Active members?

[OutThere]

I know that vBulletin has a feature for reporting the number of "active members" on the site, e.g. members who have logged in to the forums in a given amount of time (configurable as far as I know).

Just purely out of curiosity, why is this feature off, and what percent-active in the last, say, 3 months are we running here at MR? 6 months? Year?

The demographics of this forum fascinate me. :p


Also, it could help to enable the active-user thing on the birthday list, if anything...even limiting the members who show up there to the last two years. There a people who have never posted and never actually logged in since the day they registered 5 years ago who show up on the birthday list...:rolleyes:

[Xeem]

I know that vBulletin has a feature for reporting the number of "active members" on the site, e.g. members who have logged in to the forums in a given amount of time (configurable as far as I know).

Just purely out of curiosity, why is this feature off, and what percent-active in the last, say, 3 months are we running here at MR? 6 months? Year?

The demographics of this forum fascinate me. :p


I'm also very curious to see how many active regular users the forums have. I might be (and probably am) missing something, but it is hard to tell how many members regularly post here underneath the slew of none/one/few-time posters.

[Raid]

Just purely out of curiosity, why is this feature off, and what percent-active in the last, say, 3 months are we running here at MR? 6 months? Year?

The demographics of this forum fascinate me. :p <best PA system voice> Paging Doctor Q, Doctor Q tho the Site and Forum Feedback area. We have a site stats situation </end PA system voice> :)

I don't know if there's going to be a lot of call for this to be an active (i.e. constantly updated) feature here. But I know Dr. Q loves this kind of stuff and with his mighty powers can provide the curious with a snapshot of the active members. It would be interesting to see if there's a seasonal trend, and the spikes during the keynotes and other product announcements.

.... Mind you I think he's done this already... just can't find it anywhere, I must be using the wrong search parameters :o

[Doctor Q]

I haven't looked into tallying active members for some time. I think I once posted a chart of members who had posted in the last x days for various values of x, but certainly nothing lately.

I too am interested in stats like these, but I don't expect to have any time to look into it for at least the next few weeks.

[Grimace]

I think it would be nice to do housecleaning once a year. Maybe delete the usernames of everyone who has not logged in for the past year. That would probably clean out half of the "registered" users.

[MacNut]

I think it would be nice to do housecleaning once a year. Maybe delete the usernames of everyone who has not logged in for the past year. That would probably clean out half of the "registered" users.THis has been brought up before but many active posters might take a year of traveling and might not have time to post, I think if we were gonna have a spring cleaning of sorts it would be non active for 2 years and less then 30 posts.

[Doctor Q]

What would be the purpose of such a cleanup?

[Blue Velvet]

What would be the purpose of such a cleanup?

To initiate a sudden landgrab for all those cool and funky names that were snaffled up when this world was first created? ;)

[mkrishnan]

To initiate a sudden landgrab for all those cool and funky names that were snaffled up when this world was first created? ;)

I can't tell you how many forums I have to register at as Mad Jew 0123534 because Mad Jew is already taken! :mad: :D

[mad jew]

mad ewe... Is that close enough? I agree that we need a cleanout, but I can't see one happening any time soon. There's something impressive about the shear size of our membership directory, but realistically the number is meaningless since so few of them are active.

[Grimace]

What would be the purpose of such a cleanup?
I guess it's my inner tidiness coming out. At what point does one say we need to keep old (inactive) names? If there has been no activity in 5 years? - Sure, no brainer - expunge 'em. 4 years? Yeah, that's a long time too. 3 years? 2 years?

I think knowing the active core group keeps the community a little tighter -- even on a broad scale, like within 2 years of activity. Having hundreds of accounts that were opened for a week or so and never used afterward seems silly. If there were 500,000 inactive members and 4,000 active members -- again, a no-brainer, clean out the half million phantom members. Do you clean up at 100,000 inactive accounts? 1000 inactives? That breaking point is completely up to the Mods/Gods.

For some reason, I take more pride in being listed among the "real" active members than being one active member in a graveyard of inactive accounts. Freeing up the old names is nice too!

[iBlue]

I gotta admit, when I registered I was slightly bothered that the username I wanted (and "deserved" since it actually is my name) was/IS taken by someone who posted once in 2004. I tried several other variations when choosing a username only for them to also be taken by inactive users. Now though I'd feel strange without my username so I should just say "sod it, that's a newbie's problem, not mine." but it is frustrating when signing up. Big deal? No, but it's just one of those things. :o
</nit pick>

That said, the stats would be interesting to see. This is indeed a busy forum.

[Grimace]

81,000 members? :rolleyes:

For example, in the "A" section of members, if you took just those usernames with 0 posts, older than 2 years since joining, you would get 319 potential ghost members - just for the "A" section! That is many, many thousands of dead names if you bring in the rest of the alphabet and the numbered names.

