Reporting your number of connected profiles ... to what degree? [closed]

Question

Hi WikiTreers,

We're thinking about adding a new number to be reported alongside your contributions, thank-yous, and badges. It might be called something like your "Six Degree Score" or "Circle 10 Count." It would be the number of profiles connected to you within six or ten degrees.

For an illustration of what this means, see MyConnections. That shows you the number of people within one degree of you, two degrees, three degrees, etc.

The best explanations are on Bernard Vatant's 100 Circles page. A lot of what I'm describing here was inspired by that.

The idea behind reporting this number, of course, would be to encourage adding more connections. You could increase your number at any time by adding collateral relatives (Jamie Nelson's Missing Links app is ideal for showing you where). I bet the community would come up with lots of ideas for friendly competitions based on this count, and I'm sure some members would help each other increase their number. Not everyone would care that much, but it would still be a curiosity that helps illustrate how we're connected. It really gets to the heart of what WikiTree is all about.

A big question to answer is how many degrees to include. I mentioned six or ten, but it could be another number in that range. I don't think it should be lower than five or six degrees, because then it might be too easy to "complete" your connections, and it might be heavily influenced by the number of close relatives you have. On the other hand, if it's too high, it might be based too much on your geography and heritage -- where and how you connect to the big tree -- and the connections you add would just be a drop in the bucket. We want it to be a number that could be visibly improved on by any member at any time.

What is the right number of degrees? I'm hoping that Ales will have some input here, and I'm sure that Bernard and those working with him on the 100 Circles project will have insights.

Any other thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks!

Chris and the WikiTree Team

Comments

Whatever number we agree upon, the PM should be able to access to the list of profiles in those circles. The current My Connections app breaks before 7 circles for many profiles, because the 1k threshold is reached.

I tested some profiles who answered below, quite a few have several thousands up to C7. Pip Sheppard has more than 4,000, and more than 40,000 up to C10 ...

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Based on feedback so far, agreement about "what degree" seems difficult. I propose a workaround, based on the following observation based on data for many various profiles. The 10k threshold is critical, otherwise said the first circle gathering over 10,000 profiles 

For all profiles we have looked at (at least recent /living ones):

• The distribution of circles population over the 10k threshold is very similar for all profiles, reaching the peak about 10-12 circles after.
• The growth of circles over this threshold is independent of the "local" activity in the first circles, because they contain a lot of profiles managed by other people.

In other words, the 10k Circle is where your local branches disappear in the global tree, the threshold beyond which you can't say any more "my branch" or "my family", but "Our Tree".

For HM the Queen (Windsor-1, our reference profile) the 10k Circle is C9, about to lower to C8 (C8 is currently about 9,700), for myself it's C17 (I'm still quite far from the mainstream).

The lower 10k we have found so far is C5, for Samuel Lothrop with a C5 over 22,000! But for living people well connected to the Anglo-Saxon bulk, it will typically between around 10.

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So, this raises the question in my mind of how many and which profiles fall into which degree under the 10K threshold?

Perhaps those profiles which are close to the 10K threshold can be identified and given immediate attention to reach the mark.

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Indeed. Could be achieved by rising the My Connections app threshold from 1k to 10k. If it's not too resource-consuming, of course.

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I find the original proposal better than displaying just the first circle gathering over 10.000 people.

1. Its more complicated. You have to really be into "circles" already to get what the displayed number for the circle shows. Therefore it would be a feature for only a smaller amount of people, while the number "how many connections do i have (until a certain degree)" is really intuitive.

2. If i See that i have like 4.700 connections, work on some profiles, and then my number after that is maybe like 4.705, its rewarding and encouraging. But if i See like "you reach 10.000 connections on Circle 10" its not really something which would encourage many people to work on that.

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Good points, Norbert.

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I just processed your data, Norbert, and they are highly atypical. See https://www.wikitree.com/photo/jpg/100_Circles-12 displaying the distribution of your circles up to C30.

• Circles 7 to 10 between 1k and 2k
• Then a slow degrowth up to C20, with a deep bottleneck at circles C22 and C23 (respectively 18 and 17 profiles)
• Passing again the 1k threshold at C29, the last 4-digit circle is C30. After C30 the distribution is quite standard.

This is not really a counter-example of the "10k conjecture". But it shows that passing 1k is not critical. In your case, giving the population up to C7 or even to C10 will not show your real issue, the bottleneck at C23. But saying that you pass the 10k threshold in C31 says volumes.

