"Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics"

(Written 7/27/11 by ChristopherK2 for the Uglier Marylanders blog)

That's part of an old quote attributed to Disraeli and others, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

Zeeke normally specializes in the first two classic types of lies, but he's recently ventured into manipulating statistics to cover his shrinking chat room. 22 to 2? Ya'right... like that old print screen had any relevance to his room or the Over 35 one.

The stone cold reality is that *both* rooms are doing poorly, and the combined totals show a rapidly-shrinking group.

Zeeke's Love Fest ("ZLF") room barely averaged *10* SNs in it during the first half of July and the Over 35 ("35+") room just over half of that. The ZLF declined precipitously during that time, no doubt due to Zeeke bolting "marginal tards." The ZLF had somewhat more SNs in it at lunchtime, and both rooms were noticeably more popular during the evenings. 35+ was also very active in the early mornings.

So much for Zeeke's unsupported claim that the ZLF is "one of the most popular chatrooms on AOL." It isn't.

As to Zeeke's boast that "I didnt expect 95% of the old room to share my vision and follow to a better place," well, they didn't. That's just a bald-faced lie. Each room now has about 55-60 discrete SNs as recurring roomies (excluding bots, duplicate SNs, etc.). The 35+ room actually comes out ahead on total counts because nearly a dozen of the ZLF regulars also visit the 35+ room.

So if the SN counts are about the same, why does the ZLF average twice as many SNs in it? That's an easy one. 35+ only has a few Campers , while the ZLF has almost 25. They account for the overwhelming majority of ZLF roomies nearly all of the time.

Both rooms are well below the counts needed for a healthy, sustaining room, and the combined totals are remarkably fewer than just a year to 18 months ago. In the short-term, the main reason for that is obviously the splitting up of the rooms. The numbers in each are shrinking probably because people come in, see few or none are typing, and then leave.

In the longer term, IMHO, the drama imposed by Zeeke and the Zombies has decimated the overall totals. You simply cannot routinely bolt "50+" people and not expect a fair percentage of them to just leave forever. Ditto for ruthlessly assaulting people simply because you don't like them. Doing either not only directly reduces the group, but drives away others who simply don't want to watch the drama.

At this point, the group is more dysfunctional than Congress and the President dealing with the debt ceiling problem. If we as a group are unable to reconcile our differences (as the politicians are now doing), my great fear is that the numbers will soon drop below critical mass, and the rooms will then implode on themselves.

Below is a print screen showing both rooms last Thursday evening with a total of just 22 SNs, the majority of which were Campers. This sucks folks...