Is this really a Dream forum?

[O'nus]

Initially I was curious if Dream Views is actually more of an off-topic site than dreams. However, after some basic observation, something else comes out..

Dream Sites
DreamViews.com
General Lucid Discussion: 95 657
General Dream Discussion: 27294
Beyond Dreamins: 32719
Attaining Lucidity: 75528
Total=228 198

The Lounge: 389287
Extended Discussion: 37522
Total=426 809

Total posts on DV=993,449
Dream related=23%
Other=43%
--------
LD4All.com:
Quest for Lucidity: 23630
Pathways to Lucidity: 17815
General Lucidness: 11888
the Stuff Dreams are made of..: 13614
Total=66 947

Gathering: 44974
Lucid Lounge: 33134
Total=78 108

Total posts on Ld4all=289602
Dream related=23%
Other=27%
--------
LucidDreaming.com/forums/index.php
Lucid Dreaming Types: 112
Lucid Dreaming Experiences: 122
Total=234

The Lounge: 26
Entertainment: 11
Total=37

Total posts on LD.com=569
Dream related=41%
Other=7%

Other Sites

RapLeagues.com/boards/
The Battlefields=14473
Music Discussion=48465
Cypher=6437
Entertainment=15832
Total=85207

Anti-matters=280095
Politics as Usual=14975
Total=295070

Total posts on RL=471,595
Music related=18%
Other=63%
--------
SkepticForum.com/
Skepticism and Critical Thinking=21787
UFO's, Cryptozoology, and The Paranormal=10189
Healthcare=9466
Origins=8942
Total=50384

Belief, Nonbelief, and Philosophy=35460
Nexus=9945
Total=45405

Total posts on SkepticForum=133624
Skeptic Related(arguably the belief is not related)=38%
Other=34%

Questions:

Does anyone else have forums we can add data for? I am actually thinking of gathering together data to make a paper for a psychology class regarding online psychology. Originally I was just going to argue that Dream Views feels more like a philosophy board than Dream. However, now I notice that philosophy and personal topics are typically contributed to more often than what the site was created for.

However, when a website is in regards to personal life or philosophy, the comparison dramatically changes. Take a quick look here:
+ Philosophy Forum: http://forums.philosophyforums.com/
- Definitely active but has almost no other forums aside from philosophy.

+ Plenty of Fish - Dating Site: http://forums.plentyoffish.com/
- Free and very popular dating site whose posts are astronomically higher in personal life than any other topic.

These are just a few sites. Does anyone else have other forums that could be contributed to the data?

~

[Carôusoul]

Just because less is said about the main topic of the site, I don't feel this takes away from that being the main topic still.

BY the very nature of "off topic" people are bound to post more, thats just the type of posts people make, more conversational, and probably generally shorter.

But I bet people put more effort and thought into the posts in the dreaming section.

If there is a hypothetical site about zoos, for example. And there are more one word off topic posts in a SB style thread than the rest of the zoo topics, but the zoo ones are full of meaningful discussion, it could not be reasonably argued that the off topic was the main part.

I think, take this example and enlarge it, and its basically something similar to what we have here.

[dylanshmai]

Most of what I do or say is influenced heavily by my dreams which contain lots of metaphorical content.

Its sort of a forum for Dreamers I guess.

[O'nus]

Just because less is said about the main topic of the site, I don't feel this takes away from that being the main topic still.

BY the very nature of "off topic" people are bound to post more, thats just the type of posts people make, more conversational, and probably generally shorter.

But I bet people put more effort and thought into the posts in the dreaming section.

If there is a hypothetical site about zoos, for example. And there are more one word off topic posts in a SB style thread than the rest of the zoo topics, but the zoo ones are full of meaningful discussion, it could not be reasonably argued that the off topic was the main part.

I think, take this example and enlarge it, and its basically something similar to what we have here.

These are good points. I suppose I am curious to compare topics of interest in online discussion.

