traffic update

[matt]

It's interesting to watch statistical data that really means something. Over the nearly 3 year life of this forum, you can watch the internet traffic thing kind of make sense. There is a broad slump in the summer time, and a short deep drop around Christmas/New Years. Because of the way the data is presented, you see the end-of-year slump recover about now, mid-February. It's interesting also that the traffic keeps going up. You can see the weekly squiggle at the bottom gradually get bigger over time. The weekly rolling average is in the middle. It shows short term activity changes, like a recent spike. The 30 day rolling average is at top. It takes longer to drop off, but also takes longer to recover. The little circles are very tight changes in direction of the data, so a steep drop followed by a steep rise or vice versa. They make the second chart (which covers the entire lifetime of the forum) harder to read.

The cycle in stats is due in part to the professional nature of the content and members, but also seems to reflect an academic contingent as users.

Anyway, some people just find these things interesting, and I think it's fun to share some behind the scenes info from time to time.

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[AlexLachance]

You do a great job at adding little things here and there that complement the forum experience. I feel like this forum does exactly what it was meant to do, encourage people to collaborate while also filling the void left by the closure of the SolidWorks forum.

Keep up the great work.

[jcapriotti]

Makes you wonder with the rise of AI, how much access and data mining its doing to answer peoples questions?

[matt]

Makes you wonder with the rise of AI, how much access and data mining its doing to answer peoples questions?

The problem with that is that even on a place like this with a generally pretty high quality of content, most of the answers you get are not the best answer. Not that they're wrong, just that there is always one response that tends to answer the actual question better than the others. Without the ability to actually filter the BEST answers, AI is learning from answers that are in the ball park, but not really the best answer. You've got to actually use your brain, even when (especially when) you ask AI for an answer. I think it's useful for quickly summarizing a range of answers, but not really useful for finding the BEST answer. Use it for general research, but not for critical details.

[jcapriotti]

I think it's useful for quickly summarizing a range of answers, but not really useful for finding the BEST answer. Use it for general research, but not for critical details.

True, that how I've used it, to brainstorm some ideas. From there you can piece together an actual good idea.