I knew this board would come through. Conservatively, I’d say 2,500 will come within seven days. By April 21st, 3,000 is very much within range, and I wouldn’t say 3,500 is unachievable.
I am really curious to see what kind of response comes though when it gets down to T-Minus 3 days or so. Being over 2,200 right now presumably makes the future of this board look a lot brighter to those who are waiting-and-seeing.
Just for fun, I plotted Ed’s current data on a log-log plot. The data are actually very linear, with the best-fit line having R[sup]2[/sup] = 0.9993. Extrapolating this line out to 30 days, I get 3549.5 charter members. Of course, human nature is unlikely to follow a trend line, but it looks pretty good so far.
You have to allow for the natural S-shape that these things tend to achieve.
Using an inverse power model, the results are tending to about 2,800 I’d say. Or by a Weibull model, about 2,900. But that doesn’t account for a last minute surge.
Of 3,800 active members, that would be a 74% coversion rate, which is superb, but I would think that there is included in this a significant proportion of newbies being swept along in the euphoria, who wouldn’t ordinarily be counted in the active membership.
pan
If you’re wondering why kabbes is using an active Doper count of 3800 rather than Ed’s 30-day Doper count of 7000, read this thread which examines the question of how many regular posters are there?
The low-post count subscribers are the X-factor here. That includes both relative newbies and long-time lurkers who have less than about 100 posts or so. These folks could push the final numbers way up.
Look around on the forums at random threads … I have been presently surprised at how many Charter Members have low post counts. Those are the folks that will get this board above 3,000 subscribers.
Since you get a year from the date you pay, the craftiest folks will sign up on the very last day they are still guests with posting privilege.
It doesn’t matter - Ed’s already said that they are going to change the expiration date for those who signed up early to April 2005… so in essence the craftiest folks would have signed up on the first day to get that extra month complete with search function 
Berkut, how can you see the number of members?
bordelond: here’s one way
Yup… I’m one of 'em. I’ve fallen on and off this horse for many months at a time (new child, Y2K, etc), but I can’t see not forking over 5 bux to keep my posting options open.
BTW, at $4.95 each, 3000 subscribers generate $15k in a year. That hardly would pay for a file server large enough to service this board, let alone pay moderators, etc… this thing is still being pretty heavily subsidized.
I don’t think the mods get paid.
But next year if that 3,000 or so pay $7.95, wouldn’t it be closer to the ~$20,000 that the board costs each year? (3,000 members at 7 bucks a pop would be $21,000, yes? And the members that are lost can be partially covered by the “extra” 95 cents.)
Thanks, rowrrbazzle – that worked perfectly.
As of 3/31 1200 CST, we’ve got 2,353 Charter Members / SDAB signed up. I did not include mods or admins.
So 148 people have signed up in the last 48 hours. I was thinking 2,500 by Monday, April 5th … but the SDMB might do a little better than that.
3,000 or bust!
As of 4/1 1430 CST, we’ve got 2,430 Charter Members/SDSAB signed up. Mods and admins excluded.
Looking good!
As at 01:46 on 2004-03-30, I predicted around 2,800 subscribers. I’m seeing no reason to change that prediction quite yet.
pan
I am willing to bet money that you could run this board for 15,000 a year - especially if you outsource it.
Think about it! $1250 a month.
Lets hop on over to www.webhostingtalk.com for a quick second to get some actual numbers. A quick look at the Offers section shows us this thread. (I randomly selected it, IRL it would take longer to verify credibility.)
In it we are offered: "FULLY Managed Windows and Linux Servers with FREE SETUP! " with:
all for only 149$ a month with free setup.
How many servers and how much bandwidth we gonna need? I think the 500GB of bandwidth is fine, but we could tack on a few more servers for load handling. Let’s say 4. As you can tell we are still way under that 1250 a month.
2,500 subscribers as of 11:30 p.m. Fri., 4/2. Contentment has been achieved, the upper levels of happiness are within reach, and delirium, while a long shot, is not entirely out of the question.
I’d reallllly recommend you contact your doctor if delirium develops, Ed.
So, Ed, you’re saying that we proved something to the Suits? Like, maybe, this MB is worth saving?
Awww…
I feel like I’m in the Happy Ending of one of those “Young Whippersnapper And Old Codger Put Aside Their Differences And Save The Family Farm From Evil Corporate Lawyers” movies…
[cue the tousel-haired moppets]