posted
I've decided hijacking that other thread was a little rude. I'm gonna use this one instead. I was looking through a lot of the profiles and have come across some interesting stuff (well, to me anyway). I'll start making mention of my finds here.
Posts: 2523 | Registered: May 2000
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No one is currently in control of user #0. Their profile is gone. Many of the users have no profiles, and I believe they are the ones that probably never posted, since I have never found a listing for a Hatracker with a zero post count. Some may also be deleted for other reasons. The lowest number with a name is #1, who is Aaron. He is not necessarily the first or second poster. The listed names preceeding May 14, 1999 are not in registered order. They follow an alphabetical sequence. But they are seperated into two alphabetical segments. The first group is from 0-89. The second group is from 90-121. It may be safe to conclude that any user in those groups will find it difficult to claim rank with each other.
The first 121 names were registered before May 14, 1999. Hatrackers had actually been around for a while, since it seems that many were able to use the old forum names. I don't know that all of them were transfered over though, so it would be difficult to esimate how fast names had been coming in, but as I remember it was actually quite slowly.
From 122 to 300 was before August 28, 1999 (107 days). The growth rate was 1.67 users per day.
The 500th was registered November 11, 1999 (76 days after #300). The growth rate at that time was 2.63 users per day.
#1000 came before June 11, 2000 (213 days after #500). The growth rate then would have been 2.33 per day.
#2000 came June 1, 2001 (355 days after #1000). Growth rate: 2.82 users/day.
#3000 came January 31, 2002 (245 days after #2000). Growth rate: 4.08 users/day.
#4000 came August 14, 2002 (195 days after #3000). Growth rate: 5.13 users/day.
#4925 (Kira, our newest member) came today March 22, 2003 (220 days after #4000). Growth rate: 4.21 users/day.
We've dropped off a bit lately.
Posts: 2523 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
Good point, I just came across that. There was a gap between September 28, 2002 and December 27, 2002 where nobody could register. That takes away 90 days. Which means the difference between #4000 and #4925 is 130 days. The growth rate of Hatrack in that time period is actually 7.12 users/day. Holy cow.
Posts: 2523 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
So, instead of carbon dating should we call this "racker dating"? And just for fun, I'd like to see what .12 of a Hatracker looks like. Hmmmm...
Posts: 3852 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
It may be important to speculate that Cedrios might actually own about 1/5 of the usernames since March 26, 2001. Posts: 2523 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
Hatrack tripled its registrations per month over the summer months of 1999, and from there had a slowly decreasing trend all the way through 2000. It hit a boom in January 2001 (251% over Dec 2000, which itself saw a minor increase over its previous month), then steadily increased through the summer of 2001. Around the September 2001 terrorist attacks registration dropped dramatically, and didn't see a significant increase in trend until the summer of 2002. It would seem that the summer months tend to attract more users (when they ought to be outside), excepting 2000.
This January holds the record for most registrations at 225, the first full month after the registration lockout (the last five days in December 2002 had 60 alone). But this month is projecting to blow it away.
Posts: 2523 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
Yes, and I own Procrastination and JumpingReallyHighButNotReallyFlyingSheep (no lie).
And although I'm a cow, I am not holy... I wonder if Papa Moose's eyebrows would rise if people started saying "holy moose" instead.
Is there any way to get a true count of users, based on IP address or something? I don't even want to know how many hits the site gets in a day... that number would be staggering.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
A good guess would perhaps be that the registration rate peaked significantly during periods of Mafia games.
Posts: 896 | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
Some user's IP address' change over time, some more rapidly than others. In this case, it would be nearly impossible to know the exact number.
Posts: 2523 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
I was also wondering about the Writer's Workshop side of things... is there any data on that?(though it doesn't seem as though the new setup applies over there). I'd imagine there would be few (if any) users with multiple nicks.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
This may be the point where some of you might take some interest (particularly Xavier).
These are account names that were created in 1999 (including Troubadour, which was created in 1998) that made a significant contribution to Hatrack, some of which older Jatraqueros may not have seen in some time. It was pretty cool for me to discover them as I went. I set the post count at 500, but if I get enough requests I may research lower numbers since the earlier days weren't quite so postful, and there have been some colorful personalities that have spent a brief time with us.
posted
This is a person (her name is HowieDC on the board) who came in to Hatrack, made one post, and disappeared. She has a webpage and a journal, and you can see at what point in time in this person's life, what was going on, when she actually showed up to Hatrack. She found Hatrack important enough to drop in at least once. Now it's history to her, but she continues to go ahead in her life and update her audience about what's happening to her. This just blows me away.
posted
Okay, the following list is of every 1999 account that had posted more than 100 posts that were not already included on a list above. I'm not linking them because that's just a hassle, but I provided their member #s so you can look them up yourself if you're interested. I won't be doing anything less than 500 for any other year. I may pick a number like 250 or something for 2000. I choose 100 posts for this list because I figure that's pretty comprehensive, and if anyone didn't meet that mark then nobody probably cares anyway.
posted
Whew, I went through the first 1000. I have other things I ought to get done. I'll finish the year 2000 later today (I actually bothered to get the 100 poster's as well).
posted
I think I will add my own memories to help flesh out the historical picture. The new forum came into being several months before we actually switched over. So there was probably a flurry of registrations while we tried it out and gave our opinions. My #90 username ak dates from then. But people stuck with the old one. We didn't actually make the switch until the mods announced that we were changing over, probably early May of 1999, when I re-registered because I lost my password. Then the old forum stayed up for a long time after that. Some of us even were beginning to migrate back to it when it was closed to new posting. This was a long time (maybe even a year or more) after the main body of hatrack was on the ubb. I still have nostalgia for the old BML forum software, though it was buggy as all get out.
