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Top 50 Posters Extrapolated, January 2007

Abstract said:
How do you ship vapour?
Click to expand...

350px-Zeppelin.jpg


Naturally. ;)
 
Trivia of the week(end)

Since July 2003 (when I started tracking posters), no member has ever "peaked" at position 16 or 20. Anyone who ever had either of those ranks held a higher rank at another time. Those are the only top 20 ranks for which that is true.

July 2003:
#16 wdlove became #2 by July 2005
#20 edesignuk became #4 by January 2006​

January 2004:
#16 iJon became #13 in January 2005
#20 rainman::|:| became #18 in January 2005​

July 2004:
#16 bousozoku had been #13 in July 2003
#20 Doctor Q became #4 in July 2006​

January 2005:
#16 Sun Baked became #11 in January 2006
#20 iGAV became #19 in July 2005​

July 2005:
#16 jsw became #5 in January 2007
#20 rainman::|:| had been #18 January 2005 (is there an echo in here?)​

January 2006:
#16 MrMacman had been #9 in January 2004
#20 arn had been #10 in July 2004​

July 2006:
#16 Sun Baked had been #11 in January 2006
#20 MacBandit had been #6 in July 2003​

January 2007:
#16 jelloshotsrule had been #3 in July 2003
#20 jefhatfield had been #5 in July 2003​
 
Peak-a-boo

For the ranks other than #16 and #20, here are the members who peaked (so far) at each rank. Members in bold have increased in rank since 6 months ago.

#1:
Mr. Anderson (July 2003 through January 2007)​

#2:
eyelikeart (July 2003 through January 2005)
wdlove (July 2005 through July 2006)
mad jew (January 2007) -- hadn't become #1 yet​

#3:
Rower_CPU (January 2004 through July 2004)
jelloshotsrule (July 2003)​

#4:
edesignuk (January 2006)
Doctor Q (July 2006 through January 2007)
Macrumors (January 2004)​

#5:
jefhatfield (January 2003)
jsw (January 2007)​

#6:
MacBandit (January 2003 and January 2004)
~Shard~ (January 2007)​

#7:

AlphaTech (January 2003)
mkrishnan (January 2007)​

#8:
vniow (January 2003)
iGary (January 2007)​

#9:
MrMacman (January 2004 through January 2005)
Backtothemac (January 2003)​

#10:
arn (July 2004)
bousozoku (January 2005, January 2006, and January 2007)
shadowfax (January 2004)​

#11:

Sun Baked (January 2006)​

#12:

scem0 (July 2003 through January 2004)​

#13:
iJon (January 2005)
krossfyter (July 2003)
yellow (January 2007)​

#14:
Abstract (January 2007)​

#15:
Blue Velvet (January 2007)​

#17:
Nermal (January 2006 through January 2007)​

#18:
rainman::|:| (January 2005)
job (July 2003)​

#19:
Lacero (January 2006)​
 
MacNut said:
Who was Number 1 before 2003 when Mr Anderson took over.
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Mr. Anderson was #1 before then too, but there was no "official" top posters list. I don't know when he first became #1. He was already #1 when I joined in 2002.
 
I always wonder where guys like Jefhatfield went? Posted like "mad", and then stopped.

Where's iGary? :confused: Haven't seen him around in quite awhile, except a single post 1 or 2 days ago.
 
Special Surprise Revealed!

I promised everyone a "special surprise" with this edition of my Top Posters report, and here it is.

As you all know, I'm a Numbers Guy™ (some of my best friends are irrational). But I'm making a break with tradition to add an extra does of Human Interest™ to this year's Top Posters report.

To do that, I tracked down and interviewed 17 of the past and present Top 10 Posters and asked them why they are here, why they've posted so much, and other questions about their posting habits and time at MacRumors.

I also tried to elicit some nasty gossip about members who might have been in bloodthirsty competitions for the top posting spots, but I didn't have much success. The top posters tend to be friendly and helpful people who get along with each other. Too bad!

My original intent was to try to learn the history of the #1 poster: who was #1 when, for how long, and with how many posts. But nobody was keeping careful track of that in the good ol' days, and memories are now hazy. I'll report what I learned, but as I talked to the people involved, I found that their personal comments were more interesting than estimates of old post counts. So I changed my focus and fine-tuned my questions as I went along.

I interviewed these members:
Backtothemac
bousozoku
Doctor Q
edesignuk
eyelikeart
jefhatfield
jelloshotsrule
jsw
MacBandit
mad jew
mkrishnan
Mr. Anderson
Rower_CPU
shadowfax
~Shard~
vniow
wdlove
​
That's almost everyone who was ever in the Top 10 during the last 5 years. I also spoke to arn, Macmaniac and a few others to gather some additional background.

I hope this will start an interesting discussion and give each of us a better feeling about the community here, a chance to meet some of the top posters Up Close And Personal™, and a free history lesson!

