From: petertrei@gmail.com   
      
   On 2/1/2026 5:27 PM, Stefan Ram wrote:   
   > Cryptoengineer  wrote or quoted:   
   >> I've not used the chatbots much, and I had no idea you can use it like   
   >> this.   
   >   
   >    These days, some people try to pass off AI-generated stuff   
   >    as their own, so I figured I'd flip that around for once as   
   >    kind of a joke - one I planned to clear up later - and said my   
   >    work came from a chatbot. Truth is, I actually ran the stats   
   >    myself with a little Python script I wrote.   
   >   
   >> I've long wanted to make a chart of the number of active RASFW   
   >> writers over time.   
   >>   
   >> 'Active Writer' means someone who has contributed comments in   
   >> a give year or month. Not original posters, since we used to   
   >> have a major spam problem, which was almost always in the   
   >> form of new threads.   
   >   
   >    It's possible that some of the sources I pulled my raw data   
   >    from already filtered out some spam, but here's a count with   
   >    counts of all the posts of a year in the second column and   
   >    counts of only the follow-ups in the third.   
   >   
   > Year   Count  Follow   
   >                   -up   
   >                 count   
   >   
   > 2004  119265  116602   
   > 2005  112320  109625   
   > 2006  118100  114856   
   > 2007  118167  106506   
   > 2008   95188   92369   
   > 2009   95420   93208   
   > 2010   91185   89370   
   > 2011   81160   78803   
   > 2012   60961   59250   
   > 2013   46223   45074   
   > 2014   31743   30652   
   > 2015   28629   27809   
   > 2016   31216   30243   
   > 2017   22512   21306   
   > 2018   21340   20059   
   > 2019   23217   21746   
   > 2020   30471   28734   
   > 2021   24211   22829   
   > 2022   17209   15939   
   > 2023   10868    9698   
   > 2024    9369    8348   
   > 2025    7322    6349   
   > 2026     509     455 (So far, til around January 29, 2026)   
   >   
      
   Very impressive!   
      
   So, we're down to about 3% of volume at its peak. Feels about right.   
      
   Is there any chance figuring out the number of posters that made those   
   comments in each bucket? That's would be the number of 'active posters'   
   in my opinion.   
      
   I suspect it hasn't fallen 30-fold, but I'm sure its substantial.   
      
      
   pt   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)