As many of you know, you can alert moderators to a post by clicking the report post icon (
) next to the post. For the past four and a half years, I've been calculating statistics based on these reports, which we've used internally in the moderator team. Now, for the first time, we are sharing some of these statistics publicly.
To start with, here's an overview of the post reports from the last 6 month period (Jul 1 to Dec 31 2010):
Overview
There were 15542 reported posts in the second half of 2010, however the bulk of these were in the first half of this period. The day with the most reports was July 26 (203), although the all time record is 251. The graph below shows the trend over the last four and a half years.
The following graph shows these figures as a percentage of all posts posted in each 6 month period. As can be seen, the percentage of posts reported has risen in the last three years. This could be caused by any number of reasons, for example the site being a bigger target for spammers as it grows, user demographics changing over time or members just being more educated about the post reporting feature.
Currently, about 1% of posts are reported, while about 8% of threads have at least one post reported.
Day of week
Thursdays had the most reports (total 2467), although the other weekdays were not far behind. Weekdays had 36% more reports than weekend days. This is similar to the pattern of forum activity in general. For example, in the last two months there were an average of 5579 posts per weekday and 3951 posts per weekend day.
Time of day
Reports were common at all times of day, although it was busiest from about 7 AM to 5 PM Pacific time. The quietest hours were roughly 10 PM to 5 AM. The quietest hour had 55% of the reports of the busiest, which is a less pronounced difference than in previous time periods. Again, these numbers are likely to reflect forum activity in general.
Post reporters
There were about 2350 post reporters over the second half of 2010. Of these people, 51.5% reported just one post, while 91% of reporters made fewer than 10 reports each. The top 10% of reporters made 71% of all reports. In fact, the top ten reporters made 23% of all reports.
Reported forums
By far, more posts were reported in the iPhone forum that in any other forum. The top 20 forums by number of post reports were as follows:
Report reasons
Moderators deal with a wide range of issues when handling post reports, although there are some common issues. Spam or advertising was the biggest category of post reports, accounting for 30% of all reports. Other common reasons were double/consecutive posts (8%), insults or personal attacks (7%), threads posted in the wrong forums (5%), bumps (3%), piracy (2%), profanity (1%) and large pictures (1%).
Reported threads
Some threads are particularly problematic and have a large number of posts reported. 72% of threads containing a reported post received just one report, while 61 threads received more than 10 reports. The highest number of reports for a thread was 84 (the all time record is 110).
To start with, here's an overview of the post reports from the last 6 month period (Jul 1 to Dec 31 2010):
- Number of post reports for period: 15542
- Mean per day: 84.9
- Max per day: 203
- Min per day: 23
- Percentage of reports that reported the first post in a thread: 44.6%
- Number of post reporters: 2346
- Number of reported members: 7178
- Number of posts reported: 12354
- Number of threads reported: 9345
Overview
There were 15542 reported posts in the second half of 2010, however the bulk of these were in the first half of this period. The day with the most reports was July 26 (203), although the all time record is 251. The graph below shows the trend over the last four and a half years.
The following graph shows these figures as a percentage of all posts posted in each 6 month period. As can be seen, the percentage of posts reported has risen in the last three years. This could be caused by any number of reasons, for example the site being a bigger target for spammers as it grows, user demographics changing over time or members just being more educated about the post reporting feature.
Currently, about 1% of posts are reported, while about 8% of threads have at least one post reported.
Day of week
Thursdays had the most reports (total 2467), although the other weekdays were not far behind. Weekdays had 36% more reports than weekend days. This is similar to the pattern of forum activity in general. For example, in the last two months there were an average of 5579 posts per weekday and 3951 posts per weekend day.
Time of day
Reports were common at all times of day, although it was busiest from about 7 AM to 5 PM Pacific time. The quietest hours were roughly 10 PM to 5 AM. The quietest hour had 55% of the reports of the busiest, which is a less pronounced difference than in previous time periods. Again, these numbers are likely to reflect forum activity in general.
Post reporters
There were about 2350 post reporters over the second half of 2010. Of these people, 51.5% reported just one post, while 91% of reporters made fewer than 10 reports each. The top 10% of reporters made 71% of all reports. In fact, the top ten reporters made 23% of all reports.
Reported forums
By far, more posts were reported in the iPhone forum that in any other forum. The top 20 forums by number of post reports were as follows:
Code:
Rank Forum Reports
---- --------------------------------------- -------
1 iPhone 3009
2 MacRumors.com News Discussion 1433
3 Community Discussion 784
4 MacBook Pro 758
5 iPad 678
6 iPhone Hacks 633
7 iPhone Accessories 569
8 iPod touch 408
9 Mac Applications 377
10 Politics, Religion, Social Issues 329
11 Buying Tips and Advice 313
12 Picture Gallery 278
13 MacBook Air 276
14 Mac Basics and Help 272
15 iMac 240
16 iPhone Tips, Help and Troubleshooting 235
17 Mac Pro 228
18 iPhone and iPod touch Apps 225
19 iPhone/iPad Programming 214
20 Mac OS X 213Report reasons
Moderators deal with a wide range of issues when handling post reports, although there are some common issues. Spam or advertising was the biggest category of post reports, accounting for 30% of all reports. Other common reasons were double/consecutive posts (8%), insults or personal attacks (7%), threads posted in the wrong forums (5%), bumps (3%), piracy (2%), profanity (1%) and large pictures (1%).
Reported threads
Some threads are particularly problematic and have a large number of posts reported. 72% of threads containing a reported post received just one report, while 61 threads received more than 10 reports. The highest number of reports for a thread was 84 (the all time record is 110).
