http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 131904.htm

I thought this was incredibly interesting! What do you guys think? I think it's a little at play here, but not necessarily in the full effect that the article implies. I think the two most important questions people ask themselves when deciding to look at a topic are "How interesting is this?/Has this been done before?" and "Does this person normally post intelligent/interesting posts?" with the former mattering more than the latter.

I kind of agree with it but not completely...

I actually tried to make my "Personal Trainer's Thread [Gen 1 - Gen 5]" at another forum & it fell flat with ease with only about 3 to 5 replies & no real on topic posts including the initial post but when I made it here, it got soundly more participation via posts of course...

I do think that this applies to this forum. The part where it said that 2% of the posters were attracting a bunch of the main attention makes sense. Not everyone has a personality/writing style that compels you to read what they've posted. Admittedly, I do see this in Psypoke; anybody with a unique outlook or personality generally attracts a lot more attention. Even if they're being negative, standing out is the key, I guess. Having something interesting to talk about. And being able to convey that in a way that people can understand and express their own ideas in connection too.

Or something like that.

I think it really depends on the size of a community, how often new topics and posts are made and the community itself, i.e. age of participants, theme of a discussion board, etc.

If it is a very small community, say 10-20 people, then pretty much everything will be read by every active participant and popularity does not come into play.

For large communities with say around 1000 users online at all times and with dozens of new topics posted daily the most important thing for grabbing users' attention is probably the quality, novelty and intrinsic interest of a topic. Of course there will be regulars who will recognize and pay attention to particular users who have made interesting posts in the past or with whom they have become friends but in general the topics themselves are the most important factor.

Taking the large community to an extreme, consider Reddit (which I don't visit too much so I may be wrong about it). I honestly don't think anybody cares about who makes a post. There are millions of visitors every day and so the only thing that matters is if a post is interesting, funny or one that plays with your emotions. If it is, it gets upvoted and more people will view it.

For intermediate sized communities, such as these forums, popularity of a user may play a role. For example a topic started by a staff member will probably get more views and replies. However, said user would probably not have become staff if he or she did not make interesting/intelligent posts to begin with. Thus this status is an indicator, particularly for newer participants, of a user who posts interesting content and helps people filter through topics. In general I agree with pelligargetic's thoughts for these particular communities.

This is just from my experience with being part of various forums over the years.

I wouldn't say I disagree with this article, but I don't whole-heartedly agree with it either. When I browse the forums I usually don't give a second glance to the author of a topic. I examine the topic title and if it peeks my interest I'll check the introductionary post. If I am still interested I will read all the replies to see if what I have to say has already been stated. If it hasn't I will put in my two cents.

I can see the logic behind the article however. It only makes sense that people would read a topic made by someone who generally has something intelligent and/or interesting to say. But I guess to people like me authors don't matter.

I pay attention to the topic more than the poster, sometimes I dont even look at who posts what. Though, I definitely notice that in a thread with maybe 5 replies saying they agree with something, if a staff member / popular member agrees, people will say "I agree with <popular person>" whereas many others have said it before. It's odd but I never thought much of it.

The reason I like Psypoke so much is because of the community as a whole, not just the individuals that comprise it. And also, I prefer people that add long, thoughtful posts occationally, than people that post constantly. This site is small, but that can be a good thing, since less trolls tend to show up.

This was very interesting and thought provoking – there is a lot of fact to what is said here and as many in the forum has opined, even I don’t totally agree to everything it says. For me as long as the subject interests me, I am all game to follow it up no matter who has written it or what the style is!!