Original Post: Ember, November 26, 2016
Hello everyone! It’s been a pretty unusual November here on Warrior Cats of the Forest. The site-wide plot has come to all but a standstill, so please check out the Plot Planning Page and toss in your two cents. Out of character, I had registrations opened for the better part of a week and we were flooded with a bunch of new members. Welcome to the site, guys! There’s plenty to look forward to in December between another gathering a medicine cat meeting, an anonymous member survey, and our second annual gift exchange. Separate blog entries with all the details about these events will be published for both of those.
As promised, I’ve written another clan demographics overview for this month’s Monthly Meow. Previous demographics overviews were published in May 2016, December 2015, August 2015, December 2014, and March 2014. Please note that all of the data for this demographics overview was gathered on November 18th, so these numbers do not exactly represent the clans at the time this Monthly Meow was published.
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The clan population is actually about 50 cats lower than it was in May, possibly as a result of how inactive the website has been since our conversion to Site Builder 3. Assuming that a handful of our new members stick around and the plot gears back up over the winter holidays, I expect the clan populations to perk up a bit. As for the individual clans, I’m not seeing anything too interesting. DawnClan has grown since earlier in the month, MoonClan and SunClan are both roughly where they should be given our current plot. NightClan is the odd man out, I’m surprised to see them so small. They’ve been somewhat neglected as of late in terms of the plot so, again, please read over the Plot Planning Page and give your thoughts as to where we should head next.
This is the first time we’ve had a 50/50 male/female split. In the past, we’ve always had a gender divide of about 57-58% female and 42-43% male. I’ve always thought that the characters’ female majority is simply because we have such a wide female majority in terms of members and roleplayers trend toward playing characters of their own gender. As for what changed to shift the gender ratios, I’m not certain. We still have a pretty strong female majority in roleplayers, but perhaps because of how few members we accept, our members on average are more experienced in than in the past and thus are possibly more comfortable playing characters of genders other than their own.
Unfortunately, in the past I didn’t include an “other” category for gender. If you go through and find the places the math doesn’t line up, you’ll find the handful of cats who fell into this category. I’ll keep the other category in the future, so we’ll be able to directly keep track of how the number of characters who don’t identify as male or female changes over time.
The average age of all the clans doesn’t particularly stand out to me either. The one oddball seems to be DawnClan, but their lower average age is just a result of the jump they’ve had in clan population over the last few weeks from a handful of prominent litters. As you’ll see below in the individual clan age graphs, MoonClan has simply not had very many kits over the last few months. I suspect this is because less attention has been placed on them as compared to SunClan or DawnClan.
In terms of working and nonworking cats, only NightClan stands out to me. They have both a high percentage of nonworking cats and a high average age, which is an odd combination seeing as most of the nonworking cats in a clan are their kits. NightClan given a bit of an edge over the other clans because they still have two prisoners, but that doesn’t make up for the large number of kits they do have. The high average age comes from the tendency for their warriors to be older than warriors in other clans, as shown in the age graphs below. I can’t think of why this would be, considering the jumps in ages don’t seem correlated to any plots or jumps in member number or activity.
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The changing population of the clans as a whole isn’t too surprising to me. I built up members leading up to April, then had registrations closed for most of April and May as I studied for my AP exams. The clan population works pretty closely with that, with the exception of a less easily explained dip around March. After May, there was a jump the summer followed by a dip when school starts for most of our members and a slow incline since.
As for the individual clan populations, they seem to follow site-wide plots. NightClan in particular stands out to me, from how steady their decline has been over the past year. Again, I think they’ve been neglected in the plot and could use a little more attention in whatever we decide to do next.
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Here’s what the clan populations look like tracked over the past two years; I just wanted to throw this out there because it’s a little fun to look at. I sadly don’t have the right kind of records dating back before then, but we can keep tracking clan population in the future and watch these graphs grow.
