# How many "real" Dopers are there? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [February 29, 2004, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-real-dopers-are-there/231808 "2004-02-29T23:42:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Master\_Wang-Ka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/master_wang-ka/32/3325_2.png) [@Master\_Wang-Ka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Master_Wang-Ka)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-real-dopers-are-there/231808/21 "2004-03-02T01:51:37Z")
Guess it depends on your definition of “real.” I see names come and go. I see names come, go, and then come back. My own included. I see names come… and never really leave. I am quite real. I am, however, not human. I am, in fact, a web-based artificial intelligence, under testing by the DIA, designed for internet infiltration and database raiding. I just hang out here in my free time. Ghod knows why they gave me a sense of humor. Do I still qualify as “real?” ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-real-dopers-are-there/231808/22 "2004-03-02T02:24:04Z")
That’s a good point, **Ringo.** How the hits are counted is very important. If 13,000 visitors means 13,000 logins, counting repeats, that depends on how often each user logs in. And **doesn’t** count the people who have accounts but merely browse the boards, reading threads, and only log in on the rare occasions when they intend to reply. Additionally, you’ll see threads about say, _The Lord of the Rings_ and everyone will simply wait for Qadgop the Mercotan to show up. They’ll say, “I know the answer but I can’t phrase it well. I don’t have it memorized. But Qadgop will be here in a minute, he’ll give you the answer.” So the people **posting** replies is going to be a much smaller percentage of users than the people who read the threads and know the answers. I see that the OP has been a user since 2000, but I’ve never heard of him before. Doesn’t he think it’s **possible** that there are thousands of others like him who have been registered for years but who never actually **post** anything? Sheesh. I still want to know what the OP is reading and where he gets the idea that there are 450 people taking up 45,000 usernames. ---
**Author:** ![DrDoom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e19b73/32.png) [@DrDoom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDoom)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-real-dopers-are-there/231808/23 "2004-03-02T02:30:33Z")
> [@Ringo](#): > > According to [this site](http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?&range=2y&size=medium&compare_sites=&url=http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/#top), these Boards have had over 13,000 visitors today. > > Now, I don’t know how they count traffic, but if they count individual thread accesses, 450 regular Dopers would have to have opened ~29 threads today. I could probably be considered a somewhat regular visitor, and I sure don’t open that many threads every day. I realize that some portion of the total represents random visitors or irregular visitors. So, I think that just 450 dopers likely do not generate the traffic reported. > > If they’re counting just site access, then the number of people involved every day is _much_ larger than 450. > > A few weeks ago I checked the number of posts in a 24 hour period - on a weekend, IIRC - and it was about 3,080. I open over well over 30 threads for viewing per day while only visiting ever 6 months. This level of views is very easily accomplished by 450 “real” Dopers per day. Just asking SD to display the current number of Dopers logged on to the SDMB’s forums … ---
**Author:** ![John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/2bfe46/32.png) [@John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Carter_of_Mars)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-real-dopers-are-there/231808/24 "2004-03-02T02:39:38Z")
By **Master Wang-Ka** : "Do I still qualify as “real?”’ No, you do not. You have arbitrarily added “Master” to your user name. Therefore, you’re clearly a tool of the evil Bush administration’s conspiracy plans. Just ask several others that are among the unreal here. (Everything, is, after-all, a Bush conspiracy plot.) As to the OP, if there were only 450 actual members here, the boards wouldn’t be so _S-L-O-W_! Also, who cares? It’s not like we’re being billed by the unit for advertising or something. ---
