Lets be in the guinness book of world records 2010

[Fournine]

Even if the scale is arbitrary, it doesn't matter. Any linear conversion on the scale of the axes would result with the same relative vector sum compared to the unit vector for the space. To illustrate, I have changed the scale to be Days-Relative Davids and Posts-Relative Davids. Note that they are COMPLETELY THE SAME GRAPH with identical relative properties between points.





Forum contribution is a self-governing factor. While it is theoretically possible for someone to spam endlessly within a short period of time, in practice one of the admins (David or Jeff) or one of the moderators (I'm the only active one) would end up banning the member on the grounds of being a nuisance.
The other side of the scale - a long-time member with a high percentage of highly relevant posts - is not covered.

If you want to read nearly 18,000 posts and evaluate each one on its merit, be my guest. However, such an analysis would be completely arbitrary and subjective.
My methodology uses readily available data, untainted by subjective analysis.

While there are gaps within the system, it is the best that has been proposed and implemented. This is how all scientific fields are advanced.

Now excuse me while I read journal articles on how to effectively and accurately quantify uronic acids within a biomass.

[Renegade_Turner]

And again Renegade_Turner is assuming superiority.

Maybe you should try updating your drivers. I am sure that will solve your problem.

As for Fournine, if he is using pseudo science to make a pointless argument, I can at least demand he is using convincing pseudo science.

My last point is proven by this post.

[shadow717]

Devilsclub being an idiot has started another flame war. Can't we all just agree that this topic needs bullet to the head?

[tokage]

@Fournine Nice trick you pulled there and very eloquently presented. But in the end what you demonstrated here only boils down to 1/4=2/8.

Unfortunately the graph didn't really stay the same and the relative property that matters changed, namely distance from the origin.

The further away from the origin you are, the more valid your points will be.

This happened because you didn't scale uniformly and thus the relation between the two units changed. One post isn't worth the same amount of time for the distance anymore. I take the distance as Euclidean distance, but the same would be true for Manhattan or many other distance measures.

To illustrate I took two extremes, yourself and Renegade_Turner. You are here for a long time, but don't have a lot of posts, Ren has a lot of posts, but isn't here for as long as you.

In the first graph I measured a distance of 434 px for Ren and 301 px for you.
In the second relative graph the results are 408 px for Ren and 353 px for you.
His distance grew smaller while your distance grew bigger? Do you still say it is the same graph?
If you arbitrarily change one axis only you can just as well bring Ren closer to the origin than you.

[kehaar]

As for Fournine, if he is using pseudo science to make a pointless argument, I can at least demand he is using convincing pseudo science.

I think it would be stylistically, if not morally, wrong to use any other kind of science in a thread like this!

Also, to make any other kind of argument.

Even if it sidesteps the quality-of-post issue (which would be truly subjective and tedious as hell), Fournine's excellent graph IS real science, and therefore has no place on this thread!

Also, I'm totally jealous I'm not on the graph, and intend to spam this and all other forums until I am... er... oh, OK, never mind...

[kehaar]

Also, is there a reliable way to quantify uronic acids in a forum thread?

[Grayswandir]

The quality of posting is really a matter of opinion anyway. For example, I think all my posts are excellent, well-written, and they contribute awesomeness-more-better than some of the drivel that is put here in the Randomness section.

[tokage]

Even if it sidesteps the quality-of-post issue (which would be truly subjective and tedious as hell), Fournine's excellent graph IS real science, and therefore has no place on this thread!

I have to disagree. It is the other way around. The quality-of-post issue was handled like real science, if you can't measure it, find something simpler to measure. The relative graph is still just a magic trick* though.

*although a clever one

[Sandurz]

Every time I look at this thread, I start laughing uncontrollably.

[Fournine]

But in the end what you demonstrated here only boils down to 1/4=2/8.

Which is exactly my bloody point. It doesn't matter what unit I select for the time axis - it can be measured in days, hours, minutes, or David-times.

I rescaled the graph to answer your question,

You should at least give a reason why one post is equal to one day on the forum. To clarify, why is one post not equal to one hour or one week or one month?

It's because the units don't change the relative positions of the points. Days was easiest and the most accurate, since the forum only records the day you joined.

Have you ever seen a phase diagram, child?
The triple point of water is at 273.16 K and 611.73 Pa, and the critical point is at 647 K and 22.064 MPa. Even if we convert the units on the axes to different measures of temperature and pressure - Fahrenheit and mmHg for example, the two values will retain their relative positions to each other because the conversion for each measure was a linear transformation.

