[Debate] Member Count v/s Post Count

[Enchant]

I have noticed that alot of admins and members are concerned with member count versus post count. Is member count, what you think the potential member is looking at, or the amount of post that were actually made? What do you look at as an admin and what do you look at as a potential member?

As a member, I normally do not join forums, unless they are active and have a topic that I am passionate about, with the exception of support theme boards, ie..graphics and coding. But, when deciding to join a forum, I have a tendency to look at the member count first, that is what will make me pause and look around closer at the forum stats to include the post count....I then look to see if there is a good ratio between them? To be honest, in most cases, there is not. In some cases, alot of potential members prefer a smaller type forum with a larger post count,they feel of it as more of a tight community and less intrusions. For others, it is a large forum with alot of members. A friendly atmosphere, but not as personal, but more active.

As a admin of a forum, When I first started The Enchanted Element, I was more concerned with member count. But as I grew more secure with the community, I began to think less of member count and more of quality posting. So, I started shedding the inactive accounts.

I know that different people will have different opinions and although, both have an importance to a community, some prefer one over the other. Which do you think is the more influential in the decision making?

[∞ ConqueringWolf ∞]

Personallly I would rather have a core of say 30 members who were really active and stopped by daily and did lots of discussion rather than 150 members who only cam by once a month and made one post. To me the reason to create a forum is to have good discussion and a good community, not to accumulate people who never do anything.

[webmaren]

For me, since I'm usually looking for RPG's (which are pretty hard to find good ones) I look at the topic counts on the boards. Because I honestly don't want to go to a board that is half empty but has 30 members. I think its more important that the memebrs be active in the actual topic of the board than the general.

[Artemis]

I'm more interested in post count than member count. What's the point of a ton of members if you barely get any posts? However, if you had a good little community and almost everyone was active, your forum could get good quality posts, many good topics to discuss, and an all around active forum, regardless of how many members there are.

[Ímþ®óvîšâ†ó®]

enchant said:

I have noticed that alot of admins and members are concerned with member count versus post count. Is member count, what you think the potential member is looking at, or the amount of post that were actually made? What do you look at as an admin and what do you look at as a potential member?

As a member, I normally do not join forums, unless they are active and have a topic that I am passionate about, with the exception of support theme boards, ie..graphics and coding. But, when deciding to join a forum, I have a tendency to look at the member count first, that is what will make me pause and look around closer at the forum stats to include the post count....I then look to see if there is a good ratio between them? To be honest, in most cases, there is not. In some cases, alot of potential members prefer a smaller type forum with a larger post count,they feel of it as more of a tight community and less intrusions. For others, it is a large forum with alot of members. A freindly atmosphere, but not as personal, but more active.

As a admin of a forum, When I first started The Enchanted Element, I was more concerned with member count. But as I grew more secure with the community, I began to think less of member count and more of quality posting. So, I started shedding the inactive accounts.

I know that different people will have different opinions and although, both have an importance to a community, some prefer one over the other. Which do you think is the more influencial in the decision making?

Well as an admin of a general/social forum, I would have to say that....

I would rather look at how much a member has posted, that way, I get a good idea, of how active those particular members REALLY are. Looking at member count, seems very irrelevant to me, because it's the *quality*, not the quantity of members that I desire most as an admin. Considering the fact that the majority of my members are people that I know, they haven't really been very active due to their tight university schedules, except I get quite a pleasant surprise, when I see a members post count jump from 0-2 all the way to 120 lol. That shows that they have been trying to get on, but have not really gotten the chance to.

From a normal members perspective, maybe the member count would have some importance, as if say I was someone, who wanted to join a forum, I would have to look at one which had at least 5 to 6 active members out of whatever number is higher than 6, however from what I have been told, there are some hacks, which decieve such statistics of member count, which makes it look like there is more members accounts, then there actual activeness within a forum. Those particular forums, would usually dis-interest me, unless I was intriqued by the subject of what that forum portrayed

[Drewz]

Post count definantly. I have only 51 members on my wrestling board, and only around 7 or so post regularly. 15 or so post here and there. As admin I've made certainly the most posts on the forum (almost to a fualt) and I have in the past deleted old accounts. Although I don't do that anymore.

[Raven]

I would rather have 15 active members than 100 inactive members.
Both are accumalated to some extent, but activeness wins over how many members there are. Because it's just like a member never joined if they never even post.
Activeness is more important, meaning the board's post count is more important than the member count.

[myke]

Nice topic Enchant.

I have to agree with just about everyone so far, a member count means absolutely nothing to me on a forum. Wolf said it best in his post, what does 150 members mean if they are not active? For that matter what is so impressive about having 1,000 members that a lot of people seem to be so impressed with? I think a high member count vs low activity or vs low post count means that a lot of people were interested enough to join, but didn't like what they saw once they got there, which may deter others from joining. Of course that isn't always the case, but it's how it can look.

