3 ms·

Loyalty in Online Communities [pdf]

47 points by lainon 10y ago

cjslep 10y ago
We define user loyalty on Reddit based on commenting behavior, which we view as a strong proxy for latent engagement. To focus our attention on loyalty in- stead of platform-level retention, all of the following defini- tions are restricted to users who commented at least 10 times within the relevant time period. An interesting definition of loyalty for any site. I recognize that I am unusually skewed towards being a "lurker", but consider myself loyal to two sites (this being one of them). I guess you would need visitation data to be able to better distinguish between an "active loyal user" and a "passive loyal user", relatively speaking.
ryanx435 10y ago
its not so much loyalty, more addiction that i keep coming here and to reddit. I've pretty much fallen out of love with both sites (i've been on both for almost 10 years) but I gotta get that dopamine hit from finding interesting articles and getting in internet discussions. not even being sarcastic.
- sanswork 10y ago
  I finally took the step to consciously stop visiting reddit this week. I've replaced it with another forum specific to a new subject I'm trying to learn as my go to distraction place. It's only been a few days but if it goes anything like Slashdot and Digg after it in a week or two I'll forget to ever look. It got to the point where it felt like I was going on reddit to be annoyed. I'd go to subreddits where I knew I would heavily disagree with the opinions, I'd read SRD, all this stuff that was just entirely negative. The only problem with avoiding reddit is that on a lot of topics when you search for something reddit comes up frequently in the search requests.
  - type0 10y ago
    > The only problem with avoiding reddit is that on a lot of topics when you search for something reddit comes up frequently in the search requests. That's probably because google or whatever else you use is filter-bubbling you...
    - chadgeidel 10y ago
      Anecdotal, but I rarely get search results linking to reddit. I personally left reddit a few years ago so this may be the filter-bubble pointing me elsewhere.
- Tossrock 10y ago
  pg has a good take on this in his addiction essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html "We'll have to worry not just about new things, but also about existing things becoming more addictive. That's what bit me. I've avoided most addictions, but the Internet got me because it became addictive while I was using it."

47 points by lainon 10y ago

We define user loyalty on Reddit based on commenting behavior, which we view as a strong proxy for latent engagement. To focus our attention on loyalty in- stead of platform-level retention, all of the following defini- tions are restricted to users who commented at least 10 times within the relevant time period. An interesting definition of loyalty for any site. I recognize that I am unusually skewed towards being a "lurker", but consider myself loyal to two sites (this being one of them). I guess you would need visitation data to be able to better distinguish between an "active loyal user" and a "passive loyal user", relatively speaking.

ryanx435 10y ago

its not so much loyalty, more addiction that i keep coming here and to reddit. I've pretty much fallen out of love with both sites (i've been on both for almost 10 years) but I gotta get that dopamine hit from finding interesting articles and getting in internet discussions. not even being sarcastic.

sanswork 10y ago
I finally took the step to consciously stop visiting reddit this week. I've replaced it with another forum specific to a new subject I'm trying to learn as my go to distraction place. It's only been a few days but if it goes anything like Slashdot and Digg after it in a week or two I'll forget to ever look. It got to the point where it felt like I was going on reddit to be annoyed. I'd go to subreddits where I knew I would heavily disagree with the opinions, I'd read SRD, all this stuff that was just entirely negative. The only problem with avoiding reddit is that on a lot of topics when you search for something reddit comes up frequently in the search requests.
- type0 10y ago
  > The only problem with avoiding reddit is that on a lot of topics when you search for something reddit comes up frequently in the search requests. That's probably because google or whatever else you use is filter-bubbling you...
  - chadgeidel 10y ago
    Anecdotal, but I rarely get search results linking to reddit. I personally left reddit a few years ago so this may be the filter-bubble pointing me elsewhere.
Tossrock 10y ago
pg has a good take on this in his addiction essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html "We'll have to worry not just about new things, but also about existing things becoming more addictive. That's what bit me. I've avoided most addictions, but the Internet got me because it became addictive while I was using it."