We've often talked about quantity of posts versus quality of posts, so I looked at
Likes and
Followers because they might provide a bit of a clue about the value we find in other forum members. Estimating quality by these measures is a slippery slope, but why not start with something measurable?
Counting Likes
There's no definition of what a Like means, since it's up to each of us. People might use it to mean "I read your post" or "I agree with your post" or "I think your post was _____" (entertaining, clever, informative, surprising, shocking, notable, etc.).
I've never included
Total Likes in these charts because the Like system hasn't always been a forum feature. (You can see the Top 20 on the Xenforo
Notable Members page.) If you measure Likes divided by post count or Likes divided by length of membership, you're biasing the results toward recent members, and away from the old-timers who lived in a Like-less forum world for years. It's also inaccurate because Likes are measured in the popular
Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum, while posts are not.
In Chart #1 above, you can see the number of Likes each member got in the last 6 months. If there's a 0, it means that they've received likes in the past but no new ones recently. If there's a "---", it means that they predate the Like system and never had Likes. All of these are inactive members. But note that some of the inactive members still managed to gain a few Likes in the last 6 months (example: 3 Likes for
miles01110).
I measured the increase in total Like count six months ago so I could compare it with the totals now. Here are the Like Leaders (those with 1000 or more Likes) among the current Top 50.
Most Likes in Last 6 Months Among Top 50
Code:
Rank Like Leader Likes in last 6 months
---- ---------------- ----------------------
1 Relentless Power 9,157
2 samcraig 6,115
3 maflynn 3,808
4 Scepticalscribe 3,218
5 Rogifan 2,871
6 Newtons Apple 2,813
7 Apple fanboy 2,751
8 C DM 2,451
9 eyoungren 2,392
10 MacNut 2,183
11 rdowns 2,140
12 Applejuiced 1,616
13 kdarling 1,470
14 Weaselboy 1,239
Counting Followers
Why do members follow other members? My assumption is that you follow somebody when you find their posts to be routinely Like-able.
Here is the list of Top 50 members with 25 or more Followers.
Most Followed Among Top 50
Code:
Rank Followed Number of Followers
---- ---------------- -------------------
1 Applejuiced 144
2 eyoungren 113
3 Weaselboy 69
4 Eidorian 63
5 Hellhammer 53
6 Doctor Q 42
7 Scepticalscribe 31
8 Intell 25
Why aren't these two lists showing the same members in the same order? Your theory is as good as mine. Perhaps Likes is a measure of past interest, while Followers is a measure of expected future interest.
I'd guess that Likes accumulate somewhat proportionally to posts, while Followers grow at a much slower rate. For example, suppose famous zoologist Duke Lemur posts regularly about marsupials. The fixed number of people who have similar interests in marsupials might Follow him, with an occasional new marsupials-interested forum member joining the group. But every time he posts, the subset of those Followers who see the post will Like it. There's still a bit of likely correlation, however, because interested members are more likely to see his posts, and become Followers, if he posts more.
