5152 new users daily before the merit system was introduced? Holy shit! Seems obvious to me that this doesn't represent distinct entities but rather just new accounts--multiple accounts of people.
YES! Clearly the introduction of merit has reduced the number of alt or spam accounts being created. That's a huge win!
To zentedex, I have a request for additional analysis.
Is it possible to look at the average amount of merit given, per transaction? I'd like to see if there's a correlation between rank and the people who are gifting merit to friends or alt accounts.
Parameters likely need to include:
- Average of merit given per transaction, by rank level
- Being able to look at that average over shorter time frames would be useful (a week or 14 days maybe), the longer the duration the more likely the 1 merit transactions will dull the results, we're looking for spikes
- Can we isolate transactions by forum board? Some boards are more likely to have these questionable transactions (e.g., alternative currencies, local, etc.)
- We should isolate the received side of the transaction, an alt account is more likely to receive transactions that are arbitrary gifts than due to genuine quality of their posts - obviously just an unsupported hunch on my part
- Exclude people who've never given any merit
Great analysis, thank you!