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I like the sound of it! But as already being mentioned and talked about is, the limit.  I just clicked on the MY CONNECTIONS link Chris included, and it only let me go up to level six (6).  But there are alot of folks in those levels, as long as you do not just look at level zero and one (LOL). My levels, 2-35, 3-96, 4-263, 5-474, and 6-122.

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I'm not that certain about what this really shows me, why it would be a base for competitions or what it tells me about any given wikitree'r that I don't already have access to.

For example, I can see on the scroll-over or on his profile that Pip Sheppard has made 151,478 contributions which include his creation of 9495 profiles (@ wikitree +).

Because of those numbers, it isn't hard to understand why Pip's circles show the large amount of connections noted above.

I guess my question with this whole idea is why we're focusing on the result vs the work done to achieve those results?

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@Virgil : Your answer is tuned with many others below, expressing a frustration in front of the "My Connections" limit at 1k profiles, and a general wish to look just a bit further, without passing sustainable limits for both WT hardware/software and WikiTreers brainware. 10k seems too many, and 1k not enough. Since the 7th circle figures are likely to be somewhere between, in the 4-digit range, for most WikiTreers, it seems more and more a good choice (beyond the magical appeal of this number).

@Nick : Chris has written the word "competition", the more I read through the answers the more I think we should strike out this notion. The content and size of your circles is highly dependent not only on your own work, but of several parameters you have no control of : the size of your very first circles, the distance of your brick walls in the past, the existence and work of other WikiTreers in your close circles etc.

Knowledge of your first circles size and content has to be taken as food for thought, basis for further research, looking in directions you had not yet explored ... but not as something to proudly sport. So I don't think a good idea at all to display it among badges, trophies, unameit. Somewhere maybe with the Connection Finder results at the bottom of the page.

[edited] : I would like to insist on the points I have highlighted in bold. As the "father" of the whole idea behind "100 Circles", which Chris makes me the honor to take as a reference, I will strongly disagree with any approach to use the concept against the grain of its initial spirit and objectives. I've several times in discussions around it, referred to the mediocrity principle (please read this if you still wonder what that means). Our Tree is basically the same, seen from anywhere, when you look a bit beyond your local horizon. That's what "100 Circles" is all about.

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Hah! I totally missed the point of this question, focussing instead on the MyConnections tool and the numbers given by the people who responded. The MyConnections tool is interesting, although perhaps less so than the Connection Finder, where I can explore anything, not just the ego-centered stuff... which is why I found it interesting to see the variation in the responses from others. As for displaying some sort of sum of my connections, I'm not really all that interested. The structure is more interesting than a single number.

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Eva thanks for your input which made me think.

First, the "My Connections" app should be renamed to look less egocentric. Actually, as it says, it can be used to see the circles of any profile, not only yours. Although this is very clear : "To view connections for someone else, enter their WikiTree ID here" ... it's not obvious from the tab title, and I'm pretty sure many casual users miss this.

It would be great to be able to open this app for any profile on a single click, e.g., through a button "Circles"; or maybe "7 Circles". From the drop-down menu, whatever.

I would gladly see extending the app results, w/o changing the limit of numbers of profiles displayed, to have at the end or beginning of the page the number of profiles up to the 7th circle, with list on demand for those who stay in the 4-digit range.

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How extremely embarrassing. I completely overlooked the box for entering someone else's ID. Being so used to changing the ID up in the URL for similar purposes - and when it just showed as a Special-page, I didn't think...

Well, that multiplies the usefulness and interestingness of the "MyConnections" (AnybodysConnections) for me.

Now, if I have been blind to this I'm sure I'm not alone (or I wouldn't have revealed my mistake).

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That's exactly my point! If Eva have missed it, anybody could as well.

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After the discussions here and some new data gathered by Ales, we're converging on seven degrees as the right number.

Twenty-one members have more than 10,000 connected profiles within circle seven.

21,000 members have more than 1,000 profiles in C7.

118,000 have more than 100 profiles in C7.

Reaching 1,000 connections will be an attainable goal for most, and we might do a badge for it. Aspiring to 10,000 would be something for the super-competitive.

Of course, focusing too much on numbers isn't really in the spirit of WikiTree. But making growing connections more fun and interesting is.

Answer 1

I do see this as something that would be a cool thing to have and something we might be able to build on Chris. I for one would like to be reminded about the connections I have and those I might still need to connect.