I’m surprised at how steady the population of all the clans has stayed over the past two years, while it shifts around with the seasons –such as rising in the summer when most members are off of school- and plots –dropping then rising with Weepingstar’s reign- it’s largely hovered in the 400s for the past two years.
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The overall age graph’s shape is what I’d expect, with the dip among cats born in November (who have an age of 0 months) easily explained by the fact that this data was collected on the 18th rather than at the very end of the month. The only thing that surprises me is that we don’t have any cats who have actually reached 12 months of age right now. Usually we have at least a handful sticking around.
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MoonClan’s age graph is certainly strange. The number of cats between four and ten months old are practically identical, while the slope from zero to three months old is the inverse of what I would expect. I have no idea why this is, since as to my memory MoonClan didn’t have anything particularly interesting going on in August to explain that giant spike in births. If you guys have any ideas, I’d love to hear them. The other clans are pretty much what I’d expect, given the average age of cats in the above chart. DawnClan’s graph is a little random looking, but it still follows the general trend that in each month age bracket there are progressively fewer cats.
What do you guys think about the clan demographics? If you see something in these graphs that you find interesting and I didn’t touch on, or interpret the numbers differently, please don’t hesitate to speak up! All of my observations here are from just glancing over the graphs, so I easily could have overlooked something meaningful or misinterpreted some of the numbers.
Ceremony Lists:
MoonClan
Apprentices:
Batkit, Vampirekit, Pandakit, Sneak-kit, Tinykit, Quietkit, Fuzzykit: Early December
Whisperingkit, Mamelukekit, Dawnkit: Mid December
Ravenkit: Late December
Warriors:
Smallpaw, Daisypaw, Izzapaw: Early December
Adderpaw, Splatterpaw, Tigerpaw, Spacepaw, Rowanpaw: Mid December
Burnetpaw, Ivorypaw, Talismanpaw, Bloodiedpaw, Lizardpaw, Swirlingpaw, Coyotepaw: Late December
Elders: Smokehaze, Snaketail
NightClan
Apprentices:
Sinkit, Wickedkit, Hauntedkit, Genociddekit, Cobwebkit, Owlkit, Petalkit: Early December
Otterkit, Turtle Dove, Bluekit, Cricketkit: Mid December
Warriors:
Kirk, Pepperpaw, Mercurypaw, Kami, Knox: Early December
Raidpaw, Kingpaw, Halfpaw, Masonpaw: Mid December
Starch, Dahlia, Jinx, Threepaw, Singingpaw, Prussia, Belarus, SleepingBadger: Late December
Elders: Spikeback, Lostmoon
Death: Crowpoison
DawnClan
Apprentices:
Knightkit, Battlekit, Aurorakit, Shallowkit, Loudkit, Tanglekit, Hollykit, Featherkit, Silverkit, Yellowkit, Milk-kit, Spiritkit, Paintedkit: Early December
Fallingkit, Thunderkit, Firekit, Black-kit: Mid December
Warriors:
Shrikepaw, Flamepaw, Fightingpaw, Finalpaw, Cloudpaw: Early December
Cinder, Smokey, Doublepaw: Mid December
Elders: Sugarglider, Wolf-fang, Rippedheart, Dragonheart, Meadowbreath
Deaths: Hedgestone, Dawnclaw, Snowymist
SunClan
Apprentices:
Stolenkit, Cacklingkit: Early December
Leapingkit, Greykit, Briarkit, Ichorkit, Trilliumkit, Ashkit, Dustkit, Fogkit, Nightkit: Mid December
Aquakit, Rainkit: Late December
Warriors:
Buzzardpaw, Socks, Sedgepaw, Bramblepaw: Early December
Fallingpaw, Mountainpaw, Mothpaw, Honeypaw, Nightpaw: Mid December
Briar Rose, Sparrowpaw, Cinderpaw, Palacepaw: Late December
Elders: Kronosrealm
Deaths: Silentguardian, Cryingangel
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