In database (from theymos), the figures on newly monthly registered accounts fell hard, to almost same figures of the period 2015.
+---------------------+---------------+
| 30day starting | registrations |
+---------------------+---------------+
.......................................
| 2018-12-15 00:00:00 | 20733 |
| 2019-01-14 00:00:00 | 20046 |
| 2019-02-13 00:00:00 | 2763 | [PARTIAL PERIOD]
+---------------------+---------------+
Time-series plot< ...>
As the chart shown, total monthly registered accounts in recent months dropped dramatically to the median and mean of the year 2015.
I believe that it is right time to say
"Thanks theymos, merit system works and actually effective control spammers!"Please look at the mean and median (p50) of year15 in the table below, at 24993, and 19300, respectively< ...>
. tabstat regacc year10 year11 year12 year13 year14 year15 year16 year17 year18, ///
> s(n mean sd p50 p25 p75 min max) c(s)
variable | N mean sd p50 p25 p75 min max
-------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
regacc | 112 21915.65 34794.89 10144.5 2310.5 25508.5 3 238433
year10 | 13 146 144.3185 148 22 204 5 384
year11 | 12 3795.583 3560.192 2469.5 1900 4419.5 938 14048
year12 | 12 2313.667 353.35 2151.5 2048.5 2636 1901 2958
year13 | 12 11433.42 8798.91 7399 5219 15989 3320 28776
year14 | 12 15041.42 8092.689 11552.5 8818 20299.5 7974 29839
year15 | 12 24992.25 19299.52 17514.5 9151 37009.5 7644 68601
year16 | 12 16553.67 9350.784 12505.5 10668.5 19635.5 9844 42233
year17 | 12 63804.75 67452.29 38296 17930.5 83022.5 13664 238433
year18 | 12 64781.75 38659.33 66895 36476.5 88373 3535 136872
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To conclude, the forum has return to its quiet period before terrible spam-busrting in 2017 and 2018.
Of course, we need to wait more months to test the hypothesis.