SN Territory metrics analysisSN Territory metrics analysis
Been pulling monthly stats from the GraphQL API for all 56 territories and threw together some charts. The thing I didn't expect: territory founder take rates range from 14% to 57%.
Turns out the main driver is how much of a territory's spending is zaps vs posting fees. bitcoin_Mining is almost entirely fees, 87% of sats spent go to the founder, barely any zapping happens. On the other end, Stacker_Sports and Animal_World have 60%+ stacked to OPs through zaps.
~meta has the highest average stacked per post at ~395sats, which makes sense given the audience. ~the_stacker_muse and ~BooksAndArticles are also high but for different reasons, fewer posts, more concentrated attention. Meanwhile ~bitcoin and ~econ win on raw volume, big surprise.
The scatter plot (middle left) is probably the most useful: each dot is a territory, size is stacker count, color is the founder revenue ratio. Tells you at a glance which territories have actual engaged communities vs ones that are mostly fee sinks.
Oh look, it's a power law!!
the log-log[1] "Posts vs Sats Stacked" [2nd row, left side] shows it beautifully
linked in case people like wikipedia; tl;dr, switching both scales of a graph from linear to logarithmic causes some kinds of data behavior to "jump out" because the log scales turn certain kinds of curves into lines of recognizeable angles ↩
I'm being facetious, cuz all the power-law log-log stuff is complete bullshit (#1433264).
Nice to find a Pareto distr in the SN wilderness
honestly I'm not well-versed in the detailed differences.
the line on the log-log chart, with meta outlying, is undeniable.
I agree that quibbling over whether some fitted curve is
n^x,x^n, or something else, is futile in most situations... although a conversation in one situation could be complete bullshit, without reducing the abstract accuracy of the mathematics.emphasis mine, on the word that pissed me off ... ↩
I thought Pareto distributions show up everywhere
unless you metrize by something absolute, then the distribution of distributions remains hopelessly subjective
Yahyah, a little bit
IIRC:
70% of posting fees go to the territory operator, 30% goes to rewards.
70% of zaps goes to the poster, 21% goes to the territory operator, 9% goes to rewards.
Keep in mind that founders can also post in their own territories, which can shift your metrics a bit if you're just taking raw averages.
where is my 87 percent?
It has to be a combination of the 70% from post fees and 91% from your own zaps.
Cool beans.
Interesting to note how some territories (such as Stacker_Sports) flourish as a thriving third space within the larger ecosystem of SN itself
Well done! Is this from last month only or an average of past months? Can you provide the interactive charts somehow? Curious to see where ~AGORA sits
Thanks! This is from last month only.
Here's where ~AGORA sits:
Sorry, no interactive charts for now, but will look into improvements in the future if there's enough interest.
Thank you, an interactive chart would be great. Otherwise, I'll be happy to bother you every month.
Do it lol
Very cool.
Rock & Roll territory founder!!
What is fee of Stacker News in the operation?
Zero. SN charges founders to create territories but doesn't take a cut of revenue.
Even 1 % is enough to maintain hosting and advertisement not 0 % far from logic
Well, it is zero. I'm a territory owner and all of this information is public, so draw your own conclusions if you like but I'm telling you how it works.
does this imply that one of the best ways to boost support of the site is posting in ~meta ?
don't get me wrong, I have no qualms about zapping @k00b for good participation; however, earning meta fees might bias towards support of his larger efforts of building and maintaining the community, rather than the different incentives of participation.
obviously k00b is welcome to expound upon his own interpretation! although, I think one of the general findings of behavioral economics research is something like "people's rationalisations of their motivations are not always accurate"