Thread: Ratio of members to guests

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Has anyone else noticed or wondered about the big discrepancy between members and guests on this site? I just logged on and there were 13 members and 226 guests.
Another site I frequent had 113 members and 113 guests on my last visit and this seems to be a regular pattern.
Why such a difference? Is it just that many of the "guests" are actually members who haven't signed in or is there some reason so many visitors are not becoming members?
Just curious.


..

I think some folks just don't want to participate, they prefer to "lurk" and I guess that's alright too..
It happens at all the sites I frequent and there are a couple sites I lurk at and just read the posts.

maybe some of the lurkers are robots updating google and other search engines

I believe a large number of guests can and will lead to more new members (if they like what they see). What I find more interesting is seeing a member with a very, very low number of posts made (sometimes 10 or less) yet their Join Date was 5, 6 or 7 years ago.

Mike

I quite often come and have a quick lurk before I sign in..Some of them probably do the same..Some might be lookin through the bars of our zoo,and wonder whether to take the plunge or not,,,like I did before I joined..Checked the place out,to see if it was safe for human inhabitants.. I liked what I saw,so here I am..I cant stand the garbage I've seen on other sites..This is home..

[QUOTE=lamin8r;..Checked the place out,to see if it was safe for human inhabitants.. QUOTE] WOW were INHABITANTS. I know I've been called a lot worse,have a good day Robin

Like Mike says, I think the high count on guests is a good thing. The other day I dropped into another forum that I used to frequent occasionally and found that their latest post was almost two months old, asking what needed to be done to jump start that forum. Their list of "most recent posts" stretched back into 2010! Like Robin says, many drop in, lurk until they have a new project or some specific question. I very rarely go to that "front page" where it shows the numbers (my favorites tag brings me to today's posts) and that ratio did surprise me a bit....

Mostly driven by internet searches, I think Brent has the site optimized for Google hits, or at least just below the paying sites. With over a decade of threads there are a lot of chances for keyword hits. These searchers are often looking for a specific answer or reference of some kind and likely don't have any interest in joining a new/another "social" environ.

Keep pluggin' away and we'll regrow the community. We're in a spot right now where there's a comparatively small number of regular posters who know each other reasonably well which makes for nice, familiar style conversation, but also runs the risk of seeming cliqueish to the newb. If there's some concern about that it would probably be wise for the established to start creating technical style posts (More like the MP&C threads on fab..........though that's a high bar) to add to the mix. That's what a few of us did when the site was launched and it worked pretty well, though admittedly there was less competition then.

Boy first we'er called "Inhabitants" and now we'er suposed to have "Technical" post. What the heck happened to having fun. Love this place

Bob--your comment about starting technical posts---I have been sitting on the thought about starting a series on the maintenance/tooling upkeep on the shop machinery that it takes to do the machining on engines---you know, not stuff you can get from Harbor Freight, but the shop tools/machines--and of course, the constant battle of keeping it working with so much stuff being from companies that have either gone out of business OR MOVED ON to CNC stuff which really takes them out of the picture for small shops(someone who isn't supporting an army of vehicles ala Hendricks, Roush, etc---

We recently had a guy try out with us for a short period of time who couldn't read a conventional mike!!!!and thought 7/16 was bigger than 5/8------

It is unbelievable how hard it is just to go get a few normal bolts these days----

Originally Posted by lamin8r

I quite often come and have a quick lurk before I sign in..Some of them probably do the same..Some might be lookin through the bars of our zoo,and wonder whether to take the plunge or not,,,like I did before I joined..Checked the place out,to see if it was safe for human inhabitants.. I liked what I saw,so here I am..I cant stand the garbage I've seen on other sites..This is home..

Yesterday I couldn't spell inhabitant and now I are one!!!!

"Are One"? shouldn't that be "Is One"?

Originally Posted by 34_40

"Are One"? shouldn't that be "Is One"?

Had to think about that for a bit, couldn't decide if it should be "are one", "is one", or "am one"...

Still not sure!

Originally Posted by lamin8r

I quite often come and have a quick lurk before I sign in..Some of them probably do the same..Some might be lookin through the bars of our zoo,and wonder whether to take the plunge or not,,,like I did before I joined..Checked the place out,to see if it was safe for human inhabitants.. I liked what I saw,so here I am..I cant stand the garbage I've seen on other sites..This is home..

i would like my cage clean out ....i think i did try one or two times to post on some thing.s . it met with dead air . or a pat on the back not realy looking for that ..well not all the time.. but more or less to show how things get done or how i do them . i pass by some post as some do not unstand what i am trying to tell them or they did not want to hear it anways .so its more like a drive by post for me. less Jerry or any one wants to talk machine work .machines or tooling . i think we did that some were and that did not take flight

Speaking as a newbie... there are sites out there that love to chew up and spit out newbies, so we tend to lurk a while before we post or join. And as a site administrator for a jeep site, there are a TON of bots out there getting info for google and other search engines, along with the spambots that try to get in and leave their junk in our sites.. A look at recent error logs may give a better idea of just what is happening.