META: Bolivia - A Brief Analysis

BOLIVIA STATISTICS  - CURRENT AS OF AUGUST 6^th, 2012

INTRODUCTION:

A few comments in the MGoPoint  summary for July asked about the possibility of providing a summary of those who have chosen another path, that of MGoInfamy. This is the land of flameouts and meltdowns, of comments devoid of thought and arguments that ended in catastrophe. These MGoBloggers lurk in the shadows, many of them a footnote in history, though a few among the “Low 300” have content enshrined in the Hall Of Fame.  Still others actually post on occasion, some on the path to redemption, others stumbling, and of course, some tempting the banhammer.

A NOTE OF ADMISSION / METHOD:

First and foremost, I will point out that when I collected this data initially yesterday afternoon, it did not immediately dawn on me that the final page of users actually was only 21 rows, so the sample size here is really n=291. Since adding another nine in Bolivia does not greatly affect the statistics, I chose to keep it this way – after all, the difference it makes is as significant as the difference these users apparently made in the annals of MGoBlog.

Essentially everything else mirrors what I do for the summaries for the Top 300 MGoBloggers, except in this case I did not break up the group to measure productivity among “tiers”, if you will. Indeed, I stopped at “The Worst 50” as this small subset of Bolivia contributes nearly all the points available there.

SUMMARY:

DISCUSSION:

No, the scientific notation is not a miscalculation. I actually rechecked the dispersion of points in Bolivia and it far exceeds that of the more conventional MGoBlog community, so we can perhaps say that among those who dwell in this suburb of La Paz, the punishments have been widely varied (perhaps even for the same basic offense, depending on the circumstances) and typically severe, something which helps ensure the safety of the remainder of the MGoCommunity.

In keeping with the standards set by this elite group of MGoBloggers, the threshold for first quartile performance in Bolivia is not terribly high. Indeed, if you have less than -24 points, you are indeed a top performer among the trolls. The totals vary from a maximum of -12 to a minimum of Q in the sample group, and as any Star Trek fan knows, Q was perhaps one of the best trolls in science fiction.

It would be interesting to get some of the stories behind “The Worst 50”, for as was mentioned, they account for nearly 100% of Bolivia essentially. The minor infractions of literally a few hundred wayward bloggers hardly stacks up to the crimes of these fifty. This might be an unwarranted extrapolation, but I suspect that Bolivia is an oligarchy, ruled by this select group. There is not a whole lot to go on in order to do a deeper dive here – all the users I checked have had their posts hidden, so it is not currently possible to analyze the blowups that led to their virtual banishment.

CONCLUSION:

This was an interesting exercise, and if I may call out a few folks, thanks to MadMonkey, Baldbill and BlueDragon for giving me the inspiration to extend this idea some. I may very well also do some work with the MGoMiddleClass as another part of this series.