Forum Summary Info Page

[tp6626]

Any chance of a page displaying summary info on the population of registered forum members based on the user profile info they have on their member profile page?

I'm thinking graph's of MBTI type, gender, location, all dynamic / auto-updating as the member data changes / new members join etc.

Numerous polls are attempting to do that kind of thing, but aren't very successful at doing it.

I'm not familiar with forum systems, but I'd assume it runs on standard database principles. As such, I'd expect it to be relatively easy to implement. E.g you'd need a summary query based on MBTI type (count), sorted by the count descending. Then plot (say) the top 90%, and group the final 10% as 'other'. (Forgive me if I'm preaching to the choir here, I don't know how much you know about all this stuff).

I was interested to see mainly what the distribution of types is, because I have seen loads of ENFP's recently. I'd predict the top 5 types, in descending order, would be:

INTJ, INTP, ENFP, INFP, ENTJ...

A pie chart would be so much more descriptive and useful, though! :)

[HackerX]

You mean, an updated version of this:
http://intjforum.com/showthread.php?t=8125

?

[tp6626]

Umm, yeah almost exactly that. In fact, that's a little more in-depth than I was expecting. Some of those stats are very interesting though.

It would be nice to have a separate 'Forum Stats' page on the menu bar across the top, that leads to a page with all those tables laid out nicely, and queried on load of the page (or daily, say, if thats a stretch).

It would be very interesting, and could provide an extra talking point (especially the 'most active user' and 'most popular thread' ones).

What do you think, is that kind of thing feasible?

Incidentally, my prediction on MBTI types was a bit off. ENFP's that far down, they must be over represented in the areas of the forum that I frequent. If I were paranoid, I'd think they were stalking me!!!

[stasis]

I'm thinking graph's of MBTI type, gender, location, all dynamic / auto-updating as the member data changes / new members join etc.
It's a neat idea. My only current concern with the above is that it could be disproportionately resource-intensive over time. You'll probably see something like this integrated into an expansion of the forum eventually. We've long been planning a few new major functions that could also be used to generate this type of data for users on the fly.

[tp6626]

Hmm yeah thinking about it, and after reading a little about vBulletin, I think it might be tricky to do. I envisaged that it'd be a simple case of writing a few queries to query the back-end tables directly on the fly. If the forum software has them locked down though, and limits that functionality, that might be a problem.

Just thought it would have been a neat feature, and relatively simple to implement.

Anyway thanks for the quick response, and I'll look forward to the developments you're all working on.

[stasis]

Hmm yeah thinking about it, and after reading a little about vBulletin, I think it might be tricky to do. I envisaged that it'd be a simple case of writing a few queries to query the back-end tables directly on the fly.
It sounded like your intuition was correct the first time. It would be easy to code and display; really just a case of writing a few SQL queries and calling the output from a PHP graphing page. My concern was that frequent querying takes up server resources and we are attempting to be conservative about putting server resources into functions that aren't featured prominently. Our intent lies in a resource-maximizing sort of approach to the forum architecture, measuring the beneficial social effect of cultural tools like the statistics you suggested against a need to protect from the later necessity of removing or suspending functions as forum growth spikes over time. That is why this kind of functionality will likely be implemented as part and parcel of a more prominent feature, part of an expansion project.

Statistics are pretty awesome.

[HackerX]

I'd recommend the same thing we do with something intensive like that.

Instead of having it query each time, you'd run a daily process that only does the query once a day. Then run your statistics page of that. Daily would be more than enough for accuracy.

[tp6626]

Statistics are pretty awesome.
Yeah I'm a graph-whore. Graphs are awesome. Check out Dave Goreman - Googlewhack if you can find it. He's Britains best graph / statistics-based comedian!

Instead of having it query each time, you'd run a daily process that only does the query once a day. Then run your statistics page of that. Daily would be more than enough for accuracy.

Yes that would seem an appropriate compromise.

I can see the admin teams point in prioritising resource utilisation though. That sounds like the most important strategy to me, now you mention it!

[stasis]

I'd recommend the same thing we do with something intensive like that.

Instead of having it query each time, you'd run a daily process that only does the query once a day. Then run your statistics page of that. Daily would be more than enough for accuracy.
Indeed. I was also thinking that it'd probably be good to make it date-specific, so that new totals are computed from old (stored) integer totals plus additions instead of querying the entire usertable for the variable each time. If we integrate this functionality with the feature I have in mind, the statistics will have to be updated at each 'first-time user' type prompt in addition to a daily update for repeat users viewing the stat summary.


I can see the admin teams point in prioritising resource utilisation though. That sounds like the most important strategy to me, now you mention it!
In my own experience, it is commonplace that growing forums end up putting themselves into difficult positions over server resources vs growth, specifically when it comes to queries, and major cultural tools like their forum search functions end up suffering for it. Or the boards lag. Tsk, I say. Tsk!

[tp6626]

In my own experience, it is commonplace that growing forums end up putting themselves into difficult positions over server resources vs growth, specifically when it comes to queries, and major cultural tools like their forum search functions end up suffering for it. Or the boards lag. Tsk, I say. Tsk!

How close / how bad has it been at worst on the server its on now?

I rarely notice any lagging of more than a minute or two, at worst. Its usually very good.

The search function is pants, by the way. It never finds what I'm looking for, and I believe normal google probably does a better job. I don't use it at all now.

[Nikita]

The search function is pants, by the way. It never finds what I'm looking for, and I believe normal google probably does a better job. I don't use it at all now.

The only problem I've noticed with the search function is that it requires an exact match. I was searching earlier for Hullolife's thread of Fuuun and used the search term "hullolife" which returned no results, but if I search "hullolife's" I get the thread I was looking for and some random thread with the word, "hello" in it.

[Jezebel]

How close / how bad has it been at worst on the server its on now?

I rarely notice any lagging of more than a minute or two, at worst. Its usually very good.
Right now we have resources to spare but the numbers have been steadily climbing since the forum has grown (server processor resources, anyway. I've had to upgrade hosting several times due to high bandwidth usage). If the forum does get to the point that it is lagging, we will do what we can to remedy this. I haven't noticed any problems with it so far though.

The search function is pants, by the way. It never finds what I'm looking for, and I believe normal google probably does a better job. I don't use it at all now.
What have you had trouble finding? I haven't had problems with the vBulletin search, so if there are issues with it I'm unaware. If I could see some examples I may be able to improve the functionality.

I was interested to see mainly what the distribution of types is, because I have seen loads of ENFP's recently. I'd predict the top 5 types, in descending order, would be:

INTJ, INTP, ENFP, INFP, ENTJ...
I know it isn't as convenient as having it all charted on the same page, but you can find out how many members there are of each type at any time by using the member list search (http://intjforum.com/memberlist.php?do=search). According to the results, there are currently 56 ENFPs.

The only problem I've noticed with the search function is that it requires an exact match. I was searching earlier for Hullolife's thread of Fuuun and used the search term "hullolife" which returned no results, but if I search "hullolife's" I get the thread I was looking for and some random thread with the word, "hello" in it.
vBulletin supports wildcards using the asterisk ( * ). Searching for hullolife will only return results that match hullolife exactly, but searching for hullolife* will return any results beginning with hullolife.

[Nikita]

vBulletin supports wildcards using the asterisk ( * ). Searching for hullolife will only return results that match hullolife exactly, but searching for hullolife* will return any results beginning with hullolife.

Thank you!