~

[arby]

you TOTALLY left out alot of dream related stuff. Summing up the lucid section, the normal dream section and dream journals spits out about 430,000

[O'nus]

you TOTALLY left out alot of dream related stuff. Summing up the lucid section, the normal dream section and dream journals spits out about 430,000

I was trying to just focus on the top 4 highest in regards to main topic and then top 2 unrelated.

I would never accept this as a statistical research presentation, it's very basic. I am curious though if others have website forums to gather data from and what people think is a good focus of comparison.

For example, I was looking at a ratio comparison between main topic and off-topic and then comparing it to other boards; specific topics vs. personal topics.

~

[Xaqaria]

I've talked about this before here.

I honestly never intended to come to dreamviews to talk much about lucid dreaming. I come here to read a bit about lucid dreaming and to talk about other things with people who share one of my main interests.

[O'nus]

I've talked about this before here.

I honestly never intended to come to dreamviews to talk much about lucid dreaming. I come here to read a bit about lucid dreaming and to talk about other things with people who share one of my main interests.

Yeah, I agree. I think this is something that I am curious to see; what are people more willing to talk about online?

~

[Grod]

Yeah, I agree. I think this is something that I am curious to see; what are people more willing to talk about online?

~

I would think literally everything. The anonymity gives you a mask to discuss your perversions and deepest secrets.

[O'nus]

I would think literally everything. The anonymity gives you a mask to discuss your perversions and deepest secrets.

Well I don't see people talking about the weather as much online as I do in person. There is obviously a significant difference in communication, so I am curious to find more sources.

Come on, DV can't be the only forum you people frequent..?

~

[Carôusoul]

Come on, DV can't be the only forum you people frequent..?

~

That and 4chan, pretty much.

yep.

[Grod]

That and 4chan, pretty much.

yep.

Yeah, same. :/ Though I've never posted there.

[O'nus]

That and 4chan, pretty much.

yep.

Oh.

Can't really quantify that much. Although.... off-topic is obviously the most popular.

~

[Serkat]

(All numbers are for categories of related sub-forums)

All French and Spanish LDing forums I found were small (~5000 posts), so I didn't bother.

klartraum.de, an active German lucid dreaming community

25026 32% LD talk
21665 28% Experiences
31497 40% Off-topic

(sum of counted) 78188

forum.dreamhackers.org, a Russian dreaming and OBE community

622 1.5% Board-related
12496 30.4% LD talk / dreaming
5170 12.6% Stalking (seems to be slang for Astral projection)
5030 12.2% Spirituality / paranormal
5610 13.6% Projects / workshops
1880 4.6% Creativity / entertainment
9844 24% Off-topic
474 1.1% Books

(sum of counted) 41126

liebes-forum.net, A huge German love/sexuality forum

33832 .7% Board-related
2065679 46.7% Love, sex etc.
20814 .5% Dating
2307298 52.1% Off-topic

(sum of counted) 4427623


Since the internet is for porn, I thought it would be interesting as well...

undisclosed industry-close porn forum; no copyrighted or hardcore material

698855 44.4% Porn talk
043380 2.8% Porn trade
026315 1.7% Sex talk
807502 51% Off-topic

(sum of counted) 1576052

undisclosed porn forum; copyrighted and hardcore material allowed

14675 .8% Board-related
1317032 68.3% Porn movies
432397 22.4% Porn images
19667 1% Other porn
30957 1.6% Sex talk
112105 5.8% Off-topic

(sum of counted) 1926833

[O'nus]

Am I the only one noticing a trend in which the more abstract the main topic is the more distance there is between the proportion of off-topic to main topic?

