Quote Originally Posted by Del Murder View Post
Quote Originally Posted by Dr. rydrum2112 View Post
Second- from an ethical/teacher of statistics/methodological perspective, I think your "graphs" are a big deceiving. If you add this & last years numbers to the LoonyBob original graph- you would get the proper perspective. At then end of 2008 posts were around 9k, and the months prior about 12k, if you added the 15k to that you will see a trend that looks like you have "bottomed out" and bounced back very slightly. Where as just showing us the graph of 11 and 12 looks like a huge increase.
I know what you're saying. But an increase is an increase. It takes a lot more than a 50% increase to offset a 50% decrease. If we plotted the % change in posts over time rather than the raw numbers then you will see the huge increase for 2012 even if you showed 2006 on there. Yes it is still a fraction of what we were once at but it's pretty difficult to make up that kind of decline in a short time. The point is that we are on the rise and we increased our output by a sizable margin last year.
Sure, my intention was not to disparage the "growth" in any way. But to just point out that the graph you showed had this enormous slope over the last few months- which does not seem realistic.

Of-course if you showed just percent increase you will see large numbers, but as I teach in class- to be ethical you should always give all the info. [Saying some paper salesman had a 50% increase in sales sounds impressive until you learn he sold 2 reams last month and 3 this month.]

From looking at the graphs I think the biggest conclusion you can draw is that you are no longer on the downswing and hopefully bouncing back. That is in itself something to be proud of accomplishing.