Thanks,

Your Favorite Blueberry Pie Eating WikiTreer

Comments

Hey Mags, I received a really rotten diagnosis (my exopancreas is essentially dead) that totally revises my diet and makes more strict. One of the items encouraged in this diet, though, is blueberries. Sadly not pie because of the fat content; however, blueberry smoothies, pancakes/waffles and in a bowl. I thought of you when I got this news from the nutritionist.

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Nooooo. I am so very sorry!

Answer 2

The number of degrees and its count will certainly be influenced by family size and if multiple marriages.

My current degree counts are as follows:

0	1
1	4
2	14 15
3	36
4	58 60 66
5	70 75
6	103 139
7	163 233
8	462 437 (maxed out)
9	91 (maxed out)

 

9 degrees - maxed out on 6 May 2022

8 degrees - maxed out on 21 May 2022

Comments

I think that it will even out, as you add in-laws and their families. Even if your core family is small, you may probably hit some big "hives" only a few degrees away. And the figures will go way up as soon as you connect with already existing profiles. Also, expect the weekly "degrees" at the bottom of your profile page to shrink.

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okay ... I think I misinterpreted what number would be displayed.  I think it's the number of profiles at a particular degree and not the summation of the profiles at each degree up to a certain degree.

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Yes, we speak of cumulative figures. See the 100 Circles page for more details.

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As Tommy reported, the "MyConnections" tool maxes out at about 1000 profiles. My "MyConnections" output quit during Generation 7, after 1,005 people had been listed.

Recent generations of my family have not had many children, and I've made profiles for very few of my known living relatives and none of my husband's family, but once the tool got past Degree 3 (which includes first cousins and great-grandparents), the lists grew pretty fast!

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I max out at G7

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@Ellen you have a quite typical circles distribution, with the 10k threshold  passed at C10, and the peak at 20 (quite similar to HM Windsor-1). See my new comment at the top of the thread.

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Mine maxes out at Degree 6

Answer 3

This is a great idea, and a good incitament for exploring in-laws and their families. If a fair number of members get involved in seeing their "connected" scores climb, it will surely enhance the inter-connectedness of the tree.

If it's not too heavy on the computer resources, I think that 10 degrees would be excellent.

Comments

As of now, you have 858 profiles up to C7, and 9972 up to C10. Are you ready to monitor that many? Bearing in mind those figures are bound to grow ...

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I'm monitoring 16,000 profiles right now. Seeing them all on a 2-year schedule means that I have to visit an average of 22 profiles each day. So far, this hasn't been a problem.

And I suppose that the farther out you go, the higher are the chances for hitting profiles managed by others. Of the 16,427 profiles I'm watching, 15,920 were created by me. which means that I'm actually "managing" 96.9 %. And, of course, I'm not really managing all those profiles. Most of them are actually orphaned, primarily children who died young, and profiles where parents, siblings and children are fully connected. Both categories need minimal surveillance. It's basically the "outer rim" of my dataset, about 5,000 profiles, that's actively managed.

Answer 4

Hi Cousin Chris, this looks to be a very interesting 'add on.' The value to me would be another way to check these connections that may need more work on their profiles in addition to expanding and completing connections (if one can ever complete connections given that I believe we are all connected). Thank you for your creative thinking!

Answer 5

Hi, Chris~
Another great idea! It certainly goes along with our theme of family connections this year. Love how it immediately made me think of making sure those collateral lines are filled out.
Azure Rae

Comments

I also like the number seven for this!
c1=10
c2=44
c3=129
c4=240
c5=462
c6=118 got the message "MAXIMUM GENERATIONS/PROFILES REACHED"
total = 1003
definitely motivated to work on this :)

Answer 6

I like this idea!  It would help me figure out how many more loops there are in my lines

Answer 7

I really like this idea Chris. I don't know how many degrees it should be but I think the concept is appealing and would encourage people to keep on with additions to the tree.

Answer 8

Excellent initiative, Chris, and timely, since I just refurbished the 100 Circles page, hoping it's now more readable than it was.

My almost reflex answer to "how many degrees?" is "seven". Because of my aunt Sidonie's saying : On hérite de sept générations. A sentence I've long wondered upon (see this page if you read a bit of French), and the more I think about it, the more I consider there was a deep truth in this number.

If you are born, say in 1960 (average WikiTreer I would say), your 7th generation ancestors were born by 1750. Finding all your ancestors at that generation (128 default pedigree collapse) is a reasonable target.

Our reference profile HM the Queen has currently about 8,200 profiles in her 7 first circles. And over 67,000 in the 10th. Way too much for the target objective.

