***6,000,000th Post Contest***

[dodge man]

You won riches beyond belief, congrats!

 

[The Deerslayer]

July.

The 7th actually.

7/7/27 @ 7:27am will be the 7 millionth...lol

May The Force Be With You........

 

[NoTrespassing]

Hopefully it will actually happen sooner than that. Just with everything, this forum has had ups and downs.

October 2006 was 1M
6/10/2010 was 2M posts
So 3y9m for 1-2M

9/27/2012 was 3M
So 2y3M for 2-3M

4M came in 1/31/2015
So 2y4m for 3-4m

5M came in 3/23/2018
So 3y2m for 4-5M

BUT.....to get to 6 million we just hit that 12/25/22
So it took 4y9m to get this last million. Seems we have slowed down ALOT

If we get back to posting like we were a decade ago, from 2010-2015.....we'd be looking at 7m by early 2025

Might have slowed down a little when politics when away, it was pretty active. Muhamed would know.

 

[LD1]

Might have slowed down a little when politics when away, it was pretty active. Muhamed would know.

That and a rash of double posts that plagued the forum there for awhile. I dont know if all those ended up removed of if those did have an effect in the final tally

 

[Muhammad]

Hopefully it will actually happen sooner than that. Just with everything, this forum has had ups and downs.

October 2006 was 1M
6/10/2010 was 2M posts
So 3y9m for 1-2M

9/27/2012 was 3M
So 2y3M for 2-3M

4M came in 1/31/2015
So 2y4m for 3-4m

5M came in 3/23/2018
So 3y2m for 4-5M

BUT.....to get to 6 million we just hit that 12/25/22
So it took 4y9m to get this last million. Seems we have slowed down ALOT

If we get back to posting like we were a decade ago, from 2010-2015.....we'd be looking at 7m by early 2025

When we upgraded our forum software, post volume went down 30% overnight. I guess some members couldn't adjust. Actually every forum software change has resulted in a drop.

 

[Muhammad]

These are the numbers since our current forum software switch almost two years ago. Posts are pretty flat, new threads down, user registrations up...

At peak, I think in 2015, we had a couple months where we topped 50k posts vs about 25k per month average right now.

Keep in mind that a LOT of our users have "aged out" of forum participation. We have certainly lost some to boredom with posting, etc.

But....... I keep track of activity numbers on other tractor forums and we have had the highest posts per day and members joining for the past 12 years (and there was only a short period in 2010 when we briefly dropped to #2 in posts per day only). Other forums have seen drops way bigger than ours. My point in mentioning that is, forums overall have seen a decline over the past 10 years.

 

[Jstpssng]

View attachment 781120
View attachment 781121


These are the numbers since our current forum software switch almost two years ago. Posts are pretty flat, new threads down, user registrations up...

At peak, I think in 2015, we had a couple months where we topped 50k posts vs about 25k per month average right now.

Keep in mind that a LOT of our users have "aged out" of forum participation. We have certainly lost some to boredom with posting, etc.

But....... I keep track of activity numbers on other tractor forums and we have had the highest posts per day and members joining for the past 12 years (and there was only a short period in 2010 when we briefly dropped to #2 in posts per day only). Other forums have seen drops way bigger than ours. My point in mentioning that is, forums overall have seen a decline over the past 10 years.

I believe that one reason for the drop with the new format is that people are using the "like" icon whereas before, they were actually thinking when they told somebody that the post was appreciated. I'm not sure how much of a difference that actually is.

 

[Muhammad]

I believe that one reason for the drop with the new format is that people are using the "like" icon whereas before, they were actually thinking when they told somebody that the post was appreciated. I'm not sure how much of a difference that actually is.

Certainly could be part of it.

Post reactions have been steadily climbing over the past two years since we added them.

 

[Wagtail]

I believe that one reason for the drop with the new format is that people are using the "like" icon whereas before, they were actually thinking when they told somebody that the post was appreciated. I'm not sure how much of a difference that actually is.

I wholeheartedly agree. The 'like/Good Post' is very convenient.

 

[LD1]

@Muhammad

Thanks for those statistics.

I agree that post reactions could have alot......

IF we are averaging ~800 posts a day, and likes are over 1000.....certainly not hard to think that 20% or even more of those "post likes" have taken over people posting that they agree with someone.

And I think forums are going to continue to decline as things age and evolve.
How many people under 25 even know what a forum is? Too much Facebook, twitter, tickock, etc.

There will always be a need for the good content and information sharing that goes on here though.

 

[Muhammad]

@Muhammad

Thanks for those statistics.

I agree that post reactions could have alot......

IF we are averaging ~800 posts a day, and likes are over 1000.....certainly not hard to think that 20% or even more of those "post likes" have taken over people posting that they agree with someone.

