One True Thread: Post Rate by Time of Day

All Users - 114 Days

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This graph shows frequency of posting to the One True Thread of Time by time of day, comparing the actual posting rate over an interval to the average rate. The flat black line at 1.0 represents the average posting rate, and the other lines show how much the actual rate varied. The heaviest blue line shows all posting activity by 1-hour intervals. The thin blue line shows the same data but by 5-minute intervals.

The other two lines compare weekday and weekend posting rates. The solid green line represents weekday posts, and the dashed red line represents weekend posts. Each of these lines shows variation from the overall average, not just the average for weekdays or weekends.

Graph showing how OTT posting rate varied from average by time of day (SVG version)

In general — It can be clearly seen that the heaviest posting, unsurprisingly, takes place during North American daylight and evening hours, from 9am to midnight RDT (6am to 9pm Pacific Daylight Time). The slowest interval is from 5-6am (2-3am PDT)—many North American OTTers obviously choose coma over all-night reading—but the hourly rate never drops below half the average rate, presumably thanks to posters in Australia, Asia, and Europe.

The 5-minute line shows that the heaviest posting activity takes place, again unsurprisingly, during the first 5 minutes of each hour—the ONG—with heavy activity continuing for the next 10 minutes. There are peaks at 10-15 minutes for the midnight and 6am ONGs; these are presumably when newpixbot has the highest chance of getting in a post.

Weekends — As has commonly been observed on the OTT itself, posting drops off dramatically on weekends. The difference is much more dramatic during the day than at night; presumably we norteamericanos are all out doing yard work or building sand castles during daylight hours, instead of reading the OTT. Even in the late evening, the weekend posting rate barely breaks the hourly average. (Come northern hemisphere winter—assuming Time is still ongoing—will the daytime difference diminish?)

Note that the weekend line varies from the overall activity much more than the weekday line; this is simply because there are 5 weekdays per week and only 2 weekend days. So if each week OTTers post a total of 120 more posts on weekdays than on the weekend, the weekday average is increased by 120 / 5 = 24 per day, but the weekend average is decreased by 120 / 2 = 60 per day.