Unless I don't know a trick, I'm not sure there is a way for us regular folk to sort the lists by activity date. The possibility exists that someone has been lurking (but not signed in) for over 2 years, has never posted anything, and might get pissy if his/her username were deleted. I'm usually a nice guy, but realistically, I don't really care about that user. No contribution in 2 years?

If the Mods/Gods can also correlate this to "last activity date" (which by itself is enough for me) -- I say boot em!

[Xeem]

Unless I don't know a trick, I'm not sure there is a way for us regular folk to sort the lists by activity date. The possibility exists that someone has been lurking (but not signed in) for over 2 years, has never posted anything, and might get pissy if his/her username were deleted. I'm usually a nice guy, but realistically, I don't really care about that user. No contribution in 2 years?

If the Mods/Gods can also correlate this to "last activity date" (which by itself is enough for me) -- I say boot em!

And if he (or she) is lurking, they would realize that the names are getting cleaned out and could quickly reregister :).

[Grimace]

or just post once!!

I think some time after MacWorld has passed, we give 30 days notice for all those who are active to at least post once if they are lurking in the shadows -or start a thread for "I'm here, don't want to post, but don't delete me!" :p

30 days notice, then delete all the names with no posts who registered more than a year ago. 2 years ago...whatever the arbitrary number deemed best by the Mods.

(I'd love to see activity data if the mods keep that kind of thing.)

[emw]

Unless I don't know a trick, I'm not sure there is a way for us regular folk to sort the lists by activity date.
Not that I know of either, but there are 11,752 members with 0 posts who joined over 2 years ago and 17,134 who have at least 1 post but who haven't posted in 2 years, but I don't know if they've logged in or not.

Some of those members may be people who registered because they thought they had to, some may have posted somewhere that ended up being deleted or wastelanded, and some may have joined but later decided not to post.

In any case, the idea of cleaning out the membership every so often based on activity seems to be a fairly useless exercise. Sure, there may be user names you'd want to have that are taken by "ghost" members, but generally a suitable alternative can be found - and it might even be better than your original selection.

The only potential advantage may be for the active membership to see how many people are really visiting here regularly. To see membership numbers over 93,000 is pretty cool, but if only 20,000 have visited in the past 6 months, then that's something else entirely.

I guess I'm in favor of seeing the active list, but purging member names wouldn't be on my list of to-dos.

[Aniej]

THis has been brought up before but many active posters might take a year of traveling and might not have time to post, I think if we were gonna have a spring cleaning of sorts it would be non active for 2 years and less then 30 posts.

Why not as a first step do something along these lines, but instead of cleaning these individuals out use the results as a starting point for a discussion for the small group of regulars in here that are interested in this? From there, perhaps address the possibility clearing these names out. Also we could perhaps further distribute the posting number identifies to address a lot of these issues such as to idifferentiate the people who signed up but just read, those who have posted once or twice, five hundred times, etc.

[Grimace]

Not that I know of either, but there are 11,752 members with 0 posts who joined over 2 years ago and 17,134 who have at least 1 post but who haven't posted in 2 years, but I don't know if they've logged in or not.

I guess I'm in favor of seeing the active list, but purging member names wouldn't be on my list of to-dos.

I agree with everything that has been said, it's definitely not something that ever needs to be done, but I raise the issue that maybe it should be done. 17,000 useraccounts that haven't posted anything in 2 years? That's over 20&#37; of our "registered" membership!

Do we wait until it's 40% ghosts? 60% ghosts? It's always going to be a judgment call by the Mods, I just think that showing a more accurate representation of our membership number makes sense.

[Doctor Q]

The problem of reusing member names and the problem of gauging active memberships could be dealt with separately.

The first problem could be addressed by pruning memberships, but it could just as well be handled by "archiving" member names after a certain amount of inactivity. For example, the user named Sam joined when these forums were new, has never posted, and has prevented anyone else from registering as "Sam" ever since. If Sam's username changed to Sam [Archive] then his profile would remain but the name could be reused. Actually, over time, a series of Sam's could time out, so we'd need an archival username pattern, e.g., Sam [Archive 1], Sam [Archive 2], ....

The second problem doesn't require pruning of memberships either. If we had an easy way to see the numbers of members with various levels of activity (based on their most recent post or their most recent visit), perhaps on the main forum page, then it would let people know how large the active community is, no matter how many total memberships there have been. Currently, we get two lines of information:Currently Active Users: 1478 (192 members and 1286 guests)
Threads: 256,977, Posts: 3,136,666, Members: 93,458Perhaps we could have a bit more information, e.g.,Members: 93,458 total, 9,345 active in last 12 months, 934 active in last 30 days
Note that the total number of members who ever registered is still a useful statistic because it is directly comparable to other forum sites. If all forum sites had active member counts based on the same definitions, those stats would be comparable too.