I am very grateful to all of these people for their participation. :bows in respect:

Not everyone answered all questions, but I got a very good set of answers overall. I'll cover each interview topic separately, using selected answers from the interviews. Each member has given me permission to quote them (and some will post their own comments here too). I've done only minor edits for typos and to match quotes from an interview with the appropriate question.

Rather than discuss one member at a time (they can talk about themselves just fine without my help), I have organized the results by topic/question, which lets us "compare and contrast" the answers. I will cover one or two topics each day, starting right now.
 
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Why did you join Macrumors?

The first question I asked everyone was:
Why did you join Macrumors?​

My comments:
Almost everyone (but not all) had the same answer: they were looking for information and happened upon the site. That's probably true of most MacRumors members, from Newbies to the long-time regulars. It appears to me that these members didn't know at the time that they were destined to become such heavyweights at this website.​

Interview answers:

Backtothemac:
There were rumors abound about the Flat Panel iMac and I was dying for information.​

bousozoku:
I was interested in knowing more Mac users and the forums seemed active with a number of interesting people. I'd been reading for a few months in early 2002 and felt it was time to join and become part of the folding@home team.​

Doctor Q:
I was shopping for a home Mac and wanted to know what was likely to come out and when, so I wouldn't buy right before a new model came out.​

edesignuk:
I had just bought, or was looking to get (can't remeber which now), a dual 1GHz Quicksilver and wanted to know what Pioneer DVDRW drive was in it. I stumbled upon MR no doubt from a Google search and asked my question.​

eyelikeart:
I was looking for information on the upcoming PowerBook G4, and came across the site via Google.​

jelloshotsrule:
I joined after hearing about it from my brother. We'd always been a mac household, but I was now in college, using computers in my school and personal life more so. (I studied film/TV, computer animation.) My computer at the time was old, some sort of souped up PowerPC clone and it was around the time that the G4s started coming out. My first new computer after joining MacRumors was what I consider the sweetest Power Mac ever, the Quicksilver (Dual 800MHz). Silky Smooth.​

jsw:
I had searched for the answer to a Mac-related question (I no longer remember which one) and was led to the MacRumors forums. I looked around for maybe a day, then jumped right in.​

MacBandit:
Well I joined MacRumors in 2002 when the rumors of the G4 Power Mac were getting hot and heavy. At that time I was using a B/W G3 400 that was getting long in the tooth (for me at least). I was interested in getting any information possible on the new Power Mac and wanted to participate in discussions about them. At that time MacRumors was by far the premier Mac rumors site and had the best Mac related forums anywhere on the internet.​

mad jew:
I liked the news section. To be honest, this is my first forum and even my first foray into the chatty side of the interweb. Something about the characters at this place made me want to sign up and I guess you could say it's all kinda gone strongly from there.​

mkrishnan:
I was interested, in 2003, in getting a Mac, because I'd gotten sick of Windows and I wanted owning a computer to be fun again, like when I was a kid (and yet also productive). I remembered that I'd seen OS X at a store and had been impressed, and also been impressed with what I read about its underpinnings. But I didn't know Apple products at all. So I had lots of questions. I started finding answers by Googling. A *lot* of the answers... most of them... were here on MR. And I started reading posts, and I just loved the community. It was a big part of why I bought my iBook that year. And I joined MR shortly thereafter.​

Mr. Anderson:
I was doing research on the release of the 3rd version of the G4 PowerBook back in the fall of 2001 before I bought it.​

Rower_CPU:
I was researching my first Mac purchase - the original TiBook. I had been using Macs at work for some digital video and graphics work and was starting to like the simplicity and ease of use (even back on OS 9!).​

shadowfax:
I joined it in the fall of my senior year of high school, when I was just getting into the Titanium Powerbook G4, and OS X--becoming captivated by Apple's industrial design and their intuitive UI. I started reading MacRumors because I wanted to find out when the 1GHz G4 was going to come out, because I really wanted one (it was to be my Christmas present, assuming it came out by then). I guess, being bored with school a bit and sometimes lonely (never have kept too many friends), I started reading the community forums. Before long, it seems, I had made a few online friends of sorts.​

~Shard~:
It was the summer of 2003 and I was seriously contemplating buying my first Mac. I had grown up with Apple computers, as my brother bought an Apple //e when I was only 5 and then upgraded to a Mac SE/30 several years late. However once he moved away I only ever had my PC. I did the whole "custom built PC thing" for a while and then decided enough was enough. I started doing research and signed up on MacRumors to assist me in answering some of my questions. Then came that fateful day in December 2003 when I received my nice shiny new 17" 1.25 GHz G4 iMac - the same one that I've been posting on MacRumors with ever since.​

vniow:
I think I was searching for info on the latest Power Mac that was coming out at the time, as I thought I may be in the market for one. I remember passing on the forums for a good while because they were "register to view" at that time and I couldn't be arsed to do it.​

wdlove:
I liked being among others that are enthusiastic about Apple.​
 
IJ Reilly said:
You interviewed yourself? I think you should post that one first! ;)
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Just as someone will sometimes count the people in a room and forget to count themselves, my tally of interviewed members came out off by one until I realized that I had forgotten myself! :eek: So I answered the questions myself... after contacting my publicist to schedule the self-interview, of course.
 
