Not trying to troll but,

[Sentinel947]

Not trying to start anything, but why is this sub forum ridiculously more active than the rest of the sub forums on this website?

[moosetracker]

Because unless there is a real juicy scandalous scouting stories or battles, alot of the other threads can get one or two comments from each poster, even if another poster have a difference of opinion, your happy making your suggestions and letting the OP decide.. But, only occasionally does it get you so riled you get bull headed and roll up your sleeves to fight about the differences of opinion..

 

Sometimes it will, and we can get rolling with it.. Like uniforms and Advancement can get some rolling, .. In the summer, except for some summer camp incidents we don't get so many juicy stories.. Things usually pick up some in the Fall through Spring months.

 

(This message has been edited by moosetracker)

[Sentinel947]

Thank you. I'm majoring in Political Science, so I can appreciate a debate on politics, ethics and morality and delight in the subjects, but I was surprised that Scouting topics are receiving such little love in comparison.

[Twocubdad]

I don't know.... The record longest thread -- some 30 pages -- was about whether or not a Scout should be awarded his Eagle.

[moosetracker]

True twoCub, but that is part of Advancement (which means it will hook a debate), and if it is the one I am thinking about there was some juicy story going on with it, that got people either rooting for the scout, or or arguing we are getting a one sided story and then finding possibilities why the Adult leaders might be in the right.. Also I believe the OP, didn't state a case and dash off, but came back to the post and would stir the pot with updates all the time.

 

I stated uniforms, advancements and juicy or scandalous stories, but I will admidt it is just a quick list, where I am sure there are many other things other people can add to the list with.. (ex.. new policies that are either limiting us more, or changing what we know and love will get long threads on for example our new little red wagon age safety policy..)

[Callooh! Callay!1428010939]

"Not trying to start anything, but why is this sub forum ridiculously more active than the rest of the sub forums on this website?"

 

By what measure is it ridiculously more active?

 

It's not only not ridiculously more active, it's not even the most active as of sometime the evening of Monday 23 July 2012, judging by either of the most obvious and logical measures we could use.

 

When was the analysis on which the OP question is based conducted? And what were the criteria measured? And what is the definition of "ridiculously more active than the rest of the sub forums?"

 

Empirical methods and structured analysis have been out of fashion in some political science circles. If your profs aren't pushing empiricism and structured analysis, you may nevertheless find them handy.

 

As of this writing, this sub forum ranks third by number of topics with Cub Scouts in 2nd place with about 50% more topics and Open Discussion being by far the most active by number of topics with well over three times as many topics as this sub forum:

Open Discussion - Program 6867

Cub Scouts 2916

Issues & Politics 1916

Advancement Resources 1775

Uniforms 1414

Camping & High Adventure 1401

Wood Badge and adult leader training 995

New to the Forum? 840

Working with Kids 681

Summer Camp 634

The Patrol Method 621

Venturing Program 578

Council Relations 481

Order of the Arrow 438

Patch Trading Central 321

Unit Fundraising 284

Scouting History 278

Girl Scouting 218

Scouting the Web 176

New to Scouting? 145

Scoutmaster Minutes 142

Scouting Around the World 114

Scouter announcement 76

 

And if we use number of posts to gauge activity, this sub forum not only is not ridiculously more active than all others, it's not the most active at all. It is in second place and the topic in first place has about 50% more posts:

Open Discussion - Program 96471

Issues & Politics 64818

Cub Scouts 33599

Advancement Resources 32156

Uniforms 24350

Camping & High Adventure 16817

Wood Badge and adult leader training 15116

The Patrol Method 10657

Working with Kids 9716

Summer Camp 7511

Council Relations 7275

Order of the Arrow 6433

Venturing Program 5304

New to the Forum? 4578

Unit Fundraising 3917

Scouting History 1843

New to Scouting? 1836

Girl Scouting 1711

Patch Trading Central 1216

Scouter announcement 1160

Scouting the Web 1133

Scouting Around the World 616

Scoutmaster Minutes 612

 

The analysis above does not take into account total number of words or average post length or other measures we might want to examine; perhaps you'd like to take that on.

Another interesting idea would be to do a "scrape" of all posts and then do some tag cloud type looks at the whole forum and at individual sub forums as a means of visualizing relative popularity of different subject areas - that's a little toward the fuzzy side but could be interesting and informative.

 

As for why this forum is popular and some others aren't... it could be that within some subject areas there is greater agreement and therefore less to discuss.

 

(This message has been edited by Callooh! Callay!)