"Public Sector" usage pattern as a term, in posts.

DeVore

ok, as part of this thread on Public Sector Threads, we decided to run a query and analyse the results (Rossnor were bored and I suggested it).

The results are actually quite startling...as far as a "zeitgeist trend" goes, its pretty telling. I've attached the XL spreadsheet to this post of the results.

Have a looksee....

The sheet shows
A. the number of posts which included the specific phrase "public sector" in it
B. the number of total posts for that month
C. the percent of A in B.


DeV.

seamus

Ha, nice stats. What happened in Feb 09? Emergency Budget?

DeVore

I dunno but I can only say that my maths lecturers would have classified those numbers as "statistically significant". A phrase I confess an undying love for

DeV.

Wibbs

OK DeV can you translate that for people who run out of mathematical ability when they run out of fingers? IE Me. :D

K-9

seamus wrote: »

Ha, nice stats. What happened in Feb 09? Emergency Budget?

Yeah, the pension levy.

Seemed to have been a bit during benchmarking too, but not "significant".

DeVore

Wibbs, it means "this is very very likely NOT to be simply a coincidence"

The humour comes from the fact that a jump from 0.01% in March 06 to nearly 1% so far this month is very very clearly NOT a statistical anomaly and reflects a definite shift in posting usage.

Translation: Lots of people started using the term A LOT in a very short space of time.

Interesting reading all the same... I dont know of much that would challenge that for "hot topic of the year".... perhaps "french cheat" last month might have, but those are flash in the pan events, this is a seismic movement in terms of public interest.

DeV.

Overheal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spYcp0ZB4nM

aidan_walsh

Rossnor: Jedwards smarter cousin.

Rev. BlueJeans

DeVore wrote: »

Interesting reading all the same... I dont know of much that would challenge that for "hot topic of the year".... perhaps "french cheat" last month might have, but those are flash in the pan events, this is a seismic movement in terms of public interest.

DeV.

I only hope it's a sign of things to come in Irish society. To use the old cliché, "there's a lot of anger out there".

nesf

Any chance of a thread count where Public Sector is in one of the posts in that thread? Or posts in threads containing Public Sector?

Also, I'd like a list of users who most use the term please. Should prove interesting!


Sorry, the stats geek in me is coming out...

ParkRunner

nesf wrote: »

Also, I'd like a list of users who most use the term please. Should prove interesting!


Sorry, the stats geek in me is coming out...

That I'd like to see too. Hope Im not in the top 10

GLaDOS

Wow, very telling

And how I hate my Data Analysis and Statistics lectures

Dannyboy83

You should make a dictionary of keywords first. e.g. PS, PubSec, etc.

Personally, I think the term "PS employees" seems to be most frequent in usage than any other term.

DeVore

There would be strong correlation with the trend shown in that document. It wouldnt really add much to the sum of our knowledge.

Also, while I made have said Conor and Ross were a "bored" its not because they arent busy, believe me they are so I dont want to be bothering them for stats all the time but it did seem like a nice zeitgeist piece of info.

DeV.

nesf

DeVore wrote: »

There would be strong correlation with the trend shown in that document. It wouldnt really add much to the sum of our knowledge.

Also, while I made have said Conor and Ross were a "bored" its not because they arent busy, believe me they are so I dont want to be bothering them for stats all the time but it did seem like a nice zeitgeist piece of info.

DeV.

Ah but correlation is one thing but what's important is the concentration of these posts in threads, whether they're spreading outside of their regular forums and whatnot. Though yeah, it's unreasonable for us to expect Conor and Ross to act as the "BSO" in addition to all their other duties!

Flamed Diving

Nice! Could be an interesting addition (stats much like Google Analytics) to boards.ie one day, perhaps? Or would it only be useful to a tiny bunch of nerds like me, nesf, etc.

dr.bollocko

To me, having had to deal with the vitriol for the past while, that's kind of a depressing statistic.

Rev. BlueJeans

Wait until next week, and the budget

Asok

If you say public sector backwards 3 times infront of a mirror then mary harney throws ducks at your house.

Red Hand

Do you have the stats for Your Ma usage on afterhours?:pac:

The Muppet

Interesting stats, if you were to remove Jimmy's posts and would the graph go back to normal.

parsi

It would be interesting to see who the most prolific anti-PS posters are and if they contribute to any other fora on Boards.

Whilst the PS might be the current zeitgeist does this fad (another word for zeitgeist) result in longer-term boardsies ?

Boards touts itself as a community - sometimes you'd find yourself arguing with someone in one forum and exchanging useful info with them in another forum but the current crop of one-trick-ponies seem to have no interest in this.

Overheal

parsi wrote: »

It would be interesting to see who the most prolific anti-PS posters are and if they contribute to any other fora on Boards.

Whilst the PS might be the current zeitgeist does this fad (another word for zeitgeist) result in longer-term boardsies ?

Boards touts itself as a community - sometimes you'd find yourself arguing with someone in one forum and exchanging useful info with them in another forum but the current crop of one-trick-ponies seem to have no interest in this.

Im not sure witch-hunting posters is a good idea.

parsi

Anonymised statistics FTW.

