So…being bored, I have looked at the number of threads that were on-topic (tri questions, equipment, nutrition, races you actually do) versus off-topic (politics, jokes, TDF, other spectator sports).
I looked at every 20th page of posts on the forum. I counted all threads that had 10 or more replies. Here are the stats, in the following format:
Date: # of on-topic threads/#off-topic threads
7/23/04: 4/2
7/10/04: 4/4
7/07/04: 2/7 (lots of TDF)
6/27/04: 3/8
6/16/04: 7/5
6/05/04: 4/1
5/25/04: 5/4
5/13/04: 5/1
5/02/04: 1/2
4/21/04: 8/1
4/09/04: 5/0
3/29/04: 4/1
3/19/04: 3/6
3/05/04: 1/5
2/21/04: 5/3
2/06/04: 4/3
1/16/04: 5/2
12/19/03: 5/1
11/24/03: 3/2
10/29/03: 2/3
9/30/03: 1/2
9/2/03: 6/0
8/05/03: 7/1
One year ago today, of the 25 threads on the page, 14 were on-topic, 11 were off-topic. Today, the first page has 8 on-topic, 17 off-topic.
A few thoughts…there have definitely been a lot more threads in general (used to take a month to fill up 20 pages, now it is like 10 days). The past few weeks have had a lot more OT stuff than usual.
The “good old days” (e.g. 7/23/03) had a lot of OT at times, and a fair amount of people bitching at each other.
Detailed subject headings make it pretty easy to just look at what interests you…and to more easily compile useless stats.