[Aaron]

Footnote:


Thanks Lunarpages

[Aaron]

[tmazanec1]

October could get a few more. We will still have news as the curve advances, so we sill still have a lot of messages. It may be more like Campbell's population curve that peaks at 7 billion then stabalizes about 4 billion.

[backstop]

Aaron - I hope your graph above is meant as a warning, not a prediction.

In either case, I'd agree the site faces that risk of decline due to apathy; the widespread propaganda that "there's nothing you can do about it" is the lowest of all and pushing people into disempowered apathy is its goal. The 'Voting is Futile' brigade are classic example of the lackeys of that propaganda. The question is what's to be done about it ?

While reader-numbers' volume may yet rise on the predictable Oo-ing and Aah-ing over the public surprise at official acknowledgements of Peak Extraction, that is of couse just postponing peak readership, and of course doing so to no very useful purpose.

If on the other hand the site attracts readership through its increased posting of well-informed constructive suggestions, particularly of solutions with some global relevance to the energy problem, then Peak Concern may be superseded by a far higher 'Peak Re-orientation' a good many years hence. In this case it could represent a valuable contribution to that development.

So how is "increased posting of well-informed constructive suggestions, particularly of solutions with some global relevance to the energy problem," going to be achieved ?

Given that this is an issue of life and death, and actually of mega-deaths, my two pennorth of suggestions would start with some pretty ruthless pruning of those aspects of the site that discourage the well-informed constructive posters that are needed. (This is not to knock our efforts and capacities, but rather to recognize our limitations in proportion to the problematique).

From this perspective, banning outright those pushing the highly obstructive fascistic dogmas of racism and might-is-right, and shifting the Open Discussion Forum off the 'Posts Since Last Visit' page, will raise significantly the profile presented to new readers. It will also encourage us all to post with more focus on the issue in terms of optimizing practical responses to information gathered.

In addition, posts in that Open Discussion Forum (which is a valuable capacity and shouldn't be clogged or degraded with speculative or irrelevant dross) should IMHO be weeded by moderators, with the output being shifted to a new "Hall of Weeds". I'm thinking here both of endless diversionary chatter about the minutae of 9/11 as much as about the intellectual self-abuse of 'Methane from Pluto'.

My second pennorth is of course about proactively seeking those with the specialist experience needed for the site to provide more useful info on solutions. While recruiting them is in a sense everyones' task, the range of Specialists now asked to respond to questions is largely about the problems of depletion, and should perhaps give far greater weight to those people who've been focussed on the solutions for years past.

That's my two pennorth, which will I hope make sense to others and cause them to add their suggestions too.

regards,

Backstop

[Brian]

Aaron, does your graph account for "yet to discover" visitors?

[Guest]

There was nearly a week long period when no one could go to this website. That might account for decrease in visitors.

[dmtu]

Although I agree with Backstop to some degree, I also feel that a lighter side should have an opportunity to be expressed. As the site has progressed over the course of its first year I have found myself following the news forum and the open forum more than the others. Maybe this is because I have become somewhat jaded to the prognostication, I couldn't say for sure. Having cyphered, selected and moved most of the threads during the last upheaval, when we went from two topics to eleven (?) I can tell you it is no simple task. As a matter of fact it was never really completed. If this is going to be a community forum then different areas need the opportunity to be explored and or expressed. If it is to be nothing but hard core scientific and political prognostication then I'm afraid membership will dwindle. Personally, I don't like to post with softlanding and pup55 (those two just come to mind) because their knowledge of mathematical modeling and such just astound me, much as I try to stay out of the conversations with the guys and gals that understand markets and money far better than I. In this sense I try to sit back and learn from those with a greater advantage, rather than pollute the topic at hand with ignorance.

[jesus_of_suburbia_old]

Does that graph take into account unconventional members?

At what point does the number of members invested to find new members become uneconmical, and we actually lose members in the process?
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he 'Voting is Futile' brigade are classic example of the lackeys of that propaganda.

[Guest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Brian', 'A')aron, does your graph account for "yet to discover" visitors?

[trespam]

I agree with the other posters in this thread. I'm sick of this glass is half-empty crap. The chart Aaron has displayed is completely bogus. Why?

