BN Demographics
From Voice of the Proletariat
Contents |
Censusing an Online Tribe: Who are the People of banniNation?
Introduction
Since the founding of banniNation, 2 May 2007, the community has grown from a small band of dissatisfied and rejected users of other news conglomeration websites to a registered population of 2473 alts (bN main page 9/12/07). Over the course of 5 months we have struggled together to build a self-regulating community potentially unlike any other on the internet. Some members have been lost or disappeared for long periods in the course of this struggle, yet the core community remains.
Community is central to what it means to be human. In Cyberspace, as in Meatspace, our basic needs are simple. Physiological and safety needs can be met elsewhere, but banniNation helps fulfill our essential needs for love and belonging, esteem, cognitive interaction, aesthetics, self-actualization, and self-transcendence (Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs). In the words of author Sherman Alexie, we are "just flinging [our] words into space", hoping that someone, somewhere will read them and connect with something we have posted. We are a social animal. banniNation satisfies our need to connect.
"I was born in 1518 in the village of Glenfinnan on the shores of Loch Shiel. And I am immortal... Wait, that was just a movie? Shit." - party boy, 9/6/07
"No - it was a documentary, and it was filmed in real time." - brewer, 9/6/07
Who are the people that hunt and forage the web for news? Who are the people that gather around the ether bonfire to hear these stories and add their comments, both irreverent and serious, to the discussion? Who lurks at the edges, enjoying the virtual interplay and occasionally adding their observations? And are these real people or bots on the other end of the internet connection? What do they look like? Where do they live? What is their favorite beer? Is everyone really 16 years old, male, single, and posting from their mom’s basement? bNers and bNettes frequently post discussions to the queue that try to elicit answers to these questions. This demographic survey is the first, somewhat organized, attempt to assess the basic characteristics of banniNation’s core community.
"in reality or what i want everyone to think?" - beerdiva, 9/6/07
Methods
At the time of the census, there were 2473 alts registered within the banniNation community. In the week prior to the census, 364 different user ids posted, although only 337 of them were detected as distinct individuals and not alts. “During that 7 day timespan, Google detected that we had 3688 ‘absolutely unique visitors,’ so that suggests that only 1 in 10 of our users bother to post” (grahams, pers. comm. 9/7/07). It should be noted that the banniNation headquarter’s brass flag various husband and wife combinations, roommates, co-workers, and all AOL users as alts of one another (grahams, pers. comm. 9/7/07). It was near impossible to do a power analysis to figure how many members were needed to elicit a truly random sampling of the population because the author had no time or interest in doing so and multiple alts really screw with the numbers. Therefore, based on posting activity, it was determined that a minimum of 100 people would give a generalized picture of who participated in the community, as this would represent roughly 50% of the regularly posting users. In total, 115 community members contributed personal information to the demographic analysis.
"26. Married. 4 cats, 1 dog, 1 fish." - smackymac, 9/6/07
"That's a lot of cats to be married to. The number of dogs and fish, however, seems reasonable." - bigjoel,9/6/07
Community members were solicited for basic statistical information via posts to the Beer Garden and two discussion threads over a eight day period (7 – 15 September 2007). Participation was entirely voluntary. Individuals posted their answers in the discussion thread, posted answers in a special wiki page created for this purpose, or sent their information directly to the author via email. Once the information was received, the community member’s name was posted on the demographics wiki page to let them know that the information had been received and entered into a spreadsheet for future analysis.
In order to prevent double entry of data and troll spamming, community members were asked to provide nicks. A few also provided their alts. For the purposes of this analysis, a nick is the dominant name a user posts and votes under. Alts are secondary names used to post comments to and vote on/in banniNation threads. Each name was checked to verify that the person was a member of banniNation using the community registered user number/biography function. Once the data was entered into the statistical program all identifiers were erased and the raw data destroyed. Raw data was the actual information sent to the data collector in the form of emails and wiki postings.
Community members were asked to answer the following questions:
1. banniNation Nick
2. Year Born
3. Month Born
4. Gender
5. Relationship Status: single, married (civil, religious, or common-law), engaged, divorced, separated, widowed, long-term relationship but unmarried (cohabitating or not)
6. Number of Children
7. Number of Pets
8. Number of Computers owned
9. Do you banninate from a Mac or PC or Linux? Choose the one you spend the most time on.
10. What is your field (work or study)? General - like IT, Law, Health, History, etc.
11. International call code
12. Zip or Postal Code - if you use one
"...but do you like pina coladas?" - bake, 9/7//07
"OMG YES AND GETTING CAUGHT IN THE RAIN!" - jed the humanoid, 9/7/07
Originally, the first question read “banniNation Alt” as the author was confused about the difference between alts and nicks. The original confusion led to some people posting their real alts. Community members participate in discussions as anonymously as they so choose, so all names used are, in a sense, alts. As stated previously, all alts and nicks were removed from the analysis.
Several possibilities were listed for “relationship status.” The author identified different forms of marriage and long-term relationships to categorize choices, not to ask whether people were practicing certain types of relationships. The same goes for number of pets, where a person banninates from, and field of work/study. When provided, additional pet information was kept in order to look at the correlation between types of pets and types of banniNation platforms. The author apologizes to any Linux users for failing to include their preferred platform. Linux was accounted for in the results.
