site member activity

[stripperguy]

Glenn,
Is there any way you can (in your copious free time) post some data on member activity levels?
Gamma mentioned in the "how old are you" poll that there seems to be less activity than the previous poll, despite a considerable rise in membership.
I am wondering how the rising membership correlates to numbers of posts.
Do 10% of us provide 80% of the content?
Are there members that join and submit a single post, then never post again?
Is this site driven by a few, prolific members?
Without naming names, can you readily determine the posting/number of members distibution?

 

[Benson Gray]

I'm not Glenn and don't have access to the administrative side of this forum but XenForo does provide some limited statistics as shown below from the similar WCHA forums (https://forums.wcha.org/). The short answer is yes, a very limited number of members provide most of the content and activity in forums like this.

Benson

 

[recped]

Glenn,

Do 10% of us provide 80% of the content?

My guess is that your numbers should be 5% of registered users provide 95% of the content.

I'm on many different boards, on most of them I would estimate that only 2% of registered users make more than 1 post per year with 75% never posting at all. Some of these boards have over 100,000 registered users.

Note: The statistics above are not based on fact, they are based on "I feel it in my bones".

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Glenn,
Is there any way you can (in your copious free time) post some data on member activity levels?
Gamma mentioned in the "how old are you" poll that there seems to be less activity than the previous poll, despite a considerable rise in membership.
I am wondering how the rising membership correlates to numbers of posts.
Do 10% of us provide 80% of the content?
Are there members that join and submit a single post, then never post again?
Is this site driven by a few, prolific members?
Without naming names, can you readily determine the posting/number of members distibution?

Post counts are not particularly accurate because deleted spam posts are counted, and we've been inundated with them almost daily for several months. I've taken aggressive steps to stop that over the past two days, which will also make legitimate registrations a bit more difficult.

We have tripled our membership since September 2021 when I took over and migrated this site from vBulletin to Xenforo. We certainly have significantly increasing numbers of readers and lurkers, but I don't have tools to track numbers of those. I'd estimate that 95+% of new members never post or start threads, even though most are likely reading new and archived threads. Therefore, I'd estimate that our actual, legitimate, daily posting activity has increased only modestly compared to our registration increases since 2021.

BY FAR, posting activity per day is MOST strongly correlated with thread starts per day. Every new thread start a day will jump post counts up by five to ten posts that day and for a period of three to five days thereafter. Many days no new threads are started, and we've probably averaged about three thread starts a day for years.

If no one started threads, this site (and any discussion site) would DIE! This is not rocket science: A discussion site, by definition, requires someone to start the discussions. Many active posters here never or rarely start new threads and only post in newly-started threads. Therefore, regarding thread starters, we have a whole lot of takers but comparatively few givers. Because of this, I feel obligated (and actually like to) start many threads on this site. Some work, some don't.

No one needs to take a trip, build a canoe, or buy gear just to start a conversation. It's easy — and folks here will converse about just about anything, sometimes at surprising lengths. Again, some topics work well, some don't, and some are in between.

In summary, I'd say we have a small core of consistent thread starters, a larger and slowly growing core of regular posters (but most of whom only post in newly-started threads), and a gigantic number of daily lurkers and thread readers.

I certainly hope a lot of all of them will financially contribute to the first fund raiser in three years, which will begin on November 1, 2026. This site will also die without voluntary financial support from posters and readers alike.

 

[dutchlennart]

This seems to be the most active canoeing forum now. Sadly i guess much happens on other platform that i refuse to be part of.
Some fora have been slowing down for years. Many others are gone.
i hope this will stay a while.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Gamma mentioned in the "how old are you" poll that there seems to be less activity than the previous poll, despite a considerable rise in membership.

One thing obvious from the 2016 age poll vs. the 2026 poll is that, in ten years, the modal age here has jumped from the 50s, right over the 60s, and now into the 70s. Combine that with the obvious fact that kayak sales have significantly outpaced canoe sales for the past 40 years, and one can reach the logical conclusion that the number of canoe discussion enthusiasts in the world are aging out faster than they are being replaced.

While I believe CTN is the most fully-featured and active open canoe site on the internet now and is still growing, that is probably coming at the expense of canoe sites that are now defunct or those that remain but are shrinking. It doesn't require Nostradamus to prophesy that the total number of canoe forum posts is likely decline worldwide. However, the open canoe niche will always be there, and I hope this site can serve and survive in that niche for a long time.

Like most institutions and organizations in Darwinian life, success simply requires sufficient collective effort — by owners, administrators, moderators, thread starters, and posters — to outperform the competition.

 

[M Clemens]

I remember asking this question back in 2020 in the old forum, which displayed the active user count. It wasn't clear how it was calculated, but seemed to indicate that a minority of members generate the new threads.

 

[Benson Gray]

the old forum, which displayed the active user count

This is a feature of vBulletin which has not been replicated under XenForo in the same way. The WoodenBoat forum is still running vBulletin and their statistics are shown below for comparison.



The page at https://forum.vbulletin.com/forum/v...bleshooting/180642-question-on-active-members indicates that the administrator sets an "Active Members Time Cut-Off to determine who is active." The "Users active" statistic shown in my previous message is a similar XenForo metric which appears to only be available on the administrative pages.

Benson