[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ Loon Zone Chat Page Version 1.60 ] [ FAQ ]
Posted by Ballpark Frank (69.178.8.75) on 11:02:13 02/04/17
In Reply to: For those not on FaceBook, posted by albee
albee,
I had no idea the page had that kind of following. Over the years, we always suspected that for every active poster on John's websites, there was some much larger number of lurkers, but any calculation seemed to be idle speculation. Someone would say "1:10 ratio". Someone else would say "way too low, more like "1:25". There was no way of knowing. Is there any sense of what the ratio is on the Facebook page?
I am also curious about average daily traffic. What kind of numbers do you see?
Also, is there any division into topics?
I have gotten somewhat active on explore.org's Brooks Falls discussion forums, associated with their web cams. In the offseason, only two cams are live, but the main page can get way busy. In the summer, that page screams, and I think there are 3 other forums going when all 4 cams are live. That gives some semblance of "quiet spots" where things don't move super fast. These forums are well-moderated, so the negative behavior is not tolerated. Even at this time of year, things can get so busy on the main forum that after 30-60 minutes, you have a string of postings so large that you have to go into the basement to see anything older.
The one conundrum at explore.org's forums is the question of advocacy. With America becoming so politically polarized, and the widely held perception among national park fans that the new Administration poses a threat to public lands via climate change denial and the movement to return federal lands to the states or private individuals, you can see what appears to be a seething pot of political boil just below the surface. I have seen several individuals raise issues like grizzly de-listing in recent days, trying to get a rise out of the chattership, but it doesn't rise to the levels we used to see opinion battles rage across the page here in years past.
Sociologists and other academics are likely having a field day trying to analyze the phenomenon of "fake news" and other issues that have come to the fore via the recent presidential campaigns, and trying to parse out the influence of web-based applications and sites on society. I do worry about the tendency for the citizenry to gradually sink into two diametrically opposed "silos", where there is no civil debate. I am not arguing for bringing back the days when trolls had the power to make people miserable on Yellowstone issues. I know of cases where those idiots literally brought some very good people to tears, and drove many from the page. I'm just hoping our society will move back toward civil discourse over time.
Ballpark
[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ Loon Zone Chat Page Version 1.60 ] [ FAQ ]