Discussions

Over the course of a calendar year we cover a lot of ground on the eBrandon discussion forums. At the end of the year it’s become a tradition of sort to look back on all discussion threads started over the previous 12 months and rank what captured the attention of website users the most based on an internal formula that takes a host of factors into consideration.  
 
Starting today and for the next five days I’ll count down 30 Threads that stood out above all others, five per day culminating with the Top Five on New Year’s Eve.  
 
New this year, in addition to providing an overall ranking countdown based on that internal formula I’m now including four separate stats. Each of those new stats can give you a more in-depth look at what made each of the Top 30 threads catch the attention of this site's audience.  
 
Those new stats are.....  
 
Number of days active: the amount of time between when a thread was first started and when it received its last reply. I look for two things in this number. If it’s a very low number like say two or three days, it’s a good indication of just how popular the thread was if it was able to meet the criteria to make this list over such a small amount of time. On the other hand some threads on the list were active for more than 100 days… longevity that speaks for itself in terms of how long the topic was on folks’ minds.  
 
View rank: Takes all of the Top 30 threads and shows you where they ranked against the other Top 30 strictly based on the amount of views that were recorded on them. Is typically an accurate measure of how many local folks have read a discussion topic, but needs to be taken with a slight grain of salt in the odd situation where Google ranks an eBrandon thread particularly high and sends an abnormal amount of Google searches to the site to read that particular thread.  
 
Participation rank: Takes all of the Top 30 threads and shows you where they ranked against the other Top 30 strictly based on how many replies the thread received from eBrandon members who participated in the discussion.  
 
Viral rank: A thread on eBrandon has the ability to spread within the community in a "viral" way. Its that viral nature that makes the discussion forum section of this site quite unique in the role it plays in the community on important topics. This ranking examines how many of a discussion thread's views were concentrated in a small period of time. The more concentrated, the more viral the thread is considered to have been.  
 
Without further ado…..  

interested to know top 30 Adam. I'll be checking some of the rest tomorrow morning

[b]25. Severe weather potential for Monday[/b]  
Started by Adam, July 26  
Number of days active: 4  
View rank: 12  
Participation rank: 27  
Viral rank: 1  
Review the discussion at https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=907786&cat_Id=207  
 
[b]24. Wheatkings Gm[/b]  
Started by Oh Canada, May 22  
Number of days active: 32  
View rank: 11  
Participation rank: 26  
Viral rank: 15  
Review the discussion at https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=898300&cat_Id=1  
 
[b]23. Partial closure of the 8th Street Bridge[/b]  
Started by North Ender, May 14  
Number of days active: 203  
View rank: 29  
Participation rank: 17  
Viral rank: 30  
Review the discussion at https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=897134&cat_Id=3  
 
[b]22. Pedestrian hit and run near Canad Inns[/b]  
Started by Tracy16, April 25  
Number of days active: 129  
View rank: 5  
Participation rank: 25  
Viral rank: 24  
Review the discussion at https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=894305&cat_Id=3  
 
[b]21. Marijuana Legalization[/b]  
Started by Sorbet, October 19  
Number of days active: 13  
View rank: 25  
Participation rank: 21  
Viral rank: 11  
Review the discussion at https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=919191&cat_Id=13  
 
I'll post up #s 16-20 tomorrow....

[b]20. ”Label" Clothing Store[/b]  
Started by Timber, April 22  
Number of days active: 7  
View rank: 1  
Participation rank: 24  
Viral rank: 4  
Review the discussion at https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=893844&cat_Id=3  
 
[b]19. Police Retaliation?[/b]  
Started by Phil Harmonic, May 30  
Number of days active: 12  
View rank: 27  
Participation rank: 12  
Viral rank: 9  
Review the discussion at https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=899319&cat_Id=3  
 
[b]18. Netflix[/b]  
Started by NameChanged, August 31  
Number of days active: 81  
View rank: 20  
Participation rank: 20  
Viral rank: 25  
Review the discussion at https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=913057&cat_Id=8  
 
[b]17. Brown’s Social House[/b]  
Started by socialmom, February 19  
Number of days active: 136  
View rank: 3  
Participation rank: 23  
Viral rank: 22  
Review the discussion at https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=885272&cat_Id=7  
 
[b]16. 8 year old told to cover up[/b]  
Started by traveller, June 23  
Number of days active: 8  
View rank: 28  
Participation rank: 3  
Viral rank: 7  
Review the discussion at https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=902869&cat_Id=13  
 
That brings us to halfway through this listing.... I'll post threads 11-15 tomorrow!

