8,000 members and just getting started...

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So we've just crossed the 8,000 member mark.

Membership on MT has been increasing in an unbroken upward curve in the fifteen months or so that I've been a member. It's always possible to do better, to improve performance and raise standards, etc.... but I think we're actually doing very well in that particular respect.
 

ArmorOfGod

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Yes, but is that a real or hollow number?
How many of the 8,000 are people who signed up three years ago and never made a post, or made one post and dissappeared.
Wouldn't be a good idea to purge members who don't exist to get a more honest number?

AoG
 

Ping898

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still it is kind of kewl to be that high....some people for sure have come and gone and I am sure there are some folks that we could do without on here, but still it means interest in MT is high and that new folks are stumbling upon it and finding it something to at least look into....we just got to make sure we keep them....
 
OP
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Yes, but is that a real or hollow number?
How many of the 8,000 are people who signed up three years ago and never made a post, or made one post and dissappeared.
Wouldn't be a good idea to purge members who don't exist to get a more honest number?

AoG

Well, it's true that there are plenty of people who don't post. But that's going to be true for all of the other boards as well. So unless they purge their membership lists in that way, the figure is a useful one in terms of comparability amongst competing boards. The main thing that's important about it, though, is that it's continuing to increase steadily. If you figure that there's a certain % of the membership which posts frequently, and another % that posts casually, but still enough to add energy to the board, then that continuous increase means that over time, thing will be getting more and more active—more posts, more ideas thrown around, greater odds of stumbling into an interesting discussion—which is good news for us all.
 
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Maybe there could be two numbers: the 8,000, then the number of active members (what, about 150?)

AoG

Yeah, I was wondering if that might be a useful figure to have somewhere...
 

grydth

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Yes, but is that a real or hollow number?
How many of the 8,000 are people who signed up three years ago and never made a post, or made one post and dissappeared.
Wouldn't be a good idea to purge members who don't exist to get a more honest number?

AoG

A worthy question......

My guess would be the roster here represents pretty much what most rosters do. Some members are very actively involved, many others less so, still others sign up but drift quietly away to other things in life.

A person not posting, though, may not be a sign of disinterest or departure. It seems a pretty fair number of people now regularly pull views and opinions off the Internet, much as people used to read several physical newspapers per day. They may not be debating actively, but they may well be learning/using/disseminating the data found here.

I wonder if trending numbers of supporting members might be a better indicator of 'hard support'...... or if admin has some way of tracking visitors......
 

Bob Hubbard

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Yes, but is that a real or hollow number?
How many of the 8,000 are people who signed up three years ago and never made a post, or made one post and dissappeared.
Wouldn't be a good idea to purge members who don't exist to get a more honest number?

AoG

Unlike most other sites, I purge dead accounts annually.
To date, we've had 15,402 account's registered.
There are currently 8,007 accounts.

Maybe there could be two numbers: the 8,000, then the number of active members (what, about 150?)

AoG

Yeah, I was wondering if that might be a useful figure to have somewhere...

What do you consider "active"?

Total members that have visited the forum in the last 24 hours: 360
850 members have visited since 1-1-08
1,594 members have visited since 12-1-07

This doesn't include casual lurkers, members who don't sign in each visit, etc.

You can see alot of stats on the main forum page, at the bottom.
 

Bob Hubbard

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A worthy question......

My guess would be the roster here represents pretty much what most rosters do. Some members are very actively involved, many others less so, still others sign up but drift quietly away to other things in life.

A person not posting, though, may not be a sign of disinterest or departure. It seems a pretty fair number of people now regularly pull views and opinions off the Internet, much as people used to read several physical newspapers per day. They may not be debating actively, but they may well be learning/using/disseminating the data found here.

I wonder if trending numbers of supporting members might be a better indicator of 'hard support'...... or if admin has some way of tracking visitors......
I keep alot of stats on hand, including some rather detailed comparisons of MT and other forums. Each month the staff gets a huge dump of data, including posts per forum, top posters and thread starters, and registrations.

Right now, there are:
14 Gold Key Club members
132 Supporting members.
 

Bob Hubbard

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I keep alot of stats on hand, including some rather detailed comparisons of MT and other forums. Each month the staff gets a huge dump of data, including posts per forum, top posters and thread starters, and registrations.

Right now, there are:
14 Gold Key Club members
132 Supporting members.
Heres 1 info source:
http://www.big-boards.com/kw/martial-arts/


Here is some old data from a few months ago, truncated to just the top 10 sites.

