Old board activity, community activity and new board stats thread

[DJ Omnimaga]

What I just saw was pretty shocking.

I figured out a way to approximately calculate the activity of a forum that uses Invisionboard. What you have to do is something like this:

Code: [Select]

http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=????????
The ??????s are the post ID you want to show. Basically, this will bring up the topic that contain this post, in a way similar to Ticalc.org comment pages. Then you search the topic until you find that post. Each posts should have a similar ID at the end. So basically I was curious and decided to approximately calculate UTI activity so far this month,  by taking the lastest post ID then substracting the first post of February (GMT-5) I could find. The results were far worse than I expected and were kinda shocking: UTI only got 305 posts this month! From Feb 1st to 20th, this is all they got. This is barely higher than what we got when this new board opened and I wonder if this couldn't be lower than what they got during Winter 2007 and Winter 2008. On top of that, there's a nice Nspire hacking thread there. I was sure they had at least 600 this month so far, but the 131K total barely moving at all brought my attention and now I think I will try doing a graph of the past few months. I am sure it's not just the downtimes they had because they have been back for a while now and even got a lot of new members

First post this month (based approximately on Omnimaga timezone): http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=8191&view=findpost&p=140118
Last post this month at the time of writing this: http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=9246&view=findpost&p=140423

Cemetech has hit 1103 this month so far. They are in the same default timezone as us.

First post of the month: http://cemetech.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=93362#93362
Last post of the month (so far): http://cemetech.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=94465#94465

More from UTI: first posts of every month

Sep 1st 08: http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=126518
Oct 1st 08: http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=127461
Nov 1st 08: http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=128370
Dec 1st 08: http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=129773
Jan 1st 09: http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=130765
Feb 1st 09: http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=131241
Mar 1st 09: http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=131733
Apr 1st 09: http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=132311
May 1st 09: http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=133045
Jun 1st 09: http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=133885
Jul 1st 09: http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=134652
Aug 1st 09: http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=135146
Sep 1st 09: http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=136157
Oct 1st 09: http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=137025
Nov 1st 09: http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=138101
Dec 1st 09: http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=139032
Jan 1st 10: http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=139611
Feb 1st 10: http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=140118

This means UTI monthly post stats since school year 2008 have been:

Sep 08: 943
Oct 08: 909
Nov 08: 1403
Dec 08: 992
Jan 09: 476
Feb 09: 492
Mar 09: 578
Apr 09: 734
May 09: 840
Jun 09: 797
Jul 09: 494
Aug 09: 1011
Sep 09: 868
Oct 09: 1076
Nov 09: 931
Dec 09: 579
Jan 10: 507
Feb 10: 305 (1st through 20th, 5-ish PM)

At first, I was certain UTI was more active than that in late 2008 and most of 2009, especially with the key factoring threads, so when I saw the activity drop from Oct 09 to the months afterward, I told myself either the downtime didn't help (altough I would be surprised considering it has been a long while and the site status indicated it would be back up in a short time), either the lack of project updates on some old projects (such as Robot War and the Pokémon clones) is what drags down activity, either it is turning more into a help forum, like TI-BANK, where people ask questions then leave, either the population is aging (which also means more busy at school and work), either people are busy messing around with the Nspire stuff or either some ppl in particular are scaring members away. But it seems that activity wasn't as high as I thought last year either. In fact, it seems worse during the Winter part. I guess it just looked more active because the discussion was spread among multiple project and help topics, while now it's pretty much centered in the Nspire hacking thread. I am gonna make a graph to compare both Omni and UTI, because I was convinced both were at teh same activity level until Novemeber 2009, I didn't thought activity on UTI was low during Winter 2009 as well. Also, it seems activity slumps on both sites aren't even at the same periods. While UTI gets an activity boost in August and October, on Omnimaga these two months are the most inactive.

[Galandros]

Curious. I don't know what happened to DigiTan in UTI... :S

Have you documented in this thread the Revsoft side forum by Jim e? The most active TI forum ever. xD

[ztrumpet]

Wow.  I never realized UTI was that low, compared to here.  I think Omnimaga is more active because everyone is nice, and then people post their projects here. 

