sekrit research part two!

[shusu]

Glanced at my schedule and realized I had no time to build another spreadsheet, so here goes!

1. I am not an expert.  I do have a spattering of Stats knowledge, but this is pretty much scissors-and-construction-paper with a side of math.  Even the colors may hurt your eyes, alas.  /disclaimer


2. This visualization was chosen because it sums up the

Comments

[teaotter]

This is so cool! I'm glad I'm not the only data geek out there.

This is also daunting as hell. I can't believe anyone can actually *run* a challenge this huge. (ie, the Admins are made of AWESOME!)

I think I can better understand why they want to move the deadline back from midnight, next year. That last 24 hours of uploads would scare the bejeezus out of me...

[shusu]

I really wanted to represent what I was seeing -- I was one of the nuts (I say it with love!) able to watch the counter change from hour to hour. But I didn't record anything so what I'd have to say about that would have been subjective and biased. This way, my math is checked without my lifting a finger. *g*

The thing is, if we can't objectively answer queries like "How is Yuletide different from other challenges?" then it's a short hop to making it harder to *plan* for Yuletide. Unless we've already done Yuletide before. Which doesn't help much. I figured, better to weigh the elephant than describe it.

[teaotter]

Oh, this is much better than my back-of-the-envelope estimates when I was planning my deadlines -- ie, assume half the people wait til the last day, so 450 uploads in 24 hours is a little less than 20 per hour (or one every 3 minutes). Now assume that they load more toward the end of the night, instead of evenly all day... and the back of the envelope is covered in OH NOES! *g*

I *would* be interested to see something similar for other challenges. I pulled the "half will wait til the last day" estimate completely out of thin air, but I assume that there has to be more data out there. How *could* we get data for other challenges?

[teaotter]

Whoops, that's me ^

[vampedvixen]

Oh god.. the math!

But, um, cool. :)

[shusu]

Meep, I know! But does it make sense to you?

[vampedvixen]

I think so.

[shusu]

I added a little roadmap that will hopefully make it a bit clearer. ^^;;;

[quasar273]

Thanks for posting this! I'm sure I'm not the only person who was trying to figure out whenabouts my story would come up in the story-of-the-day posts! I can remember what day I uploaded, but not the number of stories in the archive at the time -- therefore, your plot is exactly what I wanted to know!

And, yes, it does give a whopping visual impact to the proportion of people who uploaded on the last day. When I finished my story, my instinct was (as always) to upload it immediately, but I forced myself to wait at least one day so I could do more editing. I often have a problem with posting a story before it's polished, and I suspected my story would have gotten better if I'd held it even longer. But seeing this provides a different balance point for the writer/community-member dynamic, so it's valuable information for decision-making.

[shusu]

But seeing this provides a different balance point for the writer/community-member dynamic, so it's valuable information for decision-making.

Yes! I am sure by the time next October rolls around, the community (and the collective) will have decided where they stand in terms of planning and decision-making for Yuletide. But it's a lot harder to do it going in expecting it to be the same old ficathon. Or even the same old Yuletide.

[spectralbovine]

HA HA HA to your figure names! Very nice.

[xenacryst]

Ah-hahaha! Geologic time scale! Rocks fall!

Interesting and entertaining... you're wonderful!