Hi all,

Just looking around and decided to find out who was member 2, 3,4, etc. just out of interest, no other reason.
I found the member list and noticed that lot and lots of people who signed up as members have "0" posts. When I say lots I mean what appears in the first 5 pages over 50%.
Would you call these people active members?
Nothing sinister about this question since I post so few but visit quite often to read and learn stuff.
But is the registered members number for UT really correct? I would say not if my life depended on having to give a yes/ no answer.

Any comments welcome.

I've never thought about it before, but you bring up a good point...

I'd say the actual number of registered users is entirely correct because it counts the number of people who have registered to be members of the forum - no problem there. Well, there wasn't until certain members started registering 2 or 3 usernames for no apparent reason...

As for the number of contributing members, well that's a lot harder to ascertain.

__________________
"The stars are my home"
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion... I've watched c-beams glitter in the dark, near the Tanhauser Gate... all those moments will be lost, in time... like tears in the rain..."

This is the case in pretty much every message board on the net. The vast majority of people register either because they can, or to ask a single question/post a single reply. Having much more than ~50% of the forum members with post counts less than 5 is the norm. On most large public boards maybe 5-10% of the posters post on a monthly basis and maybe 1-2% daily.

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"Measure what can be measured, and make measurable what cannot be measured" - Galileo Galilei

"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master" - Commissioner Pravin Lal, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

I was bored enough to do a little study. Use the members link to sort them by postcount in descending order, with 50 posters a page :

45 pages => ~2250 users.

Starting from the middle of page 8 people have 4 or less posts => ~1875 users.

So ~83% of the users have less than 5 posts.

About 1500 people made 1 or 0 posts, that means a whopping 66% of the registered users.

The number of people who did a non-negligible contribution to the boards and have more than, say, 10 posts is about 225. That is, 10%.

There are only 75 truly active people, with more than 50 posts. ~3.5%.

From my experience, these numbers are pretty typical. Although in big communities with years of history and tens of thousands of users a non-negligible contribution will be 100 posts and not 10, and an active member will have 500 and not 50 posts.

__________________
"Measure what can be measured, and make measurable what cannot be measured" - Galileo Galilei

"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master" - Commissioner Pravin Lal, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

Yup, it's totally normal way for people to participate in an online community. But you never know. Some people lurk around for a long time before finally posting a comment.

__________________
Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today - Free space news delivered by email every weekday.

Yes, I've found this myself on other boards... it's like marketing... send out 100 pamphlets about a product, 10 people will express an interest and only 1 of those wil actually buy it.

The number of active members on UT is perfectly normal

__________________
"The stars are my home"
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion... I've watched c-beams glitter in the dark, near the Tanhauser Gate... all those moments will be lost, in time... like tears in the rain..."

Thank god I didn't make my usual bet with two very delicate parts of my anatomy; I'd be talking falsetto now!
It's all interesting statistically though, must be a thesis in here somewhere.
Just think of all the dross stored on systems.

You know what, DH, just forget I said anything! :angry:
Just think of Abel and SkyBoard and myself as three different people...I'm sorry if I offended you so much! :angry:
You wanna pick an online fight, huh? Well, bring it on, chicken! :angry:

Whoa, take it easy, StarLab!
But really, DH, I think you did hurt StarLab's feelings...

LOL StarLab, you make it hard for people to take you seriously when you register 2 or 3 names and then start to have conversations with yourself...

__________________
"The stars are my home"
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion... I've watched c-beams glitter in the dark, near the Tanhauser Gate... all those moments will be lost, in time... like tears in the rain..."

It's the same with any forum online. I think that 2500 members is reasonably indicative of the level of activity here, when compared with other forums.

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Climate Change Australia

Well, DH, at least I am posting more posts with three different usernames rather unlike those hypocrites and weirdos with one username who make less than five posts, and then move on!... :angry:

I am thinking that the labels 'hipocrites' and 'wierdos' is a bit harsh... like me for example I was offline for a while unavoidably, who knows what is going on on their end of the line.

Just as Kashi and Fraser said, its the same with any forum. DH's analogy is very true that out of 100 people knowing, 1 will respond.

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Damien,
International Baccalaureate Physics teacher
Spectroradiometry Instrumentation Major
Admin: Pacific Science and Art

Well, unlike other posters, Paul, you have a sh*tload of posts under your belt.

