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Randy_

Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2004
Messages
5,701
Location
Dallas suburb, Texas, USA.
I guess it depends upon who is doing the counting?? If you look at the membership list, it calls for only 5962 members.

Certainly is a milestone.....of sorts.....but not one I pay much attention to. If you could view the forum statistics, you would see that well over 50% of those "members" signed on to IAP and never made a post. And many of the remainder made 3 or 4 posts and were never heard from again. Counting people who "sign their name" as menbers is one way of counting "members" but a very good one to my way of thinking. I look at most of those folks as visitors rather than as members.

I don't know what kind of data collection capabilities Jeff has; but it might be more instructive to know how many members have made more than 5 posts (you pick the number) in, say, the past six months. I think a number like that might give a much truer picture of the "actual" active membership.
 

DocStram

Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2006
Messages
3,429
Location
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Bruce ... I missed noticing that. 6,000 members! :biggrin::biggrin:

SIX THOUSAND members? I'd say that's a milestone according to any forum's standards. Let's not get into how many posts an individual made or the value of a post. I mean, like ... look at me. My 2,646 posts are probably worth 3 or 4 really good ones. :rolleyes:
 
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Daniel

Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2004
Messages
5,921
Location
Reno, NV, USA.
I know that doing group buys has convinced me there are at least 10 to 12 people in the back ground for every vocal one. I sort of think of it as church, you have the people up front playing the music, giving the sermons, making announcements and ushering or whatever. then you have the people that fill the pews. Trust me all the activity is pretty useless if the pews are empty. be there done that. But in short there are a lot more members that check in on a daily basis, are aware in detail of the activities here than it seems. I get messages all the time from people I have never heard of that say "I have been a member of the group for X years but never posted".
I sometimes get into little conversations with them and find out that many of them work through e-mail and PM's rather than on the forums. I think that data about bandwidth and actual daily logging in etc woudl be a far more accurate evaluation of the actual use of the group than posting.
 

td

Banned
Joined
Apr 5, 2007
Messages
275
Location
Dallas, TX, USA.
I joined the website when I first started turning back in March 2007. I read every article I could find and read posts as well, but felt I couldn't contribute anything so I stayed silent. I still learned and am VERY grateful for this website.

When I started casting I was so excited I got over my "shyness" about posting and jumped in with both feet. I'm enjoying the website even more and feeling so much more comfortable that I have to check in on everybody every day. For some of us, it takes awhile to get comfortable. For me it took almost a year but even then I was gaining knowledge from all of you wonderfully encouraging folks here on the website. IAP ROCKS!!
 

DocStram

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Joined
Feb 16, 2006
Messages
3,429
Location
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Yeah ... I lurked around in IAP for a long, long time before I finally got up enough courage to post. Then, my greatest fear was realized. Cav wanted to become friends with me. :eek::eek::biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:
 

Randy_

Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2004
Messages
5,701
Location
Dallas suburb, Texas, USA.
This is nothing more than a "Truth In Advertising" issue with me. You guys are reading way too much into my message that was not there nor intended to be there. Not surprising as I have made this comment on other boards and received similar responses. Guess I am not doing a good job of making my point.

Last Christmas, I adopted a cat from the local SPCA and had a minor problem with her. So I went to the Internet and "joined" a cat forum so I could post and get an answer to my question. I made 3 or 4 posts in one thread, got an answer to my question and will almost certainly never go back to that forum again. I don't consider myself to be a member of that forum......just a very temporary visitor........ but for the purposes of that forum, they will almost certainly count me as a member.

Daniel: To your church analogy, if a person signs a card shows up for one sermon and then is never heard from again, is he really a member??

And to Al: Student shows up for your first class of the semester, leaves during a break and is never heard from again......do you consider him a member of your class??

My point was simply that a large percentage of those 6000 IAP "members" are really nothing more than visitors who signed up, looked around, maybe made a post or two and then left with no intention of ever returning again.

The fact that I mentioned a post count was in no way meant to be a judgment on the value of posting or not posting. I recognize that there is a portion of the "ACTIVE" IAP membership who visit regularly and benefit from the information that is posted here; but post infrequently or not at all. That is just fine. I merely picked an entirely arbitrary post count and time frame as a way to grossly differentiate between "real" (active) members and those who drop in for a visit, maybe make a post or three and then disappear never to be heard from again. I understand that that kind of an arbitrary qualification will not recognize or acknowledge some of our non-posting members; but, is spite of that, I think it would give a truer (more accurate) picture of how many people are using this web site on a regular and repetitive basis and give us a better idea of the impact we might reasonably expect to make on a vendor, manufacturer or whatever if we were to rally the full force of IAP to champion some issue or project.

