What Does Usefulness Mean?

lucretiadream · Post by **lucretiadream** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 2:18 am

On my profile it says something about my usefulness...what does it mean and what is an average number?

Scintilla · Post by **Scintilla** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 2:42 am

Usefulness is an indication of how many words, on average, a member puts into the opinions s/he gives (I believe).

Average = arithmetic mean.

quadir · Post by **quadir** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 3:16 pm

Sure, but what do the numbers mean? Are they percentages? And the average and sd deviation, how are those weighted?

It's fine to say that this number is `usefullness' and those two are `average' and `st deviation', but without some kind of description of what the numbers represent and how they are weighted, I'm at a loss, as I imagine many people are.

Zarxrax · Post by **Zarxrax** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 3:43 pm

High number means you are wordy.
Low number means you are a mean bastard that doesnt write very detailed opinions.

Isn't that all you really need?

Kalium · Post by **Kalium** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 3:44 pm

It's words per opinion, averaged over all the opinions a user has given. As it says at the bottom of that page, this is only computed from users who have given five or more opinions. I'm pretty sure it's a straight arithmetic mean, no weighting or anything of the sort involved. Usefulness and uselessness are computed the same way. They're just two opposite ends of the same scale. I haven't seen an overall average or standard deviation anywhere.

The numbers are ratios averaged for a user. Nothing more.

As for what 'average' means, well, please tell me you're joking...

quadir · Post by **quadir** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 7:00 pm

Thanks for clearing it up. I was thinking maybe it was a comparison towards other users (which would be more complicated), not just average words you wrote.

Alas my quest to know if I am more wordy then thou is lost.

lucretiadream · Post by **lucretiadream** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 1:10 am

I know what an average number is, I just worded it weird, I meant to ask if there was an average in the usefulness number. But I understand now thank you.