1. It backdates many posts. Look at it this way. Many of the posts last month were actually intended for this month. People just got ahead of themselves. Therefore moving them into this month will produce a gradually increasing plot of posts versus time.

2. Productivity increases. People are posting more efficiently now. A post that had maybe X bits of information now has 2X bits. The plot Aaron produced does not take into account the increasing productivity of value of these posts.

3. Increasing value of posts. As the information in the posts increases, yes, it's true, the number decreases. But then what happens? The market recognizes the value in these posts and they start increasing. Before you know it we've got more posts with less value.

4. Look at history folks. People have been saying that posts would decrease for a long-long time. It's the same old song. Before you know, they're back up.

Finally, others pointed out that there are many yet-to-be discovered posts and unconventional posts that are not represented in these numbers.

I'm Michael Lynch and I approve this message.

[arocoun]

You know, I agree that the number of posts here could very well be declining. Thing is, there's no point in worrying or trying to change things. I don't know how to live without posting on this forum, and am too busy to try to find other places to post or other ways besides posting here to discuss things. Soon, these forums will be dead, so we might as well accept it and use our remaining posts to party like crazy before it happens.

[BastardSquad]

As a newcomer to this site I have to ask all you "optomists" a question.Do you really think that once PO is in full swing,when we're down those few lasts drops of oil,that we can still save every last 6-7billion humans?I mean really?Honestly?Assuming everything about PO is true,do you really,truely,honestly think you can prevent a rapid population decline via die off?

The way I see it,what we're headed toword is what anthropologists and geneticists refer to as a "bottleneck".They've happened before and there's no reason to believe they won't happen again and again throughout the future.

I see no reason to promote unrealistic optomism,you can't candy coat this one,there no point in it.

BTW,if you really believe we can vote our way out of this one you're an idiot.

[Specop_007]

As long as theres free jely beans here, I'll be here.
And no trespam, I wont share.

[dmtu]

I'm just not quite sure how to address that.

[pea-jay]

Trespam:

It doesn't matter if we peak Peak... we can always revert back to older ways of discourse, such as the BBS, the public bulletin board, bathroom stalls or in a pinch a soapbox will still do.

Personally I am not worried about peak Peak. Just when it looks the most dire and this site will close down, the market will create a new medium better than this one.

[Sencha]

Pealoil.com can't peak! If I don't have anyone to discuss Peak Oil with, I'll go insane (more than I already am) its bad enough I don't know anyone IRL who I can talk to about it.

[Sencha]

oops, I mean peakoil.com, see I'm losing my mind at the thought of this messageboard peaking.

[Concerned]

Look this chart is all well and good. But back in August and September the numbers magically appeared with no new advances in technology, just poof the numbers came out of thin air.

Why? Because it was in the Peak Oil cults best interest. Now unless we can have "brute force access to web logs" then we can't say for sure when peak will peak.

One thing we can say categorically is that if PO news and message boards has peaked then the world has peaked, with that there is the end of growth in PO news.

Sure there are other "alternatives" but none with the information returned on mouse clicks expended. I'm afraid to say that the partys over, the passage of time of ever increasing posts about PO is coming to an end and it was predicted many years ago by "some old guy" who studied this phenomenon.

Instead of using the cleaner alternatives forces have shifted to using the very polluting and low information return of troll and drizzle sands of Alberta. Where it takes more and more mouse clicks to extract any useful information.

Once your mouse clicks tire your finger out before you get any useful information then the games basically over, the information could cure cancer and solve time travel but you will never be able to extract it because your fingers already been tired out.

[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')4. Look at history folks. People have been saying that posts would decrease for a long-long time. It's the same old song. Before you know, they're back up.

[Aaron]

Threatened by "posts of mass distraction" from Yahoo Energy Boards, PO.com & a coalition of the willing must secure these intellectual assets.

Through a campaign of "shock & awe", our coalition will make the Internet safe for posters everywhere.

Look, these are people who have flamed their own members in the past. They represent a clear & present danger to informed forums, and must be stopped.

Recent threads have been discovered which have only one use... The flaming of innocent posters.

We will bring peace & security to the exploited posters of Yahoo, & secure their forum assets for the members themselves.

Special forums will be set up for dissidents, where our moderators will... errr... re-educate these prisoners using established psychological techniques and web cams.

"MISSION ACCOMPLISHED"