These issues are not unique to MacRumors; every forum system that stays around long enough and gains enough members faces them.

[arn]

For those interested in stats...

Registered users who have visited in the last...

30 days: 12,189 (10,487 with at least one post)
3 months: 20,760 (16,458 with at least one post)
6 months: 30,426 (22,728 with at least one post)
12 months: 43,256 (31,277 with at least one post)

out of a pool of 93,490

arn

[OutThere]

The second problem doesn't require pruning of memberships either. If we had an easy way to see the numbers of members with various levels of activity (based on their most recent post or their most recent visit), perhaps on the main forum page, then it would let people know how large the active community is, no matter how many total memberships there have been. Currently, we get two lines of information:Currently Active Users: 1478 (192 members and 1286 guests)
Threads: 256,977, Posts: 3,136,666, Members: 93,458Perhaps we could have a bit more information, e.g.,Members: 93,458 total, 9,345 active in last 12 months, 934 active in last 30 days
Note that the total number of members who ever registered is still a useful statistic because it is directly comparable to other forum sites. If all forum sites had active member counts based on the same definitions, those stats would be comparable too.

Precisely what I was wondering about in my original post. I don't think that purging old members is really worthwhile, but showing those statistics on the main page, and removing ghost-posters from each day's birthday list would be both cool and very useful information for comparison with other sites.

edit:


For those interested in stats...

Registered users who have visited in the last...

30 days: 12,189 (10,487 with at least one post)
3 months: 20,760 (16,458 with at least one post)
6 months: 30,426 (22,728 with at least one post)
12 months: 43,256 (31,277 with at least one post)

out of a pool of 93,490

arn


awesome. Thanks for the info. 43k showing their faces in the last 12 months is a pretty good show!

[MacNut]

For those interested in stats...

Registered users who have visited in the last...

30 days: 12,189 (10,487 with at least one post)
3 months: 20,760 (16,458 with at least one post)
6 months: 30,426 (22,728 with at least one post)
12 months: 43,256 (31,277 with at least one post)

out of a pool of 93,490

arnIs it possible to see those same numbers with 25 posts in that same period.

[arn]

Is it possible to see those same numbers with 25 posts in that same period.

30 days: 12,189 (4857 with at least 25 posts)
3 months: 20,760 (5954 with at least 25 posts)
6 months: 30,426 (6787 with at least 25 posts)
12 months: 43,256 (7735 with at least 25 posts)

[MacNut]

30 days: 12,189 (4857 with at least 25 posts)
3 months: 20,760 (5954 with at least 25 posts)
6 months: 30,426 (6787 with at least 25 posts)
12 months: 43,256 (7735 with at least 25 posts)those numbers really drop off.

So what is the average active member count in the past year about 15&#37;

[MacNut]

Ok of the 93,490 how many have never posted.

[WildCowboy]

Ok of the 93,490 how many have never posted.

I seem to recall discussing similar statistics just a few weeks ago.

Of the 81049 in the Member List, 56902 have posted at least once.

[arn]

Just for interest.

There are 51 registered users who registered over 2 years ago, have made no posts, but have visited the forums in the last week.

arn

[MacNut]

Interesting, so there are a lot of members that lurk but never post, So a good number of those 0 posters don't just register and run.

[Grimace]

I'd like to thank DoctorQ and Arn for getting us this info so quickly. I don't think any of see ghost accounts as a "problem" with the site; rather, we take pride in being members and want to offer little suggestion tweaks. Thanks for taking care of us. :)

[Grimace]

[QUOTE=Doctor Q;3184199]The problem of reusing member names and the problem of gauging active memberships could be dealt with separately.

The first problem could be addressed by pruning memberships, but it could just as well be handled by "archiving" member names after a certain amount of inactivity. For example, the user named Sam joined when these forums were new, has never posted, and has prevented anyone else from registering as "Sam" ever since. If Sam's username changed to Sam [Archive] then his profile would remain but the name could be reused. Actually, over time, a series of Sam's could time out, so we'd need an archival username pattern, e.g., Sam [Archive 1], Sam [Archive 2], ....

Great idea! This will help a lot of new members get the [formerly used] name they want.

[Xeem]

30 days: 12,189 (4857 with at least 25 posts)
3 months: 20,760 (5954 with at least 25 posts)
6 months: 30,426 (6787 with at least 25 posts)
12 months: 43,256 (7735 with at least 25 posts)

Although the numbers do drop off, I find the fact that nearly five thousand people have been posting here almost daily for the last month pretty impressive.

[MacNut]

It would be interesting to see a break down by 50,100,500,1000 posts over that same period then compare it to the posts during MWSF.

[Grimace]

Registered users who have visited in the last...

