Forums Statistics - Including Monthy Visits - January through June 2004

[Marc]

Just an FYI:

Month	Unique visitors	Number of visits	Pages	Hits	Bandwidth
Jan 2004	30810		51097		776323	3667054	31.41 GB
Feb 2004	32913		53675		626300	3618109	30.90 GB
Mar 2004	35987		60541		815683	4373085	43.32 GB
Apr 2004	35786		59992		677354	4003336	37.50 GB
May 2004	38677		64865		1022230	4606794	44.73 GB
Jun 2004	41779		71306		824782	4728310	43.32 GB

[Wes Bucey]

WOW!
You are getting a lot of traffic!
Post a copy of this over at ASQ so those poor insulated souls can see what a first rate discussion forum can do.

[Govind]

Overall the growth seem impressive. No wonder this forum is attracting new folks everyday!

My thoughts are:
May be a definition to those headers would help.
Month and Unique visitors are obvious.
Number of visits: By both unique and regular visitors?
Rest like: Pages, Hits, bandwidth could be defined to add clarity.

I think there should also be other queries that can be extracted from the forum database like:
-To measure the success as a Quality forum.

Number of new threads posted in a month? (Exclude the odds and ends)*
Numbers of reply posting in a month (Exclude odds and ends)*

Govind.

* I respect odds and ends topics, occasionally I have contributed to this topic,but just currently excluding to measure only the Quality topic related discussions.
Coffee break views typically seem to far surpass the subject views(?)

[Marc]

The data is all visitors to the site combined.

Unique Visitors are visits from unique IPs or resolved hosts.
Number of Visitors is all visitors, including 'returning' visitors.
Pages are just that - individual pages.
Hits are calls of which there may be many on a page (such as for graphics) so it's a somewhat useless number for my purposes.
Bandwidth is the amount of actual data - including files like attachments - which was sent out.

The data is 'relative. That is, it's from a stats program on the server which is a 'freebie'. I haven't really dug into its analysis routine. A few numbers I see are questionable.

I am looking at a statistics add-on for vBulletin which will address only forum statistics.

[Marc]

In Reply to Parent Post by Wes Bucey

Post a copy of this over at ASQ so those poor insulated souls can see what a first rate discussion forum can do.

I'd bet the ASQ gets one heck of a lot more traffic - site wise - than I do.

[Wes Bucey]

In Reply to Parent Post by Marc

I'd bet the ASQ gets one heck of a lot more traffic - site wise - than I do.

The entire site - maybe.
The forums - no way!
ASQ has members who need to get certified or maintain certification.
It is a premier publisher of books on quality.
It has Standards for sale.
It owns a big building in Milwaukee and offers training courses.
All of that and more, but its discussion forums are a pitiful thing. Their very exclusivity and insularity prevent them from being a worthwhile destination for current ASQ members and outsiders can't get in to make a value judgement.

Instead of comparing apples to garbage trucks, compare
apples to apples;
discussion forums to discussion forums.

Up until the most recent change to Jive! software, ASQ had been cluttering 50% of each page of its forums with ads and links to other pages and features within the website. By comparison, your Google ads are relatively unobtrusive. The bulk of your links are related to features within the forums -ASQ has poor links even now with the Jive! softare.

[Bill Pflanz]

In Reply to Parent Post by Wes Bucey

All of that and more, but its [ASQ] discussion forums are a pitiful thing. Their very exclusivity and insularity prevent them from being a worthwhile destination for current ASQ members and outsiders can't get in to make a value judgement.

Wes,

I will ask the same question here that I asked at the "other" board, does it still hurt? Here you can actually see a picture of what you are doing .

This forum has real questions and discussions on quality and not just comments on how the discussion board works (or more accurately not work).

Got to give you credit. You are a persistent individual.

Bill

[Wes Bucey]

In Reply to Parent Post by Bill Pflanz

Wes,

I will ask the same question here that I asked at the "other" board, does it still hurt? Here you can actually see a picture of what you are doing .

This forum has real questions and discussions on quality and not just comments on how the discussion board works (or more accurately not work).

Got to give you credit. You are a persistent individual.

Bill

The odd part is my Crusade is completely altruistic.

I am all but retired from working a day-to-day job in Quality.
I don't worry about certifications or continuing education credits.

The real burr under my saddle is I don't suffer fools gladly. I don't like being taken for a "chooch!" I don't like seeing scam artists and con artists take advantage of "innocents" and other non-combatants. I feel a little guilty about not taking a more active role in ASQ over the years - perhaps I could have had more opportunity to influence and limit the role the paid staff at ASQ play. (Woulda, oughta, coulda, and shoulda get us all from time to time, don't they?)

I really don't know if I'll pull the pin on ASQ. Deming didn't pay dues! Deming didn't have a "certification!"