[DJ Omnimaga]

Yeah I hope Digitan didn't give up on Robot War , it would suck

That said it might be people being nice and the projects that are progressing (mostly game-related) that helps on activity. When MaxCoderz had active staff with projects in the works, they had similar activity. Even Revsoft had high activity for a while in 2006.

[DJ Omnimaga]

1st Maxcoderz post by year (since 2005):
2005 http://www.junemann.nl/maxcoderz/viewtopic.php?p=685#p685
2006 http://www.junemann.nl/maxcoderz/viewtopic.php?p=35603#p35603
2007 http://www.junemann.nl/maxcoderz/viewtopic.php?p=55948#p55948
2008 http://www.junemann.nl/maxcoderz/viewtopic.php?p=63063#p63063
2009 http://www.junemann.nl/maxcoderz/viewtopic.php?p=65048#p65048
2010 http://www.junemann.nl/maxcoderz/viewtopic.php?p=66367#p66367

This means the yearly post stats for MaxCoderz would be:

2005 34918
2006 20345
2007 7115
2008 1985
2009 1319
2010 78 (as for Feb 23rd 10)

Note: keep in mind during Summer 2006, an URL change for both the site and forums occured and this change was never announced anywhere else but MC, not even their game readmes. Also, at this time, they ditched their entire front page with all their past history (FFTOM, Desolate, GS package downloads and the like) and never re-added them again afterward, and with the lack of staff renewal afterward (only Quarnos was added to the team and both Ben/tr1p were changed from staff to admin) pretty much doomed them.

Revsoft 1st posts of every year since 05:

2005 http://www.revsoft.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=10#10
2006 http://www.revsoft.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=3528#3528
2007 http://www.revsoft.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=11276#11276
2008 http://www.revsoft.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=15648#15648
2009 http://www.revsoft.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=18244#18244
2010 http://www.revsoft.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=20631#20631

Yearly post stats:

2005 3518
2006 7748
2007 4372
2008 2596
2009 2387
2010 230 (as for Feb 23rd 10)

Yes, I'm not kidding you: for the past 3 years, Revsoft had more activity than MaxCoderz

UTI 1st post every year

2005 http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=45622
2006 http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=65655
2007 http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=93995
2008 http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=117980
2009 http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=130765
2010 http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?act=findpost&hl=&pid=139611

UTI Yearly post stats

2005 20033
2006 28340
2007 23985
2008 12785
2009 8876
2010 838 (as for Feb 23rd 10)

Omnimaga now.

Since I have direct access to stats, no need to show first post of every year, so here are the stats since 2005:

2005 9457 ¹
2006 30132
2007 15898
2008 3783 ²
2009 15004
2010 4706 (as for Feb 23rd 10)

^{1 - Board opened on May 12th 2005
2 - Omni had no forums from March 4th 2008 to August 25th 2008}

EDIT: Cemetech now

2005 http://www.cemetech.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3
2006 http://www.cemetech.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=20022
2007 http://www.cemetech.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=56542
2008 http://www.cemetech.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=71861
2009 http://www.cemetech.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=78535
2010 http://www.cemetech.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=91070

Posts by year for Cemetech since March 16th 2005 (I couldn't access their old Invisionfree board, because Kerm put a redirect on it,and Firefox Redirect Remover fails on it):

2005 20019 ¹
2006 36520
2007 15319 ²
2008 6674
2009 12535
2010 3510 (as for Feb 23rd 2010)

^{1 - Board opened on March 16th 2005. As said above, I couldn't access the Invisionfree one.
2 - Misses about 3000 posts of stats, due to Jatol incident}