Yourself Chris have, as I write, 2,765 up to C7, and 24,303 in C10. Other examples would consolidate this choice of 7 as the magic number.

A contentious point is that challenging WikiTreers to augment this number might conflate with privacy concerns. A divorced WikiTreer would be, or not, depending on circonstances, eager to develop her former spouse's first circles, although, or because, they could augment radically the score. And WikiTreers with private profiles would feel uneasy with such an idea.

A workaround to this would be to be able to choose to compute the score, not for the circles of the competing WikiTreer, but for one of her recent ancestors, in the first generations with open profiles. In the spirit of the "Connect 1900" initiative, I would suggest to pick an ancestor living by 1900. I would gladly pick my grandmother Catherine Favennec.

[edited] : another thought : Having this number on all profiles, not only WikiTreers, would be a good idea. Figuring at first sight if a profile is well connected or not would be helpful. Maybe this would be resource consuming, though.

[edited] : see also my comment at the top of the thread for an alternative proposal, displaying the 10k Circle.

Comments

my 4th generation was born at 1750

Buch-13 - 4th GGF born in 1743.

My 7th generation profiles range from 1641 to 1712.

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Really? I looked at your profile to check. And see your 4th generation born between 1815 (paternal line) and 1862 (maternal line). Unless we don't agree on what the 4th generation is.

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4th GGF is not the 4th generation, or at least not the 4th circle as per the Connection Finder.

https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:Connection&action=connect&person1Name=Buch-358&person2Name=Buch-13

Otherwise said Buch-13 is in your 6th circle, not the 4th.
"Tommy Buch is 6 Degrees from John Buch"

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okay ... 4th GGF is 6 generations or 6 degrees.

5th GGP (7 generations) range from 1715 to 1790.

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Here we are ...

Answer 9

Hi Chris.

Sounds like a good idea. My first thought was 6. This in part because it is a more attainable number/goal. The second reason this idea reminds me of that phrase 'Six Degrees of Separation.'

Comments

The "Six Degrees" is too well known, but applying to "small world" graphs. And the genealogical graph is not a "small world" graph (short explanation: you can't add an arbitrary great number of direct connections to a node, as you can do in small world graphs such as social networks).

So for this very reason I would avoid six. I prefer seven . See above.

Answer 10

In looking at my own "connections", the 5th degree is where I got interested as there are a lot of names that I do not recognize as "my family".   This is where my tree really connects with other member's trees.

Answer 11

I think this would be a great idea.  I have noticed that as you continue to add people to the tree, some of the first “connections “ are not there anymore.  This did cause some deflated moments, but overall, it did help in connecting with the right ancestors.  Certainly picked up my attitude!

Answer 12

I just looked at my connections, I have 297 connections at 7 degrees,  And 340 connections as 6 degrees only a handful are not profiles I manage.

Are these high numbers?

It says maximum generations/profiles reached?

Comments

That's average. The My Connections app is limited to a total of 1000 profiles, or 10 circles if the threshold of 1000 is not reached before. Yours reach 1000 in the middle of the 7th circle. The total of your 7 first circles is 1130 (just checked). That's why you get the message "maximum generations/profiles reached". I get this message in my 6th circle.

Those are not very high figures, sort of average. I ran the "magic query" on your profile to figure the distribution. The growth is slow but steady. Your "peak circle" is at distance 24, sort of average also. See the 100 Circles page to compare with reference profiles.

Sorry to say, your circles are just "normal".

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Bernard, it was just a question I had no idea where my connections might fit on a curve.

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No problem. It's something you will get used to.

Answer 13

Love this idea and 7 degrees would be enough for me. 

1. I simply like the number 7  
2. Because on my Connection tab, my # drops by 2/3 from 6th to 7th degree, so getting those profiles added to, will be more than enough to keep me busy.
3. During Conn-a-thons when I've added so many distant relations and begin to wonder "Who are these people and why am I doing this?", my competitive nature will jump in and answer "To boost that connections number you ninny - keep adding those profiles!!!"

Comments

This! exactly.

Answer 14

I'm looking at this number on My Connections:

1. Pip Sheppard 151422

I'm slow on the uptake, so how far out is this counting from? 10 degrees? It's at 189 at four degrees.

Comments

189 is the population of C4. The population up to C4 is 1+6+25+85+139 = 256. If you load the following circles, the app breaks in the middle of C6, as M Ross (see above).

The "magic" Connection Finder query counts your circles further on, but without listing the profiles. Your circles grow quite fast, over 4,100 up to C7, 42,000 up to C10, and the peak circle at 18.