Doctor Q said:
Just as someone will sometimes count the people in a room and forget to count themselves, my tally of interviewed members came out off by one until I realized that I had forgotten myself! :eek: So I answered the questions myself... after contacting my publicist to schedule the self-interview, of course.
Click to expand...
Did you ask yourself those off limits questions and then you punched yourself in the face.:p
 
What an awesome idea, Q. I'm looking forward to the rest of the questions and responses.

*wishes he had more free time to spost on MR these days*
 
Where were most of your posts?

Interview questions:
Were most of your early posts in Apple discussions or in community discussions? Did that change over time?​

My comments:
As we learned above, most interviewees came to MacRumors looking for information. I was curious if their participation then veered toward the community forums and the more chatty areas of MacRumors. This was mostly the case, although I hadn't realized that many of these members were active political posters as well.

For those who don't know, the Political forum has had a checkered past (and various forum titles) at MacRumors over the years. It was once a normal forum. But when it got too volatile in March 2003, it was shut down for a while, then reopened. Starting in August 2003, posts in the Political forum were no longer counted for purposes of computing user titles, and rankings changes as many members lost counted posts.​

Interview answers:

Backtothemac:
At first, Apple discussions. I got suckered into the first political thread and that was it.​

bousozoku:
Most everything was related to Apple, but I read the threads in community discussions somewhat frequently and posted very occasionally. Now, it's more even.​

Doctor Q:
A mixture, but I got "into" the community discussion area almost immediately after joining. I still spend plenty of my time there.​

edesignuk:
Early posts were in tech forums. As the community built up this moved more toward the community forums as people got to know each other and use MR as a social thing.​

eyelikeart:
Both really, although toward the end was mostly community.​

jefhatfield:
Apple stuff interested me at first. Then I started in the political forums. Then I hung out mostly in the community forums.​

jelloshotsrule:
I had a handful of rumor and help posts in the beginning, but before long I was posting a bit more in the community section. at the time it included some of the help stuff, as well as off topic stuff. nowadays I post primarily in the off topic discussion sections (community, political, private forums), primarily because it's overwhelming at times to try to get into the extensive rumor mongering threads about iPhones and such.​

jsw:
Most of my early posts involved discussions of Apple and, well, Mac Rumors. Over time, as I felt more a part of the community and formed relationships with other members, my posts shifted more to the community discussions. Plus, of course, mad jew now answers all help questions, which doesn't leave me much to work with.​

MacBandit:
Mac related topics. Soon after joining I discovered a community of knowledgeable educated people that shared many of the same interests that I did Computers, Geology, Photography, SciFi and more.​

mad jew:
At first I was interested in the Apple side of things because I wanted to get a G4 iBook (and I did). I'm definitely more interested in the community here now.​

mkrishnan:
Apple discussions. I honestly spent more time helping than receiving help in the beginning -- I found out most of what I needed to know, to buy my first Mac, and to learn how to use it, by a mix of trial and error and web / forum searching. So it was mostly passing on the things I'd just learned. Which also helped make sure I understood them. I started posting in the community discussions much later, and I still post there less than in the various tech sub-forums.​

Mr. Anderson:
The forums themselves have changed many times since I've been here. In 2001 there were only a handful of forums. I helped create a few through no fault of my own, but they were all Arn's decisions. I've been involved in more forums over the years, probably having posted in all of them. But now I spend my limited time where I have more interests.​

Rower_CPU:
Way back then (in 2001) the forum structure was a bit different from now, but I'd say I was posting about 50-50. As the community became stronger and people got to know each other better, I started to post a bit more in the community areas.​

shadowfax:
I think that early on I was in the Apple discussions, but fairly quickly moved away from it to the community forums primarily, particularly after I got my new laptop. At my peak, I'd say I was probably posting primarily in community discussions. Now that my activity on the forums has tapered off, I pretty much exclusively post in Apple news discussions. I read MacBytes several times, so I end up in random discussions springing from those articles now and then.​

~Shard~:
My early posts were definitely in the Apple discussions, since I was asking a lot of questions and trying to educate myself on "all things Mac" in the beginning. After I started developing friendships and the like however, I started turning towards the community discussions. I found them entertaining, however it was also fascinating to learn more about other members' tastes, background, etc. :cool:​

vniow:
Community. Definitely. I didn't own a Mac for a good while after joining here and when I did I still spend most of my time in community related discussions.​

wdlove:
I think that most of it was in the community. Then ventured into Apple discussions to be of help to others. I like to be supportive.​
 
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