30 days: 12,189 (10,487 with at least one post) 86&#37; posted
3 months: 20,760 (16,458 with at least one post) 79% posted
6 months: 30,426 (22,728 with at least one post) 75% posted
12 months: 43,256 (31,277 with at least one post) 72% posted



This is the most important bit of data (so far) to me. If they visit -- do they post? Thanks Arn.

Interesting that of our 81,000 members, only slightly more than half have visited the site in the past year. If possible [Arn!] I would love to see the same stats going back 18, 24, 30, 36 months, and any recent data (2 weeks, 1 week). I can do some regression analyses for you and show a bit about the direction of the macrumors core. </research geekiness>

[jimN]

Surely it is somewhat ironic that the most active members may also number amongst the most sedentary as they clearly spend too much time at their computers being inactive.

I await the "I'm posting from my blackberry whilst at the gym" responses.

[Cassie]

I was seriously surprised my name wasn't taken when I signed up in September. Is my name just unpopular? :confused:

It's true, there are so many "ghost accounts" it's hard to actually count the active users.

Some just have one post because they had just one question. A problem or something, and they had no need to post again.

I say we need to delete accounts if they've been inactive for 2 1/2 years.

[mad jew]

The question on everyone's lips is how many of those active posters were simply lurkers until they found threads like this... :confused:

[Grimace]

Just for interest.

There are 51 registered users who registered over 2 years ago, have made no posts, but have visited the forums in the last week.

arn

Well, there are at least 51 according to Arn. 51 out of probably 15,000 that haven't posted anything since registering a username. I'm hoping Arn can get back to us with some of the data from my post above. that might give a good idea of who is doing what, when.

I suppose it would make the most sense just to start by archiving (a la suggestion from DoctorQ) the old names that haven't posted anything at all since joining, and are over a certain vintage like 2 years. No posts in 2 years -- archive! Give 30 days warning for the lurkers to make a post.

[WildCowboy]

Just wanted to point out this guy (http://forums.macrumors.com/member.php?u=22269). He registered over three years ago, made two posts on that first day, and then nothing until a couple of posts within the last hour.

Very cool... :D

[mkrishnan]

Just wanted to point out this guy (http://forums.macrumors.com/member.php?u=22269). He registered over three years ago, made two posts on that first day, and then nothing until a couple of posts within the last hour.

Very cool... :D

Love it! :) Does he know we're honoring him? Or honouring her, as the case may be? :o Or any other mixture of pronoun and nationality? :D

[IEatApples]

Love it! :) Does he know we're honoring him? Or honouring her, as the case may be? :o Or any other mixture of pronoun and nationality? :D
Someone should let him know. ;) :D

[Dont Hurt Me]

For those interested in stats...

Registered users who have visited in the last...

30 days: 12,189 (10,487 with at least one post)
3 months: 20,760 (16,458 with at least one post)
6 months: 30,426 (22,728 with at least one post)
12 months: 43,256 (31,277 with at least one post)

out of a pool of 93,490

arnIf someone hasnt posted in over a years time dont you think its time to maybe remove them? or perhaps 2 years? It may free up some names for new members.

[redeye be]

Archiving usernames might not be a good idea.
As Arn pointed out some people register without posting, maybe using their account to track new posts or subscribed threads.
Archiving usernames would force these people to start using a different username to log in.

[MatthewCobb]

As an occasional contibutor, I really can't see why there should be a purge. The example of Djinn cited above shows this. Leave the names be - Cassie shows that, if you're lucky, you can have your chosen name (me too), and if you can't, well lah-di-dah. Surely the mods/gods have got better things to do with their time?

BTW I notice that, with one other exception, this entire thread is made up of contributions from the Avatar'd-great-and-the-good. Are the rest of us not interested, or do we merely have better things to do over the festive season?

[dllavaneras]

is there a way to keep track of the last time someone logged in? If someone hasn't done so in over 2-3 years, maybe it's about time... but personally, I don't see the point. So far the only "reason" to purge is to free usernames.

[Cassie]

is there a way to keep track of the last time someone logged in? If someone hasn't done so in over 2-3 years, maybe it's about time... but personally, I don't see the point. So far the only "reason" to purge is to free usernames.

If you view thier profile, it should tell you when thier last activity was.

For example: (Taken off your profile)

[dllavaneras]

So is this "activity" the last time I visited a forum or the last time I logged on to MacRumors? I'll bet there are people who haven't stopped by the forums but still check the site from time to time to stay updated with the latest news (I was one of those)

[Grimace]

So is this "activity" the last time I visited a forum or the last time I logged on to MacRumors? I'll bet there are people who haven't stopped by the forums but still check the site from time to time to stay updated with the latest news (I was one of those)

If I understand the system correctly, if you have it set to "remember" you -- activity will be just stopping by the home page - not only browsing the forums.

[Doctor Q]

I know there are members who joined, subscribed to forums or threads, and still watch their email notifications although they never post.