And I think forums are going to continue to decline as things age and evolve.
How many people under 25 even know what a forum is? Too much Facebook, twitter, tickock, etc.

There will always be a need for the good content and information sharing that goes on here though.

Maybe as young people mature into functioning adults, they will seek out the more technical information found on forums.

My biggest concern is with what I call fluff content. That could be blogs, sites, or YouTube channels just filled with nonsense designed to get views to make money. When you need to go in depth on a specific issue, where are you going to ask that question?

Most of the good forums I was a member of over the past 20 years got sold off and changed significantly and most of the members left. Or just new forums popped up and diluted the audiences to the point that the key element of critical mass was no longer there to provide consistent quality of replies. We're lucky to still have a great active user base here. Obviously it would be even better if every member still signed in every day and contributed as much today as they did at their peak level of activity, but then they probably wouldn't have much time to use their equipment.

 

[dfkrug]

My biggest concern is with what I call fluff content. That could be blogs, sites, or YouTube channels just filled with nonsense designed to get views to make money. When you need to go in depth on a specific issue, where are you going to ask that question?

Yeah, we have all seen the decline and eventual demise of forums that went in-depth and got very technical on almost any subject. Some of us used to go to "newsgroups" and other pre-Web forums, too.

Utube is a great, but very limited resource. Not anything like a forum that allows, and preserves, in-depth content, with useful back-and-forth discussions that include photos.
Case in point: there has been an explosion of Chinese mini-excavator imports into US, Europe, Oz, Canada, etc. Lots of Utube postings now, but very little technical info or repairs/modifications. Thru comments, I have tried to steer interested parties towards TBN for that. But 90% of comments are fluff as well.

 

[two_bit_score]

There will always be a need for the good content and information sharing that goes on here though.

I hope so. It’s a good place to gain knowledge.

 

[dstig1]

Thanks for the stats. Very interesting. Do you think the drop in posting with the upgrade was real or some artifact of how things were tallied before and after the change?

I think most people have seen the general decline in activity on forums over the past 10 yrs as you have noted. But they are still pretty much the best resource out there for serious technical questions. If I get a new car or piece of equipment or start delving into some new technical area I typically make my first search out to be "<topic> forum" to find forums on the specific area as those are usually the best resources. Who knows if that will maintain, given the demographics changes to "all those durn kids and their InstaTiks" but hopefully there will still be a critical mass to keep these things going as they are such a valuable resource.

 

[Yander]

FB groups probably are cutting into some forums numbers. I was on a backyard chicken FB group for about a month. But I like the anonymity that a group like this offers. I don't want someone who uses a web crawler to dredge up every comment I ever made in any forum or FB Group.

People don't think about that but that data is not going anywhere once you put it out there.

 

[Jstpssng]

FB groups probably are cutting into some forums numbers. I was on a backyard chicken FB group for about a month. But I like the anonymity that a group like this offers. I don't want someone who uses a web crawler to dredge up every comment I ever made in any forum or FB Group.

People don't think about that but that data is not going anywhere once you put it out there.

Tracking was the biggest but just one of several reasons I haven't been there and won't go back. Plus a lot of keyboard warriors are completely different than when you are talking in person, I just got tired of it.

I had to wonder about people though. One relative used to post pics of her husband's JD tractor, his sawmill, their house, their snowsleds and ATVs... then you would see a post "*.* is at Getty's"

To me it was just like placing a classified telling what you had... then announcing to every thief that you were out of town.

 

[bmaverick]

FB groups probably are cutting into some forums numbers. I was on a backyard chicken FB group for about a month. But I like the anonymity that a group like this offers. I don't want someone who uses a web crawler to dredge up every comment I ever made in any forum or FB Group.

People don't think about that but that data is not going anywhere once you put it out there.

FB is like a scrolling stream for a group posting. If you ever need to scroll backwards its very painful at best. And FB will in fact glitch in the process causing more headaches finding stuff posted months or a year back.

I myself prefer forums, GroupsIO listserv (old Yahoo and GeoCities) and reddit.
No pain in finding anything or anyone.

 

[bmaverick]

@Muhammad

Thanks for those statistics.

I agree that post reactions could have alot......

IF we are averaging ~800 posts a day, and likes are over 1000.....certainly not hard to think that 20% or even more of those "post likes" have taken over people posting that they agree with someone.

And I think forums are going to continue to decline as things age and evolve.
How many people under 25 even know what a forum is? Too much Facebook, twitter, tickock, etc.

There will always be a need for the good content and information sharing that goes on here though.

I too will also hit the LIKE on some older postings. Just maybe TBN will send out a notice to some person who needs to come back and participate again. This helps to bring back members activity too.