EDIT: TIBD (this is an hard one due to lack of post IDs just for TIBD...)
2005 site not yet opened
2006 http://tibasicdev.wikidot.com/forum/t-327/testing-the-forum-and-comments-system#post-592
2007 http://tibasicdev.wikidot.com/forum/t-2453/menu-on-ti-98-titanium#post-7027
2008 http://tibasicdev.wikidot.com/releasing-your-program/comments/show#post-85765
2009 http://tibasicdev.wikidot.com/forum/t-116351/ti-basic-to-operating-system
2010 http://tibasicdev.wikidot.com/forum/t-208069/differentiation

Posts by year for TIBD since 2006 (year the site opened)

2005 site not yet opened
2006 9 (site forum opened on Sept 14th 2006)
2007 423
2008 6193
2009 4577
2010 348 (as for Feb 23rd 2010)

I still remember TIBD forum opening. At first it didn't draw interest, as most people still used UTI and TIFW and TIBD was not very known yet. However by 2008 it got more popular and forum quickly picked up. However, activity had up and downs by the end of 2009.


OTBP:

2005 site not yet opened
2006 site not yet opened
2007 http://otbp.tifreakware.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=2 (forum opened on Jan 17th 2007)
2008 http://otbp.tifreakware.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=2003
2009 http://otbp.tifreakware.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=2136
2010 none so far

By year post stats since 2005

2005 site not yet opened
2006 site not yet opened
2007 2002 (forum opened on Jan 17th 2007)
2008 133
2009 183
2010 0 (as for Feb 23rd 2010)

I think Calc84maniac vanishing completly from the TI community from Oct 07 to Dec 07 killed OTBP.

z80 Revelation, from Archive.org. It only survived 6 months so I took the latest cache from 2005. I did it anyway since that's still 583 posts, which is ok for a small forum.

2005 583 posts
2006 0
2007 0

HRP

2005 Site not yet opened
2006 http://hrp.myfastforum.org/sutra2.php#2
2007 http://hrp.myfastforum.org/sutra356.php#356
2008 http://hrp.myfastforum.org/sutra432.php#432
2009 none
2010 none

By year post stats

2005 site not yet opened
2006 354 (opened on April 10th 2006)
2007 78
2008 2
2009 0
2010 0

I am surprised this board is still online :O, but sadly it was one other board that opened while there were too many other forums around

TICALCS.NET (not to be confused with ticalc.org)

2005 board not yet opened (well, it was on proboards, but PB system woN't let me grab stats)
2006 http://forum.ticalcs.net/showthread.php?pid=10
2007 http://forum.ticalcs.net/showthread.php?pid=4752
2008 http://forum.ticalcs.net/showthread.php?pid=6339
2009 http://forum.ticalcs.net/showthread.php?pid=6605
2010 http://forum.ticalcs.net/showthread.php?pid=7172

Per year stats

2005 forum not yet opened
2006 4742
2007 1587
2008 266
2009 567
2010 174

I am surprised this is still active, but I guess bfr does a good job  at keeping it active, altough it kinda sucks he left us

Detacheds Solutions:

2005 http://www.detachedsolutions.com/forum/m/26257/#msg_26257
2006 http://www.detachedsolutions.com/forum/m/30630/#msg_30630
2007 http://www.detachedsolutions.com/forum/m/34386/#msg_34386
2008
2009
2010

DS post stats

2005 4373
2006 3756
2007 1263
2008 274
2009 76
2010 0 (as for Feb 23rd 10)

TI-Freakware. Thanks tifrea8x for sending me the stats.

2005 1161 (board opened on May 05)
2006 4425
2007 3269
2008 4028
2009 736
2010 104 (as for Feb 23rd)

TIFW used to do very good. They also got an activity boost in 2008 after Omni shut down, but TI-Freak8x vanishing almost completly from the TI community in late 2008 and through most of 2009, Ranman and Halifax leaving, the rest of the staff becoming inactive and lack of staff renewal (and checking to ensure they will post on forums) pretty much killed TIFW.

Also I won't be doing CalcG.Org because of their post system making it impossible to know the stats.

[jmaster797]

HA I knew Omnimaga was better. I always liked this forum much more than any other TI forum. You have more freedom and people are really nice and helpful here.

