I post a lot on the NaNoWriMo forums. In past years I’ve been one of the top posters, if not the top poster, on the site, and according to my rather shoddy estimates, I’ve made between 15,000 and 20,000 posts on the forums in my eight years on the site. In case you’re curious, here’s the post breakdown.
* 2002-2004: Over 6000. Post counts weren’t reset until 2005, so I kept my post count every year. I made 4781 posts by the beginning of the 2004 season.
* 2005: 2302 posts
* 2006: 2729 posts
* 2007: 1090 posts (I didn’t spend much time on the forums in the off-season thanks to school and other distractions.)
* 2008: ???
* 2009: 4563 posts (so far)
Excluding the 2008 season and rounding the posts from my first two years to 6000 (a conservative estimate, but I know the post count was under 7000), I’ve made at least 16684 forum posts. Since I’m pretty sure I made 6200 posts in the first three years, that means if I made just over 3000 posts in 2008, I’ll have made 20,000 posts in my years here. If not, then I’ll either hit that goal before the forum lockdown in late September or I’ll be hitting it early next NaNo season. I expected the latter; I don’t think I spent too much time on the forums in 2008 since it was my last year of college and I had a ridiculous schedule, but I do remember squeezing out at least a thousand posts.
Why do I mention this? If you search the list of top posters now, you may notice something. I’m not near the top of the list anymore. Yes, I’m on the first page, but I’m nowhere near the top. Five people have made over 10,000 posts since October. One person has made over 25,000–definitely more than I’ve made in all eight of my years combined. That’s mind-boggling, yes, but that’s not the craziest part.
I skimmed the Wrimos who have posted more than I have and noticed something.
I don’t know most of those names. Oh sure, I knew a few of them. I actually NaNoMailed the top poster when we were duking it out for the top poster position, long before they overtook me sixfold. I’ve seen a few of them in the procrastination forum, but most of these names are completely unfamiliar. Given that the roleplaying forum is the most popular on the site in terms of post count, they must be frequenters of that forum, one of the few forums on the site I don’t check in on regularly.
So does this mean that my era of being a top poster is over? It was definitely an era; that post count connected to my name did get me noticed, after all. If anything else kills my post count, it’ll be a full-time job, if that happens. Goodness knows I’ll be on the forums more while researching for Wikiwrimo.