# The Economics of Trolling, the SDMB, and Moderator Decisions.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-economics-of-trolling-the-sdmb-and-moderator-decisions/843474>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [November 15, 2019, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-economics-of-trolling-the-sdmb-and-moderator-decisions/843474 "2019-11-15T03:57:02Z")\
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**Showing post:** 142

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**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\
**Post date:** [November 15, 2019, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-economics-of-trolling-the-sdmb-and-moderator-decisions/843474/142 "2019-11-15T23:59:03Z")

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> [@JohnT](#):
>
> The SDMB is not a public forum. It’s a business with P&L requirements.

I mean public forum as in, a space that people meet to talk about. Not necessarily a government-designated forum where rules are subject to strict constitutional limitations. Nevertheless I think the rules here should turn on _content_, not _viewpoint_, which is in line with the Constitutional public forums.

Anyways, you and I can agree to disagree about this. I’m curious as to how much it costs to run the board though, I’m sure the vBulletin license is long since paid for and some 33 million text-only posts would definitely fit on a mid-range dedi, and you can get those for under $2k/mo.

But I’m thinking a major source of funding comes from advertising on the archives, which is quite popular as far as websites go (that’s how I found this place!). It’s not reddit but it’s probably in the top 1% of websites by traffic.

> [@JohnT](#):
>
> Edit: the 11k figure is there, as cited. Please review.

Hmm, it seems that you are right. I was going by the thread:

> [@The elephant in the room. 4063 active members.](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-elephant-in-the-room-4063-active-members/788139/15):
>
> > [@The elephant in the room. 4063 active members.](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-elephant-in-the-room-4063-active-members/788139/10):
> >
> > Just an observation, but here are some very random statistics.  
> > I used Wayback to check “active members” on the SDMB main page. I don’t think that the “active members” feature of vBulletin has always been enabled, so the first number I can find is from…
> > 
> > 5/23/2011 11,167 active members
> > 
> > 9/1/2013, 6289  
> > 9/28/2015, 5410  
> > 2/20/2017, 4489  
> > 6/4/2017, 4063
> 
> Thanks. I used our search for active members and came up with
> 
> 2016 5-19 5,051  
> 2012-10/22 6,864  
> 5/23/2011 8.307  
> 2010 5,836  
> 2002 3,500(logged in in 30 days, not 60 days)

> [@The elephant in the room. 4063 active members.](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-elephant-in-the-room-4063-active-members/788139/16):
>
> Looks like my 2011 number was inaccurate.
> 
> […]

But the Wayback machine itself says the number for 5/23/11 is 11,167.

~Max

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