Thank you, Serkat. The porn forums is actually a really good idea. I didn't consider that. Gaming forums ought to be considered to. I tried WoW but it's hard to quantify it.. that and I don't know how to quantify Blizzard forum posts :S

~

[Kael Seoras]

Audrey Hepburn - L'ange des enfants
General
Audrey Hepburn Message Board - 57965
Audrey Hepburn Polls - 7529
Show Off Your Classic Movies Websites - 564
Audrey Hepburn Games - 7082
Audrey Hepburn Forum Italiano - 7420
Audrey Hepburn Diskussion (Deutsch) - 335
Discussions au sujet d'Audrey Hepburn (Français) - 826
Opiniones, noticias acerca de Audrey Hepburn (Español) - 2718
Total - 84439

Off Topic
Members Profile Area - 3863
Off-Topic Discussions - 33247
Games Section - 20500
Discussioni Varie - 6343
Gott und die Welt - 216
Discussions Générales - 155
Charla general sobre el mundo - 166
Total - 64490

Total Posts - 148929
Audrey Hepburn or classic movies related - 56.7%
Off-Topic - 43.3%

Oh, I should note, the forum also has its own blogs. Many members have created blogs and there's quite a bit of commenting on various blog entries...I don't know how well I could quantify it...

[dylanshmai]

that just hurt my balls.

[tommo]

I just wanted to add a clearly visible fact once you look at the big picture.

Lucid Dreaming sections are for LUCID DREAMING.
Off topic sections are for everything from butt sex to pancakes.

Ergot, there's gonna be more discussion about a million things than one thing.

[Amethyst Star]

I wonder if you take in the longevity of the members. I do think that the off-topic discussions are a good part of keeping members on the site, as there is more to share and discuss besides simply the forum's primary topic.

I also wonder if those forums delete any posts. There's one that I go to every couple of months or so, but they delete most anything that's over a few months old. It's rather frustrating, actually (and I think after a few years my post count is around 6 or something). They don't have a lot of off-topic, though; just a fair amount of really, really long threads. I don't spend a lot of time there because there are so many people and I actually feel like I get a bit lost in the crowd.

I can't help but wonder if there aren't more people who would like to post in the on-topic forums, but just don't for one reason or another.

[John11]

stepmaniaonline.com (Stepmania)
On Topic: 17,043 (93.70&#37
Off Topic: 1,146 (6.30%)
Note that this forum's content was deleted by an irate moderator about a year ago. Before that the numbers would have been a lot more balanced I believe. The forum is dead now and you only get people posting on topic.

omgdidinsane.com (All Stepmania)
On Topic: 116,450 (46.68%)
Off Topic: 132,998 (53.32%)

bemainstyle.com (All Bemani rhythm games and simulators)
On Topic: 201,516 (48.47%)
Off Topic: 214,269 (51.53%)

bluexoon.com (All stepmania)
On Topic: 3,074 (23.95%)
Off Topic: 9,763 (76.05%)

stepmania.com (All stepmania)
On Topic: 56,256 (74.62%)
Off Topic: 19,142 (25.38%)

flashflashrevolution.com
On Topic (Flash Flash Revolution): 581,487 (21.67%)
Semi On Topic (Stepmania and other Rhythm Games): 275,890 (10.28%)
Off Topic: 1,826,089 (68.05%)
If you remove their senseless banter/forum games then:
On Topic (Flash Flash Revolution): 581,487 (43.41%)
Semi On Topic (Stepmania and other Rhythm Games): 275,890 (20.60%)
Off Topic: 482,090 (35.99%)

ultrastarsongs.com (All Ultrastar)
On Topic: 3,479 (96.96%)
Off Topic: 109 (3.04%)

doujinstyle.com (Doujin Soft, Doujin Music and Touhou)
On Topic: 49,565 (13.10%)
Off Topic: 328,790 (86.90%)
If you remove their equivalent of senseless banter:
On Topic: 49,565 (27.78%)
Off Topic: 128,916 (72.22%)

smashboards.com (Smash Brothers series of video games)
On Topic: 4,441,948 (plus more in the back room) (82.70%)
Off Topic: 929,495 (17.30%)