Finally, community members were asked for their international calling code and a postal code. This really stirred the paranoia pot, as several members suggested that the combination of birthdate, nick, and postal code would allow anyone to access very personal information if they knew where to look. Many chose not to answer this question at all. When registering, users are not asked for more than an email address and birth date. Users could banninate from the moon, thus headquarter brass requested the inclusion of a zip code question in order to obtain a general sense of where people lived. International calling codes were used for non-North American members, as some countries do not use postal codes.
Questions concerning sexual orientation, ethnicity/race, income, and political bent were not raised in this census. While all of these forces shape our experiences and personalities, they are invisible to other community members unless we chose to make them known. The author chose not to include these questions in this census because banniNation is an intellectual community. Members are judged by the content of their posts not by the color of their skin, their sexual preferences, or their income. It was felt that inclusion of such questions might deter some members from participating in the census. Politics do play into community interactions, but have already been analyzed in the political chart created and maintained by thebugman (See bN Political Chart).
Various community members raised questions concerning anonymity and trolls, or other criminals, using sent information to hunt down and harm people in Cyberspace. The author has done her best to destroy personal information by deleting emails and wiping the wiki page at the end of each census day. Grahams, banniNation’s founder and site manager, also destroyed the original demographics wiki page on Friday, 14 September 2007 at noon. Previous threads do exist and it is hoped that common sense, civility, good citizenship, and honesty prevent individuals from using the information contained therein for illegal purposes.
"I have never been, nor am I, or know anyone in the bannination party and I don't recognize the right of committee to ask these questions." - president raygun, 9/12/07
"I am not a committee." - jin verde, 9/12/07
"good. cause there is no time to discuss this as a committee." - maurdramnus, 9/12/07
Basic analysis of results was conducted using SYSTAT, Ver. 10 (2002). This was the only software package available to the author at the time. Results are displayed below. The author presently leaves interpretation open for group discussion. Thread comments will be collected and posted below. Others may post directly to the wiki. Please refrain from erasing others comments just because you don’t like them.
Results
Basic Stats: First the numbers.
Totals
bN alts (9/12/07): 2473
bN census participants: 115
European participants: 4 (Denmark, Finland, UK)
African participants: 3 (South Africa, Moçambique)
Australian/New Zealand participants: 1 (Australia)
Canadian participants: 7
U.S. participants: 100
"Is someone going to make a graph?" - max power, 9/6/07
Pictures: The bars are for max power; the pies have been baked especially for chaos.
"It's a freakkin' SAUSAGE FEST! We need more women." - swingingjohnson, 9/16/07
"I'm 35 for a couple months yet. No kids, so I definitely don't act my age." - heresyoftruth, 9/6/07
"Also, of the piddling 15% of Bnette's only 11% are single! WEEPING CREEPING JESUS! I'm guess I'm not getting laid around here any time soon." - waste301, 9/16/07
"I am seeing a trend here. Evidently, it is impossible to own just one cat." - lifelike, 9/7/07
“The average bNer has three [computers] – one for bN, one for porn, and one for illegal piracy.” - bunnythor, 7/14/07
“Don’t forget one for the pancakes.” - feepness, 7/14/07
"What didn't surprise me is women have more pets (on average) than men. What DID surprise me is women have more computers than men! wierd." - doesnotexist, 9/16/07
"One for working, one for pirating and/or gaming, one for banniNating, one for shopping?" - howie feltersnatch, 9/16/07
"A pink one to match their favorite shoes, a jeweled one to match their purse, a black one to make them look thinner, and one with verticle stripes to make them look taller." - doesnotexist, 9/16/07
"You forgot one overclocked computer to blowdry their hair." - howie feltersnatch, 9/16/07
"and dry the nail polish..." - doesnotexist, 9/16/07
"Holy crap, do you see how many IT people there are here compared to everything else? We practically have our own Indian call center." - gabraines, 9/16/07
"Thanks for calling banniNation. Now go Fuck Yourself. click" - babycthulhu, 9/16/07
Participant Reward
space baked these. Please take one for participating. Thanks.
Group Discussion
Several threads contain discussion about the banniNation census - either soliciting information or discussing the results. I have posted them here.
The thread that started it all: What is the age demographic on this site? [1]
Stand up and be counted in bN's first organized census. [2]
Who are the people of banniNation? Initial census results are in. [3]
Author's Note
--Jin verde 03:16, 16 September 2007 (PDT)
I apologize for crappy formatting, bad colors, picture fuzziness, geekspeak, etc. in advance. If you have any suggestions regarding further analysis of this data, I would love to hear from you. I am still working on correlations, but I wanted to get the basics posted this morning. I can’t promise immediate results or responses, but I can continue to work on this. I think it would be interesting to conduct this census on an annual basis so that we could look at growth and change within the community, but maybe I’m being too geeky. Self study and navel gazing are the ultimate geekgasm. So I’ve left interpretation open because I think community input would be very enlightening.
