Yesterday I replied a message on the forum with some Forum stats when Aaron said something like: forum users would get an answer from one of the nearly 4000 users "who donate their time and expertise to helping one another": <http://forums.realsoftware.com/viewtopic.php?p=60372#60372>
I was curious to see how many users the RS Forums had and what they *really* meant in terms of active vs non-active users (considering that active users post regularly). But yesterday I didn't post the whole stats I found on the Forum. I'm posting now the numbers I was able to gather from the Forums because it might be interesting to analyze them (maybe it even helps someone at RS). RS Forums had (on 2007-02-06 06:15 AM GMT) 3704 registered users with the following number of posts and respective percentages: 1161 with 0 posts: 31.34% 508 with 1 post: 13.71% 397 with 2 posts: 10.72% 263 with 3 posts: 7.10% 196 with 4 posts: 5.29% 146 with 5 posts: 3.94% 91 with 6 posts: 2.46% 92 with 7 posts: 2.48% 64 with 8 posts: 1.73% 50 with 9 posts: 1.35% 350 with 10 to 20 posts: 9.45% 193 with 21 to 50 posts: 5.21% 90 with 51 to 100 posts: 2.43% 103 with more than 100 posts: 2.78% ---- 3704 So, there are about: - 2968 users with less than 10 posts (80.13%) - 1161 (31.34%) never posted; - 633 users with 10 to 100 posts (17.09%); - 103 users with more than 100 posts (2.78%). There were also about 59,484 posts (from all categories): - 1161 users (31.34%) never posted; - 1807 users (48.79% with 1 to 9 posts) posted 5,757 msgs (9.68%); - 633 users (17.09% with 10 to 100 posts) posted 17,330 msgs (29.13%); - 103 users (2.78% with more than 100 posts) posted 36,397 msgs (61.19%). --- Considering active users the ones that post regularly, then I think we can conclude that the forums have about 103 active users. And even this number is not completely correct because I belong to this category and I don't consider myself an active user (the last time I posted on the forum, before yesterday on the pool thread, was on January 12). In a reply to a message I sent to RS, it was said: "Two-thirds of our users are on the forum and one-third on the mailing list. Many people post to both. Our goal is to bring them together." I will presume that this statement is correct and RS took the time to analyze how many users are registered on the forums that never posted and that are also registered on the mailing lists... and vice-versa. Anyway, and presuming the "one-third" is correct, it seems the mailing lists represents about 1,852 users (based on the 3704 users registered on the forums). I don't have the numbers from the mailing lists, but from what I observe on a daily basis I suspect there are more active users on the lists than on the forums. And I think the reason is very obvious: registered users get all the email messages posted and have the ability to answer (and store) the ones they want. With the current forum we don't have that possibility even with the RSS feeds (al least my email software does not allow me to do that). --- Note: this post is not to mean that mailing lists are better or worse than forums - I consider that they can coexist and both have great value for the users that use them. There are users that prefer forums and users that prefer mailing lists. I thought this wasn't too difficult to understand... but it seems I was wrong. Carlos P.S. I also use the forums for Windows specific questions and it's also a valuable resource to me - sometimes I also answer questions if I have the time. _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> REAL Software has decided to consolidate this mailing list with the online Forums. On Monday, February 12, 2007, this mailing list will no longer be active. We encourage you to continue your REALbasic and REAL SQL Server discussions on the Forums. If you are not presently a member of the forum, please sign up today at <http://forums.realsoftware.com>.