Monitoring 7 circles would already be quite a lot of work!

Answer 15

I like this idea too! I love working on the descendants of my ancestors and their spouses, and I think this will encourage more people to do the same and create more connections within the tree.

I think 8 degrees would be ideal. It would be a large number of possible connections without getting too crazy. Right now my connections caps out in the 6-degree category.

A couple of questions: 

1. Would living relatives be included in the circle counts? In my opinion they shouldn't, since unlisted profiles are unlikely to create connections within the tree in the same way a listed profile would. 

2. Right now it seems the Family Activity Feed > Connections is capped at monitoring about 1000 profiles. Would the cap be increased to go along with this new feature? And maybe we could be able to select the number of degrees to monitor?

Comments

Good points, Valerie

1. The computing of circles is based on the Connection Finder algorithm, and it does take into account living people, whatever their privacy level, even unlisted.

2. I agree the "My Connections" app limits should be aligned with the new feature.

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It would be great to be able to see more than your first 1,000 connections in My Connections and the Connections Activity Feed but it wouldn't be feasible to include thousands of profiles. The Activity Feed, especially, is a "heavy query" that needs to do a lot of calculations and weighs down the server. This new C7/C8/C10 count we're talking about here would only be practical because we'd be updating the number periodically, either once a day or once a week, on a separate server.

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Ok I see. If we had a list of our connections that is updated once a day/week I think that would still be helpful to have. I just think we would need some way of viewing the profiles that make up our connection total.

If the number is capped at 10,000, I think we should choose a number of degrees where this number is attainable for most members but not too “easy”. I know I’d be tempted to try to reach that target goal of the 10,000 maximum.

And it seems living people may be an important part of being able to attain that goal. I could add the ancestors of my siblings’ spouses or the ancestors of my aunts’ and uncles’ spouses for example, people that I haven’t really tried to research before. I don’t know if I’d be entirely comfortable adding my living second or third cousins into the tree though. I know they’re unlisted, but other people can still see that living children have been added to a profile.

Answer 16

Chris,

Like all numbers - interesting and fun.

No idea how close my numbers would line up with others, but here they are.

0 - 1

1 -11

2 - 34

3 - 79

4 - 167

5 - 409

6 - 300 - with note maximum generations reached.

The progression looks a little like 3 to powers of 1, 2, 3, etc.  IF so 10 would produce something like 60,000 connections.  - So here is math problem for one of the experts.  What is the expected number of connections of Degree 10?

Comments

See the 100 Circles page explaining how the population of C10 might vary following several parameters.

I ran the query on your profile. Your C10 is currently at 20,968 - cumulated up to C10 is 37,326. Half your ballpark estimation, but those figures are bound to keep growing. Bear in mind that C10 members in your descendancy are yet to be born somewhere in the 23th century ... So your C10 could reach way more than 60,000.

Your Peak circle is currently C18. Quite similar distributions are found in the reference table, e.g., my cousin Suzanne Gardahaut. See the table in the section https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:100_Circles#Changing_Focus

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Wow, 37K for Philip. Probably one of the best-connected members on our tree, but still, that's higher than I think we would want. More evidence that we should probably stop at C7 or C8, or 10,000, as you most-recently suggested, Bernard.

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Indeed. And maybe address by different technical means the answers to different questions, count and identification.

1. Count : what is the population of my first circles, up to the 10k threshold? (just number of profiles, not the list)
2. Identification : list of profiles in the 10k circle, or in the last 4-digits circle

#1 should be not too costly, based on a limited variant of the 100 Circles query. I'm confident Aleš has just to add one line of code to achieve that.

#2 should be only on-demand, given that the number of WikiTreers interested in this affair will still be limited I'm afraid.

Answer 17

My connections max out in the 8th degree. I've done nothing on my mother's side- not even her. The obituary of one of Mom's aunts began with "Hilja Aho leaves 287 living descendants... "

Answer 18

Here are my current numbers:

Degree 0: 1
Degree 1: +2 = 3
Degree 2: +6 = 9
Degree 3: +12 = 21
Degree 4: +15 = 36
Degree 5: +32 = 68
Degree 6: +42 = 110
Degree 7: +74 = 184
Degree 8: +130 = 314
Degree 9: +235 = 549
Degree 10: +420 = 969

So the 1000-profile limit does not seem to have kicked in yet.

I was slightly disappointed to see only two of these 969 connections (plus myself) identified with a red label as Active WikiTreers, but this is merely another incentive to start recruiting my own known relatives to WikiTree.

