Introducing the Newest Fancy Stat: Nation Morale Index (NMI)

The Oilers have been winning, and Oilersnation has been happy a happy place. This means that the angry, bitter, commenters who trash everything in their sights have disappeared, and happy, cheerful, positive commenters have returned to the Nation!

One thing that has stood out to me lately is how positive the comment section in Baggedmilk’s game wrap-ups have been. I remember reading through the comments in last year’s wrap-up and everybody was in a terrible mood. They spent most of their time complaining and trashing every comment possible – it was tough to get through. Now that the Oilers are winning this year, I began tracking the total amount of cheers and trashes in the wrap-ups. The data has been put together, and I give you, the Nation Morale Index®!

I feel it is necessary to give everyone a warning about the intense math that takes place below. I spent hours and hours* doing nerd stuff, like long algebra*, multiplication*, addition, and ratio things*. In the last week, I went through a dozen calculator batteries*, and 14 cups of coffee*. 

The theory behind comparing trashes to cheers has to do with basic human psychology. As a psych major* (*not actually a psych major), I believe that when one is happy due to the Oilers success, they are more likely to contribute to an article. Contributions may be a liking a comment, trashing a comment, or writing a new comment. If you are in a good mood, the comments will likely be more positive than average, allowing other happy individuals to cheers them. 

I began my research by tracking the cheers% of each article. Out of all of the cheers and trashes per article, what percentage of them are cheers? Well, let’s take a look!

As you can see, the percentage of cheers in an article has steadily increased as the Oilers continue their winning streak. I have labelled this as Nation Positivity, as cheers = positivity. Sure, there is a limitation here, as people could be trashing a troll, which would lower the Nation Positivity. But the number of trolls has been insignificant so far this season. 

In game three, which involved the Oilers humiliating themselves in front of Buffalo, there was a decrease in Nation Positivity. This contributes to the theory that losing brings down the mood, and makes people unhappy, and trash more. Another point to note, which is not shown in this graph, is that the game three wrap-up had the least amount of total cheers and trashes. This fact ALSO contributes to the notion that losing = unhappy citizens = less motivated to contribute to an article.

I did the same thing for the Trash%, a.k.a, Nation Negativity, This is obviously a reversed chart of Nation Positivity: 

After collecting the Trash% and Cheers% of the first seven games of the season, I created a ratio between the amount of Cheers to Trashes per article. This ratio makes up the Nation Morale Index.

Nation Morale Index essentially tells us how happy Oil Country is. With only seven games played thus far, a small sample size is another limitation to the theory. However, it is obvious that NM decreased during game 3, the only Oilers loss, and has grown more and more as the Oilers continue to win. This supports the theory of NM.

Why did NM decrease after the Oilers latest win against the Capitals? Maybe it was cause I counted the data one day after the wrap-up was posted, vs. several days after the previous wrap-ups were posted. Maybe cause I haven’t had my coffee yet and I don’t know how to add numbers properly, or maybe it’s cause this whole thing is incorrect and doesn’t make a bit of sense! Beats me. 

Now I’m not sure if numbers can really track the emotions of fans (cc: @rrfellis), but the data IS supporting the theory that Oilers wins = more positivity = higher cheers-to-trash ratio = higher NM. Could this all be a coincidence and I’m just a big dummy? Maybe. Let me know what you think in the comments.

One last thing, here is a clip of Connor McDavid… because who doesn’t like clips of Connor McDavid?