Oldbies and Lurkers -- Show Yourselves! ;-)

[Cindy C.]

Abigail wrote:

> Now that I think about it, though, there's a section in the 
> Fantastic Posts that lists the major posters to the different 
>groups and how many times each of them has posted.  How did the 
>person who wrote this page count the number of posts from each 
>major contributer without the Yahoo! search function?  More to the 
>point, how did this person slog through the messages of so many 
>posters, and manage to count them?


Uh, actually, I prepared that list of how many times each person 
posted.  I was just hoping you had figured out an easier way to do 
it!  
;-)

The way I did it last fall was that Paul Kippes, one of the genius 
techies who helps with list administration, worked some kind of 
magic.  He generated what we fondly refer to as "Paul's Magical 
Spreadsheet."  It is an Excel spreadsheet of every post ever posted 
to the list, the author's e-mail, the date, and the subject header.  
With the Magical Spreadsheet, I was able to simply use the Excel 
count function and ask it to count the occurrences of each 
individual poster.  

Actually, I'm hoping to have the time to do an updated table before 
OoP.  I'm very much hoping that my own posting rate will have fallen 
substantially.  ;-)

> Cindy, I've just taken a look at the HPfGU posting hall of fame 
> which has not been updated since November.  You delurked three 
> months before I did.  I've posted 79 times in 17 months.  You 
>posted 786 times in 13 months, plus however many times in the past 
>7 months, and you think I'm an active poster?


Shhhhhhh!  Keep your voice down!  It's supposed to be a secret!  ;-)

Yeah, I was an active newbie, that's true.  But it's not my fault!  
We didn't have the moderation of new members back then, so newbies 
like me could post all day and all night, refusing to combine posts, 
posting one-liners and generally being a total nuisance.  I'd never 
be able to get away with that today.  I'd have, oh, maybe 79 posts, 
I'm thinking.  ;-)

So, Abigail, had you joined when I did, you'd have 786 posts too!

Cindy -- who is still outranked by such luminaries as Amy Z, Amanda, 
Penny, Catlady, Dee and Neil, and who thinks Darrin, Eloise and 
Richelle will rise substantially in the revised rankings

Rankings are at:

http://www.hpfgu.org.uk/faq/history.html