Of those early posters, dmichael was the most prolific on the old bml. Richard Berg I'm surprised has less than 1000 because he had at one time the second highest post count after me. <laughs> I remember we used to think a few hundred was a high post count and I was asked to give a speech when I passed 300. <laughs> I never felt proud of my high post count, though, because it mainly means, I think, that I have no life. <laughs>
In the BML the topics stayed in the same order always, so the old stuff was at the top and the newest stuff at the bottom. People posted generally longer posts then, I'm not quite sure why. It was a lot more formal. We only had only a few fluff threads. One cool thing was you had to come up with a tag line for each post, and hatrackers were generally very creative as you might expect, and these tag lines were often clever and piquant.
I think those of us who posted on the BML should be assigned negative user numbers. I know I predate several people with lower user numbers. Of the people still actively posting, only Saudade has been around longer than I. My daughter does everything first! <laughs>
posted
Uncle Moose was Papa Moose before the Mooselet was born, of course. Jake was Noemon. I remember all those people, and count many of them my friends. I wonder where some of them are now? I wish they would come back!
posted
I just want to say, more important than the smallness of your number, is the fact that your number could make a nice poker hand. Anybody beat 3 3's.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
The Sherriff has a high straight: 2345 shiva the destroyer has a lower one: 1234
evc_hl has the reverse straight: 4321 as does ObiWanKenobi: 3210
somedeadgirl96 though, has four 4s, Hatrack's best hand so far: 4444 Stanlie has the threes: 3333 aspectre wins out of the people with more than 1000 posts, with her twos: 2222 Atragon rounds it out with the ones: 1111
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
I'm REALLY impressed with the research put into this thread! I had no idea that I'd had so many posts in my "heyday" or that I'd registered here so long ago.
Everyone on the list from Tom Davidson down used to post lots and all during the same time frame. MOTO (master of the obvious) had great puzzler threads going and Hobbes was so cute with the high school goings on. AKA was practically a moderator because she knew everything about what was going on, who was who, and still had time to rescue stray cats.
I wonder where they all are now ..... (kind of like that sappy TV star show but without all the schmuck). Thanks jeni for reminding me about Hatrack. It's time to start check in again.
BTW - for a long time MOTO and others thought i was a big scary macho man. Not so. Posts: 874 | Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
Welcome back. I don't think I've actually met you before. I'm glad I could help get some people to come back. Ever since the update all this information became available. We used to post about some of the people who've come and gone, but we've never been quite so able to do anything about it. Posts: 2523 | Registered: May 2000
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One problem, though. I registered in September of '01. However, at some point or another, I asked the board admins to delete my account. I wanted to quit Hatrack (it was a mad addiction at the time- I had one of the highest post/day counts,) but I needed some help. So, the board mods did. Then celia re-registered the Perelandra account and started posting as "me"- much to my "amusement." So, you'll probably encounter it in the 3000's even though it should be in the 2000's.
Soon after, I came up with "Primal Curve," and returned temporarily. I posted quite a bit, but eventually, I got tired of it. I then took a break. That break was exactly what I needed. Now, instead of thinking about Hatrack every minute of the day, I really only think about it when I'm in front of the computer. I can also live without opening every single thread.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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posted
I made my first post on the old forum around June 1997. Until the archives disappeared a few months back, doing a search on my real name turned up a scathing diatriabe on the lack of religious change as pertaining to society's obession with having children, posted at that time. *shrugs shoulders*
I posted a bit on the old forum, started posting a bit on the new one, got into a fight with someone over something stupid (one of the traditional trouble-making threads, as I recall.... abortion or sex before marriage or something) in '98 and left. Completely my fault, I was an ass.
I came back on May 22, 2000 as TooTrueTroubs and managed to rack up 300 posts under that name, because I couldn't remember my old password, and my email had changed and I couldn't access or even remember what my email address would've been.
Eventually I decided I wanted to go back to Troubadour - as much as I liked the TTT handle (but the Lord of The Rings thing had my eyeballs twitching) - so I asked the mods if I could have it back, and voila - my old handle was back.
I live in lurk mode here most work days, but don't really have time to contribute much.
Still love it tho! Posts: 2245 | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
Wow... Khavanon: the Hatrack Archivist! Great thread!
From what I understand (please correct me if I'm wrong) the original board was on AOL. Would any of that been logged at the web Wayback Machine?
Posts: 1295 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
AOL era stuff you'd have to talk to JohnHansen about, or the 1 or 2 others from that era here.
The first board, that I remember, was from 1996, pre-BML, and was similar threading to BML, but not as many features. I think I posted maybe once on that, and I'm pretty sure TomD was there, and I'm sure there were others. Then the BML came up (which I remember with a little regret, since OSC posted on the very first boards fairly often, he'd do bursts of activity for a few days, and then lurk). I posted on BML, with others. When we moved over to this, I know I registered once, but I think I had the mods delete it when I lost access to my college email address. I forget the login too So I hemmed and hawed about re-registering, since I'm a semi-lurker type anyway, but bit the bullet finally, probably to post something dumb
-Bok
EDIT: The "pre-BML" forum may have been BML, but in an early version. I do know that there have been 3 different layouts (4 now, I guess) of the forums.
posted
Just a side note to bring up the 4 horsemen of the apocolypse thread that probably played a big part in the high registration numbers this month. I loved that thread. Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
I thought I'd also mention that my post count is actually somewhere in the mid-2000's... I was approaching 2000 when I had my old account deleted. So, I'm in the club, I just have little proof.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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posted
If there's anything more annoying than watching people try and prove how long they've been around and/or lurking, I'm not familiar with it. Posts: 5264 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
I think the last time I was around Tom Davidson was getting married. How long is that? And how goes it?
Posts: 874 | Registered: Oct 1999
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