Alright, let's examine this:
Both Fraser and DH would actively pick on me, StarLab, a member who contributes alot, but would rather do nothing about ES, who some members are saying should be cutoff. Just something to ponder, isn't it?
WHATEVER HAPPENNED TO COMMON SENSE? h34r: :huh:

I am sure DH and Fraser are not picking on you, I have been guilty of some indiscretions in the past but understand that this site needs to have stringent guidelines in order to maintain its uniqueness and brilliant nature.

For the record, DH has been trying to do something about Extrasense, read through the threads.

Personally, i think Fraser and the mods ought to be commended for their fair dealings of late.

__________________
Damien,
International Baccalaureate Physics teacher
Spectroradiometry Instrumentation Major
Admin: Pacific Science and Art

Oh for God's sake, StarLab, let it go. We're not picking on you - we're just saying that one username is enough for each user because it causes confusion. If it were anyone else using different usernames (and yes, we CAN tell) then I'd say the same thing. I'm sick of explaining myself to you so this will be the last time. I don't have a problem with you or your posts but having more than one username and blatantly pretending to be new to the forums and a completely different person is confusing for everyone and can be seen as being deceptive. If I really wanted to get on your case, I'd question your motives and your honesty too.

As for ExtraSense, you obviously haven't been reading the topics properly. If anyone's been complaining about ExtraSense and campaigning to have her banned, it's been me. In fact, I'm sure the other moderators are sick of hearing me banging on about how the rules are there to be enforced and that since she's broken rule #6 consistently, she should be banned.

However, fortunately, no moderator alone has the power to ban a member - I don't have the power to click on the BAN button and be done with it. I've voiced my opinion about her and I've expressed my views on what I think will happen if she continues to post but ultimately, it's not my final decision.

__________________
"The stars are my home"
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion... I've watched c-beams glitter in the dark, near the Tanhauser Gate... all those moments will be lost, in time... like tears in the rain..."

I've asked as politely as I can to just use one username, and I have many reasons, including the the ones DH has mentioned here. Can we just leave it that? As the host of this forum, I'm asking you nicely to respect my wishes.

__________________
Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today - Free space news delivered by email every weekday.

Message to Fraser: Alright, I agree with you, I had dealt with the problem, and I don't wanna fight with you guys anymore. 'K?

This not a fair compairison. The UT forum is not even a year old yet.
There is still at least 5 weeks until the Forum's 1st birthday, which BTW is July 8th.

And besides all that, this is a subject specific forum with a non triditional type subject matter.
If this were a forum about intel advances, or what Bill Gates was up to, we might now have numbers simular to those sugested above.
But space has never been a real popular subject. There tends to be a lot of mathamatics involved which the person of average intelegence finds boring.
It's a subject not in the forefront of the common persons mind, and the vast majority of what we discuss here is way beyond the comprehension and interest of people with average intelectual abilities.

Most generally only people with above average intelegnece will find anything interesting here, and even then the idea of posting is intimidating for people who are not very knowledgeable, unless they are curious enough to ask what they may think of as dumb questions, but no question is unwelcome or too dumb.

We have a good forum here, and a lot of very good and smart people.
But most people would rather read then post.
A much better indicator would be looking at the views column of each subject. That will tell you how many people have read that subject.

But on the other hand, if our stats are 10% of established big communities with years of history and tens of thousands of users, that actually says a lot for us.

And for the record, we currently have 47 members with over a hundred posts. We got two more who will likely hit that first hundred in the next couple days.
We are approaching 2250 members with over 30,000 postings. That is no small matter for a less then year old forum.

With summer coming in the northern hemoshere which is a more active time for disscussion forums, I wouldn't be too suprised if we have 60 or 65 members with over a hundred posts by our forum's first birthday.

Just give us a few years, and see if our stats are not at least 10 X what they are today.

LOL I agree with what Kashi said - apart from the intelligence comments LOL I don't believe in varying degrees of intelligence, just different areas of skills.

__________________
"The stars are my home"
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion... I've watched c-beams glitter in the dark, near the Tanhauser Gate... all those moments will be lost, in time... like tears in the rain..."

and surely, it is quality not quantity

A person contributing say 4 great informative posts is better than a old chatterbox like me!

__________________
Damien,
International Baccalaureate Physics teacher
Spectroradiometry Instrumentation Major
Admin: Pacific Science and Art