As for post counts, they really don't mean much either, at least to me. Obviously you want to have more then 5 posts on your forum, as 5 posts isn't an active board, nor does it tell others it's an active place, but as was said above, quality over quantity. I'd rather have a forum with 200 posts of interesting conversation then I would 5,000 posts of mindless dribble and spam.

So overall I do not think the stats of a forum matter as much as the activeness and quality of the content.

[Slacker]

There isn't much point to a forum if the content isn't there. Topics and posts are what keeps those members, no matter how big or small the number is, coming back to the forum making it worthwhile. The more and better the posts the more your forum will grow. As your forum grows it will become more noticable, members will spread the word and more members will join. The more members, the more posts (hopefuly). In essence without one the other doesn't grow. A new forum should focus on post count first and then member count.

[Stinky666]

I personally prefer post count as a whole forum/community rather than member count. I used to prefer member count, cos i used to think if people saw i had lots of members then they would automatically assume the forum is good, because i have lots of members.
However, this was totally wrong.

So now, i go for post count, and to be honest, i dont delete inactive members, i did use to, but then, if i see a forum with say 150members and 10,000 posts, i consider that pretty active, so, i would join that forum, if it had interesting boards of course.
I also personally look for how active the individual boards are that i prefer posting in (I.E. Design). Now, if most other boards are really active, but the one(s) i prefer arent, i dont join, because i wouldnt be able to have discussions with anyone..

However, on my forum, i keep each board active, so this doesnt happen to people looking at my forum as a guest, and thinking the same as what i would.

I also have all boards set to guest viewing, cos otherwise this turns members away.

Anyway, back on subject lol.. Member count does matter because people do look at both the member count and post count. Member count mainly only matters though if you have enough posts to sort of equal it (example: 150members, 10,000posts).. Now something like 1,000 members and 10,000posts is just ridiculous, and i simply wouldn join a forum like that, and i wouldnt expect others to join my forum if it was like that..

Making a proboards is serious, people just think members automatically come to your forum,a dn dont realise you have to work hard on many things, such as the design, advertising, making new posts in all boards. (ok ive basically gone off topic again, sorry *slaps wrist*)

[GEO]

I like small communities. I like keeping my board as a smallish community. We believe in Q.O.Q which stands for Quality Over Quanity. I rarely look at posts counts of any forum. I look at quality of posts. Most importantly, if there is a sports board, and 5,000 of the 20,000 posts are coming in general boards, a graphic board, and a games board, then I'll pass on it.

[Anselm]

Member count means nothing. If someone sees 1000 members and 10 posts, they won't want to join, because clearly the members didn't like it.

Post count is more important. Higher post count = more active forum.

Member counts, just don't care about them. Delete members with 0 posts and there you have it.

[mrsyukisohma]

The point of making message boards are to have a friendly community and be in contact with others from all over, normally with those who have similar (or even opposite) passion's as you do.

Obviously because there are other threads in "Discuss Your ProBoards" there are other ingredients needed for a message board. Aside from that, as others have said, the content on the forum is most important. If the forum looks abandoned aside from the small member count, then no one will want to join it. If the staff members are giving fresh content that I can relate to, that's interesting, and different then others will want to join.

Some don't mind small communities, others don't like them. Well, to the others that don't like them, I'd encourage them not to shun them so quickly? Why? Even communities that have had large member count such as ProBoards once started out with only one or two members, right? Another is it makes the atmosphere on the forum more personal and easier to make friends with others because there aren't so many. It's easy to get lost on forums if there are too many posts or you have a large member count.

I've met admins who have been concerned about their member count. I don't join boards that's like that. I join message boards to make friends with friendly people. Most admins who are like that become unfriendly because if they don't have the member count they want, they get frustrated, and become rude. If you're starting out a board, don't worry about the post count. It's annoying when admins beg members to join or do it in a certain way to get members. Even though you might have a big member count, you can still lose members by doing that if they notice.

[sumsumbubblegum]

conqueringwolf said:

Personallly I would rather have a core of say 30 members who were really active and stopped by daily and did lots of discussion rather than 150 members who only cam by once a month and made one post. To me the reason to create a forum is to have good discussion and a good community, not to accumulate people who never do anything.

I agree because if you think about it really you would have a better chance of the post count going up with a strong solid committed group of members who post everyday then a whole bunch of members with a combination of status and such.

[Riko]

Personally I think post count is what its about. I know a forum that has 55 members, supposedly, even though its a couple people registering different accounts for different characters, but then they have very little posts.

I KNOW they can only sign into 1/3 of their accounts at one time, so you don't have alot of really active members, but then again not alot of posts.

Also, about half the members have joined, posted a couple of times, then forgotten! The url is just sitting in their favorites and they've completely forgotten they registered.

SO member count wouldn't say anything about the forum. I mean, staff members could've just begged friends to join to increase that count.

POST count however, shows that the people in it, are active, or at least the active members are active .