AllanJ said:
I would be interested to know what are your views Marc about how the substance, style or trends in threads and posts has changed since the beginning. How would you characterize today's participation in comparison to the originals?
And, is the pace of posting increasing, rate of membership growth increasing, the geographic particpation cahnging/ expanding and would you like to bet on when we will see the 1,000,000 post?
Well, things keep changing. There are a number of threads in which the history of the site is discussed. If you want to see the changes in threads, questions asked and such you can go back to the ***DEAD LINK REMOVED*** Original 'forum'(the ***DEAD LINK REMOVED*** first serious post. I still have {I lost a few months worth or more during one of the server moves} was Posted by Bill Smith on Sunday, 14 September 1997, at 12:06 p.m.) and follow through to the early posts in this current forum software. Wes has stated some of the things he has seen in the last few years and I agree with what he says.
You can also see the changes to the site, but not the forums, searching for
QS9000.com,
16949.com and
Elsmar.com at The Wayback Machine (it runs about a year behind).
But - I say things keep changing - Things were pretty hot for about a year but Google did change their algorithm for their search ranking in March and the site is now classified as a 'blog' (as are most forums now) and has dropped very low in rankings for most of the site 'key words'. Traffic is somewhat down and new users are somewhat down. I'm estimating a 15% to 20% drop in visitors since the algorithm change.
I don't have any good numbers from the forum from years ago. I did have a 'stats' 'hack' for the forum specifically but it had a lot of problems getting the right numbers and people were complaining that the 'new posts since last visit' wasn't working. There were a few other issues but the bottom line is I took it off because of the problems.
I do have numbers going back quite a few years for the site as a whole but I'd have to dig through CDs to find them. Actually, for a number of years I discouraged new visitors because of bandwidth issues and maintenance. The site kept costing more and more to keep up not only in time but in money. Very few people donate and Google was for the most part the 'savior' because their ads started paying the bills, so to speak. Those went online on 22 December 2003. Bear in mind this site was set up as an open information site originally and was sorta like a 'blog' of that time. It was small and something to do.
But even Google ads are going way, way down. Since January 2005, the 'price' I get for a click-through from Google ads has dropped over 60%. If the decrease continues, I'll pretty much be back where I was - Not making enough money to make it worth my time to keep things up unless I can come up with an improved advertisement scheme. Years ago I could keep everything online for about US$50 a month and my time was minimal, not to mention back then I was traveling a lot and did most of the stuff in hotels in the evenings. But now I'm on a dedicated server, have to have a 'specialist' maintain the server and other things, so costs have risen dramatically as has the time I have to put in to keep everything going, to do backups and all those 'other things' involved in keeping a server and site online.
That said I'm not going to speculate on the future too much. I have considered selling the site but everyone who is interested is really more interested in the domain name and such and want to pump it up with 'serious' advertising {even, potentially, popup's} - And they all want me to 'stay on' to help with control and other issues (for a fee). If I would sell it I don't want to stay on and I would hate to sell it because I'm afraid my 'legacy' would end up as an advertising haven. So - I'm looking for a 'Vision' on where to go from here.
I recently asked the moderators what their 'vision' for the site and forums is. Govind, notably, came up with some good thoughts and possibiities, as did a few others. The topic is sorta frozen right now - but that is because I have to get back and review it and make some comments. I may talk to the moderators and move the thread to a public forum.
As for 'absolute' numbers - Attached are SITE stats for 2004 and 2005. Note that the stats for 2004 was a previous version of AWStats which didn't break out bots (such as Google, Yahoo and other search engine spiders). The 2005 version does separate these. There is a definite increase in traffic and this has pretty much been the case since January 1996 when the site went 'live'.
As to predicting when (if) the forum will contain 1,000,000 posts - Well, I won't guess. Thats one heck of a lot of posts.
The positive side is we have a good moderator crew and there appears to be an increase in 'legitimacy' of the site and forums. The moderators are a great group and they make this possible. I surely could not do it alone as I did years ago, so much depends upon the moderator pool - People who are willing to spend time answering questions for people for free (i.e. donating their time and knowledge). That said, in large part the future of the site is highly dependent upon having a good moderator pool. But - In addition, I believe the future will depend upon how many 'known' people visit and contribute (e.g.: The 'Reading Room' forum). I tried to press this legitimacy by paying for a 'best article of the month' for about a year, but it ended up with only a couple of people submitting in a given month.
Well, I've said enough for now. I have to get out of here soon to buy a computer for my lady friend's son (grad school - mathematics - present).
What is the future of the Cove? You tell me. What is YOUR 'Vision'?
But - Wait a day and I'll ask the modrators if they mind if I move the 'Vision' thread here. If they don't mind I'll move it and we can discuss in that thread.