All I would like to see is an honest and accurate count of the people who actually use this site on a regular and recurrng basis. Sadly, the software does not do that. It counts every person who crosses the threshhold whether they sit down and stay for dinner or just have a cup of coffee and disappear forever.

P.S. Hey Al: I see you edited your first post. I wonder what the original comment was??:biggrin:
 

Randy_

Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2004
Messages
5,701
Location
Dallas suburb, Texas, USA.
I joined the website when I first started turning back in March 2007. I read every article I could find and read posts as well, but felt I couldn't contribute anything so I stayed silent.....

Terry: I fully understand your thinking; but don't totally agree with it. I commend you for doing your homework first and not boring everyone with a bunch of questions that have been asked and answered a hundred times. That being said you contribute to this web site not only by sharing your knowledge and experience; but also by sharing your questions. Any question you have is almost certainly on the mind of others as well. By asking a question you stimulate discussion that will help you and others as well.

So for you and the other quiet ones out there, do your homework and then ask your questions. Questions are one of the important things that keep this forum going!!:):)
 

DocStram

Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2006
Messages
3,429
Location
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Randy ..... Come on, pal. You're reading way too much into our posts. Stay cool. Lighten up a little. If you'll take a look at my posts you'll probably find that most of them have been edited. I'm forever typing a post, submitting it, then noticing a typo or something and then editing it. Who knows? I may have put the "EEK" icon after the "Smiley" icon and then changed it.

We're you're friends, remember?
 
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Daniel

Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2004
Messages
5,921
Location
Reno, NV, USA.
Randy, I agree that there are not likely 6000 members checking in here every day. I also do not agree that a post count or min is the way to go in determining who does check in and who does not. maybe a logged in last woudl be a better way to go. I know this was discussed way back when we tried forming a board and there where good reasons pointed out that even log in monitoring was not all that accurate because you can visit the site and not log in, you can still read everything and all you will do is show up as a visitor. All I was trying to say is there are a lot more lurkers out there than I would have ever thought. One recent example is that recently I did a search for members from Reno and Sparks. Basically the same town and was shocked to find maybe 25 members. never really heard anything from 23 of them at least and have no idea how many still check in on a regular basis.
I do see one benefit to know how many people have ever signed up as a member here. That is to know how many bodies are out there that have taken more than a glancing interest in the group. they still run around out there with the knowledge of us and are basically walking advertising. sort of a count of how many people have been impacted at all by this group.
 

jeff

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Staff member
Joined
Dec 5, 2003
Messages
8,970
Location
Westlake, OH, USA.
All I would like to see is an honest and accurate count of the people who actually use this site on a regular and recurrng basis. Sadly, the software does not do that. It counts every person who crosses the threshhold whether they sit down and stay for dinner or just have a cup of coffee and disappear forever.

Can you define "use this site on a regular and recurrng basis" ??

I can slice and dice the database in any number of ways to expose the "truth" if you will tell me how to define it.
 

Rojo22

Local Chapter Leader
Joined
Jul 17, 2006
Messages
1,528
Location
Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
Doc's lips move when he types......and he has white out on his monitor.....but we love him!



Randy ..... Come on, pal. You're reading way too much into our posts. Stay cool. Lighten up a little. If you'll take a look at my posts you'll probably find that most of them have been edited. I'm forever typing a post, submitting it, then noticing a typo or something and then editing it. Who knows? I may have put the "EEK" icon after the "Smiley" icon and then changed it.

We're you're friends, remember?
 

DocStram

Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2006
Messages
3,429
Location
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
To be honest with you, I think we have better things to do than expending energy on a debate about on operational definition of "members".

This is a quagmire that many organization fall into. For example, for the longest time professionals couldn't even agree on an IQ cut off for Mental Retardation. You could be mentally retarded in one state ... and, normal in the next.

Why fuss about membership numbers. As far as I'm concerned, we now have 6,017. I can see how many are active .... or, online. That's enough for me.

Ohhhh and Robert's right about white out all over the screen. Now ..... if only I could edit what comes out of my mouth when I'm talking.

Darn ... another edited post!
 
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Rojo22

Local Chapter Leader
Joined
Jul 17, 2006
Messages
1,528
Location
Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
Ohhhh and Robert's right about white out all over the screen. Now ..... if only I could edit what comes out of my mouth when I'm talking.

Darn ... another edited post!

Hey Doc, life wouldnt be near as fun and exciting that way....I think you are right though, if the counter says NOW SERVING 6017, well I think we have 6017 happy customers!
 
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