We currently have 35,000+ members, but I wonder how true that number is. Does the member count include banned posters? How about those posters that posted once two years ago and haven’t been back?
Is there a way to more accurately count the number of “current” members? Can we remove banned posters from the count, and those who haven’t posted within a specified period of time?
Jerry probably could if he felt like slapping up a quick PHP script to query the database with the more restricted criteria. But I bet he won’t.
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Yes
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Yes.
Well, first you’d have to figure out the exact criteria you want to use. That’s the easy part. The hard part would be convincing TubaDiva and the rest of the admins that there is some real benefit to this. Considering that we use the boards for free (thank you Chicago Reader!), there really isn’t any reason for us to have them do any extra work that isn’t really necessary.
Zev Steinhardt
Well, we are fighting ignorance here. I thought an accurate representation of the members would be an acceptable undertaking.
I just know the count is wrong, and it bugs me. Ah well…I must learn to live with disappointment.
That would be a neart script mod, though. Have the main page give total registered users and total active posters. Course the hamsters would hate the extra work. I might do that for this small forum I put up for someone, though.
The numbers are not as important as the content.
That’s been our attitude since the first day we opened the doors here and has not changed.
We do recognize there are those among us that derive a lot of contentment and true satisfaction from counts and totals, and god love you if you’re one of those folks, but our main focus is on delivering the best and most we can.
That has meant that we have disabled most of the counters and not really tried to get exact totals on things. It’s just too much work for the server; we’d rather have it delivering pages, which is something that takes every ounce of computing power we can generate as is. A lot of the little fripperies have been dispensed with like this, it’s the greatest good for the greater number.
I’m sorry if this disappoints you. I’d rather you be upset over this than be aggravated because the board is slow or not coming up for you at all. That happens enough as it is.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Who hopes you can see the bigger picture and the value therein.
Some time ago (a year or two?) an estimate was made based on a sample of posters. IIRC, the estimate was that there might be 2,000 posters that had posted in the past month. Best guess is that there are a few thousand posters who might be considered to be “active” at any one time.
There was a very short window period sometime last year or maybe earlier when the “Members currently logged in” and I think one or two more stats were displayed on the board’s main page. I think that feature was enabled just for testing… the option was turned off shortly after it was introduced and has been off ever since, and as Tuba has informed us, shall remain off.
Thanks, Tuba, for explaining it. If it takes that much hamster power to cull the number of registered users, then forget it. I’ll take a zippy fast board over that any day of the week.
Have I told you lately you guys do a phenomenal job? Thanks!