I recently started analysing my connections to each week's featured profiles, in particular noting in a spreadsheet the number of degrees from me to my most distant blood relative in the connection path.  Over the past four weeks (48 featured profiles), the results are as follows:

3 degrees: 7 featured profiles (all through the same half-brother of my paternal grandmother)
5 degrees: 10 featured profiles (all through the same greatgreatgreataunt)
7 degrees: 8 featured profiles (through four different blood relatives)
8 degrees: 17 featured profiles (through three different blood relatives)
9 degrees: 2 featured profiles (both through the same third cousin twice removed)
10 degrees: 2 featured profiles (through two different blood relatives)
11 degrees: 1 featured profile
17 degrees: 1 featured profile

This leaves me wondering if I have only two blood relatives who (a) are within six degrees of myself and (b) have a spouse who is independently connected to the big tree.

Finally, I wonder how this might relate to potential DNA matches.  Currently, relatives out to seven degrees appear to be shown as potential DNA matches.  I would like to see these highlighted in the MyConnections report (and to see them counted separately within the proposed new summary count).

There seems to be an anomaly in how possible half-cousins are treated for DNA purposes:
* a full third cousin, seven degrees away, with both shared GGgrandparents on WikiTree, appears as a DNA connection, predicted to share ~0.78%;
* a full third cousin, seven degrees away, with only one of the shared GGgrandparents on WikiTree, appears as a DNA connection, but predicted to share only ~0.39%;
* a half third cousin, seven degrees away, with the single shared GGgrandparent on WikiTree, presumably appears as a DNA connection, predicted to share ~0.39%; but
* a full third cousin once removed, eight degrees away, with both of the shared most recent common ancestral couple on WikiTree, does not appears as a DNA connection, although also predicted to share ~0.39%.

All of the above observations make me feel that the right number of degrees should be at least eight.

Comments

Hi Paddy. Just a side note: You've probably seen that your DNA test details page shows all likely matches https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:DNATests&u=2916068&id=1 and that you can see descendants for any ancestor who have DNA tested e.g. https://www.wikitree.com/treewidget/Waldron-2449/890

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Thanks, Chris. "Potential DNA matches" was probably ambiguous in my original answer.

My thought was that any list or count of people at 7 degrees or closer should in some way separate out or colour-code:

* connections by marriage;

* blood relatives (who, if living to spit or swab since the DNA revoltion began, would almost certainly be autosomal DNA matches); and

* WikiTree users with autosomal DNA test details already linked to their WikiTree account.

I realise that these additional calculations might impose an unacceptable computational load.

The more I think about it, the more the fact that the threshold for DNA connections is currently 7 degrees or closer seems like a good reason to choose the same threshold for the proposed new feature.

In my own case, the report might currently read something like this:

Paddy Waldron has 36 connections at four degrees or closer, of whom two are connected by marriage and 34 are blood relatives, of whom two (including Paddy himself) have made their DNA available for comparison.

Answer 19

I'm hoping I'll understand all this better once it's put into practice because right now I am totally confused, particularly about how these numbers could be used in a competition. By the way, "my connections" stop before they get to the 7th degree. I don't know if that matters toward choosing what number of degrees to report.

Comments

Nelda, please see above other answers and comments explaining where and why the app stops.

As for "competition(s)", Chris wrote "friendly". Of course your circles cannot have more members in WT than they had/have/will have in real life, and we are not equal in that respect.

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Bernard, I read them all a couple of times before I responded. Did not help. I've tried a couple of times to figure out your 100 Circles, too. I think this is going to be like my college calculus class--incomprehensible to me.

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Sorry about that.

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Bernard, do we already have a "competition"--the Connect-a-Thon--which could increase the numbers of individuals in each of our circles, if we use that competition to add profiles of people who are connected to profiles of people we are already connected to? Am I using the term "circles" correctly? Would "circles" and "degrees of connection" be the same thing or similar?

I think I understand why "My Connections" stops where it does--it stops at 1000 which is just an arbitrary number where the app is set to stop.

I will continue to monitor this discussion--in particular your responses--to see if this all becomes any clearer to me.

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- Indeed the Connect-a-Thon can be an opportunity to expand your circles. But you can do that any time.

- "Circles" and "degrees of separation" are indeed two ways to describe the same thing, how far we are from each other as computed by the Connection Finder.

For example we are 27 degrees from each other. In other words, you are in my 27th circle (aka my C27), and I am in your C27.  Really not very advanced calculus.

Answer 20

Great idea, Chris!