[ztrumpet]

UTI and Omnimaga are by far the most active! Is it possible to do this to TIBD, or would it be too hard?

[DJ Omnimaga]

HA I knew Omnimaga was better. I always liked this forum much more than any other TI forum. You have more freedom and people are really nice and helpful here.

Actually I wouldn't say freedom as in speech, since on Revsoft, Calcgames, Cemetech you can pretty much say anything you want even if it's offensive/derogatory (as long as you don't post racism/warez/malware/shock sites/porn/flood/spam) and on UTI/MaxCoderz/TIBD you can do so too, now (altough still to a lesser extent, since you'll get badmouthed for it). Over here if you troll you can get banned. However, in terms of project showcase, members have by far more freedom over here in terms of content. Of course this cannot be seen as much by newbies, who migth be scared thinking we only allow high quality projects, but in fact any project is welcome (altough these BASIC shells, menu-based games, math programs and programs that has been done 10000 times before will obviously not draw as much attention). I posted about that Nitacku grayscale package oN TIFW in 2008, as well as the RPG demo I was making, and I posted about Illusiat 13 on TIBD forums, and nobody cared.

Is it possible to do this to TIBD, or would it be too hard?

All depends if the forum software allows browsing posts by their ID numbers or from newest to the very first post ever (altough for the later it is much harder to calculate)

[DJ Omnimaga]

Ok I done UTI now. Some facts:

From November 2004 to December 2004, United-TI witnessed major server issues: http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=2535

This pretty much killed their userbase. I was there, sometimes, and remember the page loadings of about 18 minutes. At this time they alerady had about 40000 posts in 1.5 years, but despite being the only major active TI z80 forum in english at the time (MaxCoderz was hacked, EPS was still very new, Omnimaga Invisionfree board was far from opening), it still took them months to recover in terms of activity. In addition to that, Arcane Wizard trolling was not helping (he got warned, tho, so he stopped for the next 2 years). Basically, this is why United-TI activity was that low in 2005 compared to MaxCoderz.

Some Omnimaga members became more active on United-TI in 2007. No offense to some of the old Omni board userbase but a lot of people there were not loyal to the site, they only came on it because that's the only place I was active on. This helped boosting UTI activity from Feb 07 to June 07.

In 2008, Omnimaga closed until August 25th 2008. Many Omni members chosen UTI as new home, others, TIFW.  However, the total activity of both never went close to 2007 total levels.

In 2009, the community picked up again in overall, but inactive forums never really recovered.

EDIT: Here's what I have so far in graph (updated):

[DJ Omnimaga]

Ok I compiled Cemetech too now, looks like over the years, their activity was pretty similar to Omnimaga, altough slightly higher. Keep in mind their 2007 stats are a bit lower because of Jatol incident and that they have A LOT of off-topic talk since 2007

[DJ Omnimaga]

An now TIBD is done too. This one was hard because Posts IDs on Wikidot are network-wide, not by forum basis, so I couldnt browse posts using my method. Luckily they had a list of the last post until the first post ever, so after patience I could finally do it. Plus for 2007 it didn't took a while since they weren too active back then. I updated the graph two posts ago

[Galandros]

This month was quite active too. How do I know how much?
And many new sections. Another great month for Omnimaga.

[ztrumpet]

Galandros, check this page: http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?action=stats

[DJ Omnimaga]

Well so far this February is the most active february in Omnimaga history. The highest activity we ever got on a February was 2502 in 2006.

This was funny back then. The previous month we had 4025 (1.5x more than what we got last month) and in Feb when activity dropped to like 80-90 posts a day, some people started complaining and getting worried about a huge activity drop

[Galandros]

Well so far this February is the most active february in Omnimaga history. The highest activity we ever got on a February was 2502 in 2006.

This was funny back then. The previous month we had 4025 (1.5x more than what we got last month) and in Feb when activity dropped to like 80-90 posts a day, some people started complaining and getting worried about a huge activity drop

80-90 post is still good posting for forums with this kind of registered users.
Less than 10 post a day is boring and really worrying.