Your claim of

In the first graph I measured a distance of 434 px for Ren and 301 px for you.
In the second relative graph the results are 408 px for Ren and 353 px for you.
His distance grew smaller while your distance grew bigger? Do you still say it is the same graph?

is the equivalent of claiming if we convert the scales for pressure and temperature to other units, the properties of water will suddenly change. I'm sorry, but the universe really doesn't care what scale we use and won't magically transmute universal constants accordingly.
You either measured incorrectly, or are blatantly lying.
How the hell did you come up with that figure, anyhow?


And of course I was jesting with the claim that distance from origin is proportional to point validity. It's as absurd a suggestion as claiming that the validity of a statement is dependent on the emotion it elicits in people.

[tokage]

Ok, you're still blabbering on about unit conversion and seem to misunderstand my point. You used a distance metric for interpretation of the graph. Usually when you determine a distance using features in uncomparable units - posts and days in your case - you have to weigh them so that your metric makes sense. You weighed them implicitely by displaying them on the axes making the length of 1 post roughly the same as 1 -1.5 days. That is a decision you have to justify, because by changing the weighs you change the distance as you have done in the second graph.

When distance is your primary measure, then your transformations have to be invariant to the distance and not to the individual features, child.

[Fournine]

Ah. -> ->

Well I'll be.
You pointed out the flaw in my metric, and I ignored you completely. You were right - the weights are completely arbitrary if the vector length from the origin is used as the measure. Hence, if I take my data and Renegade_Turner's data:
Fournine: Days = 2238; Posts = 669
Ren: Days = 1561; Posts = 4414
Using the weight of 1 post = 1 day, then:
Fournine = 2335; Ren = 4681 [Ren greater]
However, using the weight of 10 posts = 1 day, then:
Fournine = 22389; Ren = 16222 [Fournine greater]

What I SHOULD be using, then, is the area covered. Hence, any scalar multiplication of either axis will result in the same proportions.

The only reason why the graphs had identical point layouts was because I effectively undid the scalar transformations to the axes by shaping them to roughly the same shape for presentation. Hence, my reliance on spacial reasoning falsely concluded that they resulted in the same distances between each other.

I have constructed a bar graph with the product of "days on forum" and "post total."


---

I must admit that I realized this flaw earlier, but wished to reason my way out of it. Originally, I did do the vector length calculation and realized it didn't work properly, and then for some reason rationalized it away through a loose use of unit conversions in phase diagrams.
Hmm... I should learn to not care if I'm preceived correct or not again.
Thankfully I decided to acknowledge the mistake this time around instead of posting what I originally had planned, which was an overlay of the two graphs with the axes scaled exactly to each other as a "visual proof." Rather nonsensical in retrospect.

--

Tokage - what the hell is your avatar, anyway?

[TheBigCheese]

In the first graph I measured a distance of 434 px for Ren and 301 px for you.In the second relative graph the results are 408 px for Ren and 353 px for you.
His distance grew smaller while your distance grew bigger? Do you still say it is the same graph?
If you arbitrarily change one axis only you can just as well bring Ren closer to the origin than you.

I must note, that regardless of the actual distance, the relative distance between any two points remains the same. If the distance between Fournine and Renegade_Turner has decreased, then the distance between Fournine and any other member must decrease as well.

Because the actual measurement is completely irrelavent (ie. pixels isn't a measurement of contribution), the only thing that matters is the relative difference between points.

[Fournine]

Actually, that point was also refuted.
If we crush the y-axis down, for example, Grayswandir ends up being a lot closer to Renegade_Turner than to Blorx. As one axis becomes de-emphasized relative to the other, the closeness between points shift accordingly.
In other words, as we put less value on the number of posts and more value on the age of membership, Renegade_Turner and Grayswandir become nearly identical and Blorx's higher age becomes more significant of a difference.

[Renegade_Turner]

To illustrate I took two extremes, yourself and Renegade_Turner. You are here for a long time, but don't have a lot of posts, Ren has a lot of posts, but isn't here for as long as you.

In the first graph I measured a distance of 434 px for Ren and 301 px for you.
In the second relative graph the results are 408 px for Ren and 353 px for you.
His distance grew smaller while your distance grew bigger? Do you still say it is the same graph?
If you arbitrarily change one axis only you can just as well bring Ren closer to the origin than you.

Jesus you're some boring cunt.