**Author:** ![DrDoom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e19b73/32.png) [@DrDoom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDoom)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-real-dopers-are-there/231808/25 "2004-03-02T03:00:27Z")
> [@Fish](#): > > Doesn’t he think it’s **possible** that there are thousands of others like him who have been registered for years but who never actually **post** anything? Sheesh. > > I still want to know what the OP is reading and where he gets the idea that there are 450 people taking up 45,000 usernames. 1. Cecil’s Teeming Millions is reduced to … 2. ~45,000 members (AOL gets this many “unique” hits on a poll question in less than an hour) 3. less “Members” who have not visited SDMB in over a year … 4. less phantom screen names generating inflated view statistics … thus, equaling those remaining “real” Dopers who spend, maybe, 1 to 2 hours or greater per week, about 450, easily creating 13,000 views/day. Simply put, why does SD show all those inflated “statistics”, and not, the simplist statistic, how many current Dopers are logged in on the SDMD forums? ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-real-dopers-are-there/231808/26 "2004-03-02T03:11:13Z")
Is it 13,000 views? Or 13,000 log-ons? IMHE, we have about 2,000 “active” at any one time, but what “active” might mean is certainly subjective, and I can’t muster anymore solid support for that than anyone else can for any other estimated number. And, there is significant rotation in that population. ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2004, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-real-dopers-are-there/231808/27 "2004-03-02T03:44:02Z")
After poking around on Alexa a little bit, I think I’m unsure of how good their figures are. Any statistics folks care to render an opinion on their [Learn more about Traffic](http://pages.alexa.com/prod_serv/traffic_learn_more.html) page? ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-real-dopers-are-there/231808/28 "2004-03-11T12:56:25Z")
> [@DrDoom](#): > > Simply put, why does SD show all those inflated “statistics”, and not, the simplist statistic, how many current Dopers are logged in on the SDMD forums? Because the board uses vBulletin and those are the statistics that it gives. It can also post “who’s online” in a separate area, which will give a list of how many people are signed on and even list their names, but at the cost of greater burden on the database… which isn’t worth it. ---
**Author:** ![NE\_Texan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e99b99/32.png) [@NE\_Texan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NE_Texan)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2004, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-real-dopers-are-there/231808/29 "2004-03-11T13:40:58Z")
> [@DrDoom](#): > > 1. Cecil’s Teeming Millions is reduced to … > 2. ~45,000 members … This is tangential to your question, but you do realize that the “Teeming Millions” don’t refer (necessarily) to just the people reading the message boards? Cecil’s column has been around a lot longer than this message board – indeed, longer than the web protocol we use to access it. That word was coined to describe his readership in general. And while it’s possible that, when coined, he was being slightly optimistic, I’d certainly say that today, as much as this board gets a lot of readers, it’s still plausible that the readers of his print column plus the readers of his books (of his compiled past columns) could very well be much higher than the number of people reading this board here. As for the statistics printed, you should pay close attention to **Opal** ’s answer. vBulletin keeps a few statistics, some of which can be accessed easily, some of which can’t. Registered members: easy to pull out and display, and does not need to be updated often. Currently logged in and reading – may be available to calculate, but it would take constant database access, eating up some cpu cycles. (It’s worth pointing out what I hope you’ve already noticed - the people taking care of the web server always have to try hard not to enable features that are available in the software but slow down the board too much.) Finding out a number of users active “recently” for some value of “recently” – not a trivial statistic. If you want an easy sign pointing to whether the board has “many” readers or “few”, you don’t have to look any farther than how slow the board gets during peak times. That wouldn’t happen with just a core team of a few dedicated posters. ---
**Author:** ![SwingWing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@SwingWing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SwingWing)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2004, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-real-dopers-are-there/231808/30 "2004-03-20T05:22:57Z")
> [@DrDoom](#): > > How many “real” Dopers are there? Using a very conservative formula [(UD\>=100 hrs/yr) + (UD hrs (less than 100 hrs/yr)/yr)/100 hrs] , where UD is an Unique Doper, i.e. excluding phantom Dopers, just how many Dopers are there in reality? I see the same Dopers responding to the same or similar postings all the time. I know this is a very touchy subject, but is StraightDope just a circle jerk of about 450 Dopers ("~45,000 members")? How many real Dopers do you think there are and what is the basis for your estimate (some sense of humor would be appreciated)? PC - A _Cluster Fest_ approaching … 0 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-real-dopers-are-there/231808.md?page=1)