New menbers between 5-23-2007 and 11-5-2007
1 Bull shido 11,429
2 Kung Fu Mag 10,260
3 martialartsplanet.com 4,505
4 MartialTalk 1,654
5 ebudo.com 1,043
6 defend.net 844
7 Dragons List 457
8 FMATalk 422
9 Karateforums.com 372
10 BudoSeek 287


New Threads between 5-23-2007 and 11-5-2007

1 Bull shido 6,656
2 martialartsplanet.com 6,097
3 MartialTalk 5,684
4 AmericanKenpoForum.com 2,672
5 defend.net 2,529
6 BudoSeek 1,500
7 KenpoTalk 1,336
8 Karateforums.com 1,233
9 Dragons List 1,222
10 FMATalk 1,024


New Posts between 5-23-2007 and 11-5-2007
1 Bull shido 171,085
2 martialartsplanet.com 136,687
3 MartialTalk 84,617
4 Kung Fu Mag 38,154
5 Dragons List 21,962
6 BudoSeek 19,091
7 KenpoTalk 16,737
8 defend.net 16,234
8 FMAForum.com 12,307
10 Karateforums.com 11,347


Most of those sites rarely if ever delete dead accounts. So, while 50,000 members looks impressive, you can see new sign-ups doesn't translate to lots of posts.
 
OP
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Heres 1 info source:
http://www.big-boards.com/kw/martial-arts/


Here is some old data from a few months ago, truncated to just the top 10 sites.

New menbers between 5-23-2007 and 11-5-2007
1 Bull shido 11,429
2 Kung Fu Mag 10,260
3 martialartsplanet.com 4,505
4 MartialTalk 1,654
5 ebudo.com 1,043
6 defend.net 844
7 Dragons List 457
8 FMATalk 422
9 Karateforums.com 372
10 BudoSeek 287


New Threads between 5-23-2007 and 11-5-2007

1 Bull shido 6,656
2 martialartsplanet.com 6,097
3 MartialTalk 5,684
4 AmericanKenpoForum.com 2,672
5 defend.net 2,529
6 BudoSeek 1,500
7 KenpoTalk 1,336
8 Karateforums.com 1,233
9 Dragons List 1,222
10 FMATalk 1,024


New Posts between 5-23-2007 and 11-5-2007
1 Bull shido 171,085
2 martialartsplanet.com 136,687
3 MartialTalk 84,617
4 Kung Fu Mag 38,154
5 Dragons List 21,962
6 BudoSeek 19,091
7 KenpoTalk 16,737
8 defend.net 16,234
8 FMAForum.com 12,307
10 Karateforums.com 11,347


Most of those sites rarely if ever delete dead accounts. So, while 50,000 members looks impressive, you can see new sign-ups doesn't translate to lots of posts.

Boy, is that putting it mildly. BSdo gained 11 times our new membership, which translates into exactly 17% greater new threads than we have, and just a teeny bit over twice the number of posts, in that time frame.
 

terryl965

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what we have that other boards do not is a core group that is second to none.
 
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what we have that other boards do not is a core group that is second to none.

I agree, Terry. And I'd say that in that core group we probably have a very respectable % who are experienced, seasoned, technically accomplished practitioners, many of whom are instructors with a lot of years or decades in their art. So if you go by average value per post, I'd say we've got a good shot at being in the lead, whatever Certain Other Boards can muster in the way of sheer numbers.... :ubercool:
 

terryl965

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I agree, Terry. And I'd say that in that core group we probably have a very respectable % who are experienced, seasoned, technically accomplished practitioners, many of whom are instructors with a lot of years or decades in their art. So if you go by average value per post, I'd say we've got a good shot at being in the lead, whatever Certain Other Boards can muster in the way of sheer numbers.... :ubercool:

I would have to say yes to all the above, we differently have more meat and pototoes here on MT.
 

jks9199

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Something else about some of those other sites and their membership...

I've signed up with some of them simply because someone linked something here... but I haven't posted.

And some of them require you to register to do much more than look at the title of the threads. That'll boost your registered members pretty quick -- even if they're only a one-time looky-loo.
 
OP
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Something else about some of those other sites and their membership...

I've signed up with some of them simply because someone linked something here... but I haven't posted.

And some of them require you to register to do much more than look at the title of the threads. That'll boost your registered members pretty quick -- even if they're only a one-time looky-loo.

Verrrry interesting, jks... I didn't realize that, but it makes sense, if you want to nail down the lurkers but not really scare them off.
 

Bob Hubbard

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All of the sites I track have something of worth to someone, and those top 10 sites are successful.

Kung Fu Mag got 8x the new members yet only got about 1/3 our posts. Why is that?
Bull shido got 9x the new members yet only managed 10% more topics. Why?
Etc. Those are the hard questions, lol.

What I'd like to know is.....
How can we keep our posts per member ratio yet get their signup volume? :rofl:
 

shesulsa

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My momma used to tell me it is better to have a little bit of something special than a whole lotta nuthin'. ;)

(Of course, these are extremes and not intended to accurately portray the subjective forums)
 

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