[b]15. Brandon Wages and Cost of Living[/b]  
Started by 4wheels, August 20  
Number of days active: 11  
View rank: 24  
Participation rank: 9  
Viral rank: 8  
Review the discussion at https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=911225&cat_Id=3  
 
[b]14. Racist Manitoba [/b]  
Started by don brown, January 23  
Number of days active: 7  
View rank: 23  
Participation rank: 7  
Viral rank: 6  
Review the discussion at https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=880881&cat_Id=13  
 
[b]13. Mega Gas Jump - Get Ready Folks[/b]  
Started by PARTYJOCKEYS, August 12  
Number of days active: 19  
View rank: 13  
Participation rank: 19  
Viral rank: 10  
Review the discussion at https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=910100&cat_Id=3  
 
[b]12. Teachers-Brandon Sun Article[/b]  
Started by Fishin Guy, September 10  
Number of days active: 28  
View rank: 19  
Participation rank: 14  
Viral rank: 18  
Review the discussion at https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=914435&cat_Id=3  
 
[b]11. Sadistic dog beater in Souris... who is it?[/b]  
Started by Cee Jay 55, June 19  
Number of days active: 4  
View rank: 17  
Participation rank: 16  
Viral rank: 3  
Review the discussion at https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=902259&cat_Id=26  
 
We'll start into the Top 10 tomorrow!

[b]10. God [/b]  
Started by Rue, June 10  
Number of days active: 47  
View rank: 22  
Participation rank: 4  
Viral rank: 23  
Review the discussion at https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=900904&cat_Id=4  
 
[b]9. Vince Li OK'd to move to Winnipeg group home[/b]  
Started by Lisp_Whisperer, May 8  
Number of days active: 89  
View rank: 21  
Participation rank: 6  
Viral rank: 26  
Review the discussion at https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=896161&cat_Id=13  
 
[b]8. Rivers Water?[/b]  
Started by thirsty, April 17  
Number of days active: 127  
View rank: 18  
Participation rank: 11  
Viral rank: 28  
Review the discussion at https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=893262&cat_Id=14  
 
[b]7. Brandon mall super fail![/b]  
Started by Juliaetal, January 5  
Number of days active: 215  
View rank: 8  
Participation rank: 13  
Viral rank: 27  
Review the discussion at https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=877800&cat_Id=3  
 
[b]6. Has target started to liquidate [/b]  
Started by chelseakicks7, February 1  
Number of days active: 61  
View rank: 4  
Participation rank: 15  
Viral rank: 16  
Review the discussion at https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=882422&cat_Id=3  
 
Check back tomorrow where I'll share the Top Five threads of 2015 as well as do a bit of a look back at the top threads of previous years......

[b]5. Wheat Kings Playoff Thread[/b]  
Started by JackAzz, March 22  
 
Number of days active: 54  
View rank: 10  
Participation rank: 8  
Viral rank: 20  
Review the discussion at https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=889646&cat_Id=1  
 
[b]4. Out with Ye's and in with Lee’s[/b]  
Started by mollymaid, October 5  
Number of days active: 37  
View rank: 7  
Participation rank: 10  
Viral rank: 14  
Review the discussion at https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=917363&cat_Id=7  
 
[b]3. What are your thoughts on the Federal election? [/b]  
Started by chanban23, September 8  
Number of days active: 46  
View rank: 9  
Participation rank: 2  
Viral rank: 17  
Review the discussion at https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=914209&cat_Id=13  
 
Check back later this afternoon when I'll post the top two!

[b]2. Bringing in refugees[/b]  
Started by Never_give_up, November 14  
Number of days active: 33  
View rank: 6  
Participation rank: 1  
Viral rank: 12  
Review the discussion at https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=922543&cat_Id=13  
 
[b]1. Now what for the Shoppers Mall?[/b]  
Started by prairie_grl, January 15  
Number of days active: 204  
View rank: 2  
Participation rank: 5  
Viral rank: 21  
Review the discussion at https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=879630&cat_Id=24  
 
And there you have it… 30 discussions that gained the attention of users of the discussion forums out of the thousands of separate threads that have been started in this calendar year. When I look at the forums as a whole, I come back to the diversity that makes them such a unique, informative and engaging medium. Nowhere is that on better display than this Top 30 list, where the 30 threads were remarkably started by 30 different members (I thought it was pretty good last year when it was 27!). Whether you were one of those 30 members or you were one of the thousands of other members who made a post through an account this year or you were responsible for one of the over 2,000,000 user sessions this year on eBrandon as a whole I’d like to thank you for being a part of the site in 2015. Have a safe New Years Eve… we’ll see you on the other side of midnight!