From Costanza's original thread (entire text):

This is for anyone in the LessWrong community who has made at least some effort to read the sequences and follow along, but is still confused on some point, and is perhaps feeling a bit embarrassed. Here, newbies and not-so-newbies are free to ask very basic but still relevant questions with the understanding that the answers are probably somewhere in the sequences. Similarly, LessWrong tends to presume a rather high threshold for understanding science and technology. Relevant questions in those areas are welcome as well.  Anyone who chooses to respond should respectfully guide the questioner to a helpful resource, and questioners should be appropriately grateful. Good faith should be presumed on both sides, unless and until it is shown to be absent.  If a questioner is not sure whether a question is relevant, ask it, and also ask if it's relevant.

Meta:

• How often should these be made? I think one every three months is the correct frequency.
• Costanza made the original thread, but I am OpenThreadGuy. I am therefore not only entitled but required to post this in his stead. But I got his permission anyway.

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Early in the month I announced that I was doing an experiment: I was going to start two Open Threads in January (one on the 1st, and the other on the 15th) and compare the number of comments on these threads to those of other months. My hypothesis was that having two Open Threads would raise the overall number of comments.

The reason for this experiment was recent discussions regarding how useful threads such as these were quickly buried. Well, the experiment is over now, and here are the results:

I did a search for Open Threads, and entered all the monthly ones I could find into an Excel spreadsheet. I made them into a graph, and I discovered an anomaly. There was an 8-month timespan from February 2010-September 2010, in which the comment counts were extremely high (up to 2112). Many of these threads had 2, 3, or 4 parts, because they were getting filled up.

I wasn't around LW back then, and I don't feel like reading through them all, so I don't know why this time period was so active. My current hypothesis (with P=.75) is that anomalous time period was before the Discussion section was created. I'm sure I could look it up to see if I'm right, but I bet one of the long-term LWers already knows if this is true or not, so I'll crowd-source the info. (Comment below if you know that I am correct or incorrect in my hypothesis.)

Now for the data:

The January 1-15, 2012 thread had: 122 comments
The January 16-31, 2012 thread had: 236 comments

For a grand total of: 358 comments in Jan 2012

The average Open Thread had: 448.6 comments
The median Open Thread had: 204    comments
The average OT of the past 14 mo's: 126.5 comments

So overall, the January thread had LESS than the average monthly thread, but more than the median. 

IF however we look at the past 14 months (which was the end of the anomaly), then the January 2012 Open Thread had almost THREE TIMES the average.

My original hypothesis had probabilities assigned to various increases in comment rate, but I was way off because I didn't at all think it would shrink (if we include the anomaly) or that it would be 300% bigger (if we don't)

Here's a handy-dandy chart, because everything is better with pictures in!

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

(I plan to make these threads from now on. Downvote if you disapprove. If I miss one, feel free to do it yourself.)

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

If continuing the discussion becomes impractical, that means you win at open threads; a celebratory top-level post on the topic is traditional.


Poster's Note: omg, it felt so weird typing "2012" up there.