the rest (28 day moving averages)

I've previously tried looking at the breakdown of posters using an approximation of the 80/20 rule (20% of the posters generate 80% of the content) - but found that the patterns largely just followed the overall post volume and didn't give us any new insights.

So this time, I decided to look at comparing activity between the top posters vs the rest - split right down the middle.

I started by investigating which members contribute the majority of the posts. Here's what I found:

From launch to our 4th anniversary, we've had 9,153 members post on PropertyChat

In that same period, we made 697,219 posts

I found that 84 members made 50% of the posts - that's 0.92% of the members making 50% of the posts

In summary: if you have made at least 1,588 posts then you are in the top 50% of posters, if we measure it by contribution to the overall post total

So let's compare those two groups: 84 members in the top 50% vs 9,069 members in the bottom 50%:

View attachment 35401

This is kind of interesting - and not what I initially expected. If we consider the "bottom 50%" to be mostly made up of new members and new investors, then I would have expected a fairly significant drop in post volume in recent years as investor sentiment seems to have waned.

However, that's not what we're seeing - yes, post volumes are down, but not by as much as from the top 50% of members. It seems that our newer members are driving the post volume now - and as we've seen from other charts, the diversity of posters is increasing, which is a good thing.

Here's another view of the data where I look at the percentage difference between the posts made by the top 50% vs the rest of posters.

View attachment 35421

This more clearly shows which group is making the most posts. Interestingly, during the 2017 peak in posting activity, the activity is fairly evenly split. But before then (boom period?) it was the top posters driving activity, and since then (downturn?) it has been the bottom 50% driving the post activity.

So we're seeing a few of our previously top posters go a bit quiet in recent years. APRA has had a huge impact - but also the uncertainty in the leadup to the last federal election also played a part.

Given these stats are from launch - we also have to consider that some of our more active members earlier on are no longer active - and a few are no longer as active as they were.

Two examples of no longer active top members come to mind - @Azazel was extremely active in the first 18 months of the site (even if he didn't exactly add a lot of value with his frequent short posts) but has not posted since early Nov 2016. Despite this, he remains our 10th highest poster! If he had continued with the same post rate, he would had added over 15,000 posts to our total up until our 4th anniversary and would be well above @Terry_w in post count (but no doubt well short of Terry's word count!!)

The second example is @Xenia, who posted a lot in the early days, but then stepped away in mid-2018 citing work commitments. Despite not posting at all during the last 12 months up until our 4th anniversary, Xenia remains our 27th top poster.

One thing to keep in mind with these stats is that the user population is not static and indeed changes on a daily basis as new members register. Given the cutoff to be in the top 50% of members was 1,588 posts as of our 4th anniversary - it would take any new member a while to get to that level. Even Azazel or Terry take nearly 4 months to post that many posts! The point being that members who have been here longer are more likely to be a part of the top 50% because they've had more time to make their posts.

Breaking it down on a year-by-year basis would also be interesting (and more clearly show the changing dynamic) - including what percentage of posters contributed to 50% of the posts in that year.
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Really miss @Xenia, great contributor and informative. Shame she no longer posts

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PropertyChat is 4 years old!

larrylarry Well-Known Member

MTR Well-Known Member

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PropertyChat is 4 years old!

larrylarry Well-Known Member

MTR Well-Known Member

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