Re: Perlmonks Threaded Article Viewer (Trend)

[toolic]

UPDATE: (Jul 31, 2010 at 01:11 UTC)
It looks like there may be a bug in how PTAV is now calculating the Root Node Count. As a sanity check, I picked a recent day at random: June 8, 2010. Super Search shows that there were 18 root nodes created that day, but PTAV only shows 9. That's a big discrepancy.

I picked another day at random: June 8, 2003. Both Super Search and PTAV match for that day 7 years ago (23 root nodes).

I conclude that the recent PTAV results are incorrect, and the following discussion is invalid.

Here is my original post:

++ to jcwren for creating Perlmonks Threaded Article Viewer, which is still collecting data nearly 9 years after it was launched.

Well, the 'data' is now 'information'. If we can assume that the data is accurate, it clearly indicates a trend. The 'Root Node Count' (the number of top level nodes) is calculated for every year, from 1999 to 2010. The count peaked in 2001, remained fairly constant for the 5 year period of 2001-2005, then started steadliy declining in 2006.

Would anyone care to speculate on the reason for the decline?

• Have some people switched from using Perl to another language?
• Are there fewer new Perl users? Are people choosing a newer language?
• Do fewer people come to PerlMonks? I imagine there are many more online forums now than there were a decade ago, which means that there are now more choices.
• Was there any event (or sequence of events) in late 2005 which triggered the decline?
• Has it all been said and done by now? Have people run out of new reasons to start threads (Meditations, Tutorials, CUPF, etc.)?

What say you, monks?

[BrowserUk]

What say you, monks?

Asking those that are still here will probably not elicit good explanations.

Is it possible to go straight to the horses mouth and ask former active members to say why they are no longer such? Anonymously or otherwise. Perhaps those here that are still in contact could email them to ask them to post a short explanation of their reasons for moving on.

Perhaps it could be wrapped up in a poll? (It'd be nice to see a useful one for a change :).

[toolic]

Nevermind :(

See my update: Re: Perlmonks Threaded Article Viewer (Trend)

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Asking those that are still here will probably not elicit good explanations.

You are probably right. However, you might be the perfect monk to recount some event in the history of the Monastery, given your longevity as a monk and your exceptionally high frequency of participation herein. "I remember the hurricane back in '05 that wiped out the barn." I'm not saying there was such an event, but if there had been, you'd be someone in a good position to remember it.

ask former active members to say why they are no longer such?

That would be insightful, indeed.

Perhaps it could be wrapped up in a poll?

Good idea. I doubt I'll get to it soon; so if anyone else wants to do it, feel free.

[mojotoad]

For what it's worth, I was quite active in these parts in the early naughts, after which I went on hiatus for a few years. Recently I've been poking around the halls again.

In my case, there was no particular reason, just changes in life, work, interests. More recently I had to become proficient in p-p-p...p-p-p...Python! (don't tell anyone) Naturally I spent less time with perl during that.

Even more recently, I started dabbling around with some XS extensions and perl, plus have begun experimenting with perl6. Messing about with perl again naturally led me to wonder what the monks have been up to, so here I am.

Things do seem slower, though. Personally I think EV2 is showing its age in this 2.0 world.

Cheers,
Matt

[toolic]

Things do seem slower, though. Personally I think EV2 is showing its age in this 2.0 world.

Good point. Maybe the response time of the site started degrading in the 2005-2006 timeframe. Several people have voiced their impatience over the years. It can be aggravating -- but I still think it's worth the wait :)

Thanks for sharing your experiences otherwise.

[toolic]

Nevermind :(

See my update: Re: Perlmonks Threaded Article Viewer (Trend)

[jcwren]

EDIT: The problem has been remedied and the numbers PTAV reflects are accurate (again)

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Interesting. Although I haven't researched this, I would likely suggest it's a problem in the XML feed, from which that data is derived.

If that's indeed the case, I may as well take it off line, as it's only wasting bandwidth.

[Anonymous Monk]

What say you, monks?

Piss off :) There is too many possible reasons and overwhelming lack of information that the problem defies quantification