It would be useful for boards to know the paths that its users take.

A stat of the top 5 posters who post on <insert current fad> have X posts in <current fad forum> and Y posts in other fora.

It's a bit like the research folk do on websites - do users stick to particular pages or do they explore..?

Red Sleeping Beauty

parsi wrote: »

It would be interesting to see who the most prolific anti-PS posters are and if they contribute to any other fora on Boards.

Whilst the PS might be the current zeitgeist does this fad (another word for zeitgeist) result in longer-term boardsies ?

Boards touts itself as a community - sometimes you'd find yourself arguing with someone in one forum and exchanging useful info with them in another forum but the current crop of one-trick-ponies seem to have no interest in this.

When it comes to politics I don't think boards.ie is community per se, feels more like a battlezone.

The Lisbon Treaty was also a fad for a while with droves of the "one-trick-ponies".

nesf

Alan Rouge wrote: »

When it comes to politics I don't think boards.ie is community per se, feels more like a battlezone.

The Lisbon Treaty was also a fad for a while with droves of the "one-trick-ponies".

Politics is a civil war carried out by non-violent means essentially.

Overheal

nesf wrote: »

Politics is a civil war carried out by non-violent means essentially.

Debate: the ultimate turn-based strategy game.

Terry

How do I open this in Open Office?

Stark

Can we graph the number of occurrences of the term "private sector" alongside it and see if the lines diverge?

Victor

Terry wrote: »

How do I open this in Open Office?

Try "save to disk" and then open it.

Compacted graph attached (and don't whinge you can't open png files!).

Riskymove

Many people just use the abbreviation PS

is this taken into account?

DeVore

No. just the exact phrase "public sector".

DeV.

Riskymove

so the reality is that the post count is actually much higher

Blowfish

You can't really take it into account though as it's the same abbreviation for the private sector.

dr.bollocko

Blowfish wrote: »

You can't really take it into account though as it's the same abbreviation for the private sector.

PS it also means other things completely unrelated. Could skew the figures.

randylonghorn

Rev. BlueJeans wrote: »

I only hope it's a sign of things to come in Irish society. To use the old cliché, "there's a lot of anger out there".

Indeed.

Pity more of it isn't being aimed at the bankers and developers, and their union, Fianna Fail, the real villains of the piece.

But ofc they're a hell of a lot less visible and safely insulated from reality.

Oh, I'm no apologist for the public service, there's plenty of room for reform and improvement. And the unions ... sweet jebus, the unions!!! Another oligarchy safely insulated from reality, even from what their own members are telling them!

But the Public Sector is currently being made into the anti-christ, to the ecstasy of the unholy trinity which has actually been responsible for dumping this country down the loo and pulling the chain.

About time the whole bloody lot of us, public and private and indeed voluntary sectors, stopped squabbling like kids and insisted on real change / reform at the top.

nesf wrote: »

Politics is a civil war carried out by non-violent means essentially.

Indeed, which is why the result is so often a poisoned wasteland.

Asok wrote: »

If you say public sector backwards 3 times infront of a mirror then mary harney throws ducks at your house.

Your sexual fantasies are getting even weirder ... if that's possible! :pac:

Overheal

dr.bollocko wrote: »

PS it also means other things completely unrelated. Could skew the figures.

From now the Public Sector shall be referred to as Patrick and the GOP will be referred to as Jennifer.

Gaspode

I guess the governments strategy of divide and conquer has been its only true success of the past 10 years then.
While public& private workers are at each others throat they're helping their banker buddies to the last of our money!

dr.bollocko

Gaspode wrote: »

I guess the governments strategy of divide and conquer has been its only true success of the past 10 years then.
While public& private workers are at each others throat they're helping their banker buddies to the last of our money!

TBH this is my take on it too. Divert negative attention as much as possible so we're fighting a civil war of words and forgetting who created the whole mess in the first place. It is unfortunate that this sudden huge rise in posting is so fuelled by invective.
One would hope that being unable to see the wood for the trees is what's going on here. However the onset of public sector strikes looks very likely. Public sympathy is going to be at an all time low. Yet we have a number of posters who are public service. I know for a fact many of them have turned off AH because of the malice displayed in some of the posts. I am thinking that the low view will become more prevalent before it goes away.

Ticktactoe

dr.bollocko wrote: »

TBH this is my take on it too. Divert negative attention as much as possible so we're fighting a civil war of words and forgetting who created the whole mess in the first place. It is unfortunate that this sudden huge rise in posting is so fuelled by invective.
One would hope that being unable to see the wood for the trees is what's going on here. However the onset of public sector strikes looks very likely. Public sympathy is going to be at an all time low. Yet we have a number of posters who are public service. I know for a fact many of them have turned off AH because of the malice displayed in some of the posts. I am thinking that the low view will become more prevalent before it goes away.

+1

Ostrom

DeVore wrote: »

I dunno but I can only say that my maths lecturers would have classified those numbers as "statistically significant". A phrase I confess an undying love for

DeV.

He he... Can we calculate spearman's rho?

Nice numbers, are there other similar websites such as this that could be content analyzed?