I noticed while trying the new s/w that there are 544 active users of these forums as reported by the figure in the statistics area near the bottom of the forums' main page. What is definition of 'active'? Also, what volume of activity is generated by guests in comparison to registered users? I suppose the number of database accesses resulting from each group could be used as the metric. Just curious.
The answer to the first question is "logged in during the past 20 days" (you can see this if you roll the cursor over the "Active Users" text). I can't answer the second question, because I don't think I have a way of figuring it out. I'd be happy to give out site stats if you are interested.
Thanks, Daniel, but that won't be necessary. Just wondering if there was a way to guage the number of eyeballs out there making use of the forums. The higher the number, the higher the value of the information contained in the forums??
Well, for what it's worth, the web "page" with the highest number of hits on the site is www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/forums/showthread.php , which is the page on the forums that displays a thread. In August, there were 149500 views of that page, but there's no way (without far, far too much effort) I can split that into registered vs. guest views, or remove the search engine spiders from the tally. The only stats that the forum software tracks of interest are new registrations, user activity, new threads and new posts. The last three months, monthly new posts have hovered around the 1800 mark, the previous high (in the month prior to these three) was 1500. March of this past year was the first time that over 1000 posts were made in a month. The numbers are good, but nothing like some other gardening forums. Then again, we don't advertise to the larger community (it's all done via word of mouth and search engines), and we're not as chitchatty as other places.
The numbers you quoted seem to indicate things are picking up. I agree - quality over quantity. One popular gardening forum has recent posts complaining of pop-ups, spam, and other annoyances. Thanks again.
Would that be the forum that was recently sold and purchased? I can guarantee that won't happen here.
Finding a way to make it pay is thought to be the issue. Subscriptions were considered at one point, I noticed more than one person saying the quality of information being provided wasn't worth paying for. Instead it ended up with new ownership and more ads.
Well, best of luck to them, and I hope they get it all sorted out for the sake of their members. Finding a business model that works for all parties is difficult.
I am familiar with the forum site alluded to (let's call it GW). In spite of the annoyances of those intrusive ads, it's still a busy forum and I love hanging out there. It took me, I guess 3 years to get wind of this forum. There is another gardening forum based on this format that I go to occassionally. There is no doubt that the traffic on this forum is extremely slow. But it needs a buzzing, busy forum to generate enough excitement to attract regular users. It seems that any forum needs to gather that initial momentum to get it going. I can attest to that in the early days of GW. But when sufficient of that "critical mass" of regular posters came along, it then really took off. In scrolling through the list of membership on the UBCbotanical site, it seems that the majority of registered users are infrequent posters, or posted once or twice and never again. Until there is enough regular users to "stock the fire", so to speak, activity will likely stay slow. And "word of mouth" gathers speed as the number of mouths involved increases. What I am trying to get at is that there must be some ways of letting the word be known, to start off with, locally. For example, is it possible to take advantage of the traffic flow through the gardens in UBC in the form of simple posters or pamphlets? Afterall, these gardens do have international visitors as well. What about the same for the local nursery retailers? Would they mind putting up a few notices in their stores? Wouldn't they love to be on board as well? Just some thoughts...........
There are drawbacks to growing too quickly too fast. The sudden influx of a large number of new users would tax resources, human and material. While growth is good, it should occur at a controlled pace.
