GreyPilgrim he/him Posted February 9, 2014 Report Share Posted February 9, 2014 I have made an observation recently. I don't know if this is something of which other people have made note, but I have not seen it commented on anywhere. This site has grown massively in the past months. I myself am not really part of this. I only post every now and then, in little bursts a few times a month. But many other users are quite different. When I joined the site 6 months ago, there were about 60,000 posts (based on the numbering of posts) and about 3000 members (if I recall correctly). Now, there are well over 90,000 posts and around 4500 members. That is a 50% increase in use over a 6-month period, about 1/7 of the site's duration. When I joined there was only a handful of posters with much more than a few hundred posts to their names. Now nearly all of the top 20 posters have over 1000. While site staff still dominate the high posting ranks, it should not be long before the ever-powerful Chaos is unseated from being the highest poster by the likes of non-staff such as Kurkistan or Shardlet. Within this influx of new members are many who post rabidly, myself not included. Nonetheless, I find this very interesting. Does anyone have any idea what may have caused all of this? Is it the approach of Words of Radiance? Or a general growth in our beloved Brandon Sanderson's influence as a literary figure? Am I unique in having noticed this? Because I find it really cool. Thank you to those who work exhaustively to make this site an increasingly great community! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awesomeness Summoned he/him Posted February 9, 2014 Report Share Posted February 9, 2014 I only recently joined in early January and in just a month I've noticed the boards have new posts more often than when I started. Seems you can't leave for more than a couple hours and the Stormlight threads have more posts than I can even catch up on. I have a feeling its a combination of WoR's eminent release combined with all the pre released material that has caused an influx of new members. Wanting to chat about the new chapters was actually what got me to finally setup an account. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scriptorian he/him Posted February 9, 2014 Report Share Posted February 9, 2014 I too have noticed the increase in activity, and I joined just last September. I think part of the surgebind came with the Steelhunt and the Shardhunt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bartbug he/him Posted February 9, 2014 Report Share Posted February 9, 2014 Yeah. I was a long time lurker (like at least two years) but I joined in November I think, after Brandon said I should at a signing. (Yeah, it basically took Direct WoB to delurk me. Not sure what to make of that...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Natans he/him Posted February 9, 2014 Report Share Posted February 9, 2014 Yes, and the best thing is that the forum is very "clean" and "polite". Hardly i see here any hate or bashfulness that are so common in the "normal" internet. I'm for example, given my poor english and grammar(sorry for that), by rule always had problem to post in english language forums. Here even knowing that i'm probally the worst user in this departament never had any problem with anyone, even better time to time some nice folks correct my mistakes and give tips in a very nice manner. This is a very nice community indeed =) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreyPilgrim he/him Posted February 9, 2014 Author Report Share Posted February 9, 2014 I too have noticed the increase in activity, and I joined just last September. I think part of the surgebind came with the Steelhunt and the Shardhunt. I think you're probably right about the Shardhunt being a large factor, though I don't know if many users who joined for that have transferred into active users. If anyone is one of those, correct me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
el_warko he/him Posted February 10, 2014 Report Share Posted February 10, 2014 I think you're probably right about the Shardhunt being a large factor, though I don't know if many users who joined for that have transferred into active users. If anyone is one of those, correct me! Guilty! My Journey: It was Novemeber 2013, I knew that WoR was due soon, ended up on Brandons Website, found the 17th, the Shardhunt and here I am. Like Natan's mentioned, this site is incredibly civilised, I've only seen one topic that has become quite heated, but even then it didn't spiral down into hurling abuse and mum jokes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaos he/him Posted February 10, 2014 Report Share Posted February 10, 2014 It's actually a more extreme growth! January was a massively huge month for us, and our biggest month by far. Want some statistics? January 2014 had a total of 10,626 posts, which is almost double the previous most active month, which was 5,876 posts. The third biggest month was October 2013, with 5,564 posts. Before that, the two biggest months had been March 2012, with 3,472 posts, and November 2011, with 3,431 posts (this corresponded to Alloy's release). So actually, at the time January ended, January's posts alone constituted 11% of the site's posts. It's bonkers. January was also our biggest month by far hit wise, with 6.8 million hits and 39,000 unique visitors, and had the most new registrations (291) in a month that did not involve a contest. There are a few reasons, the first being the Words of Radiance board, which has over 9,000 posts in it at this point. Another a big contributor is the Sanderson Elimination board, which has 1,400 posts right now. I don't go too in-depth in the Words of Radiance board, but both those are boards are a massive source of upvotes. It boggles my mind, because a year ago a single posting getting more than ten upvotes was incredibly rare, and now... a lot less so. I can't fathom how many posts will happen in March from Words of Radiance. It will certainly be beyond 10,000. It's hard for me to really estimate how extreme the Words of Radiance effect will be, because it has the possibility to be a far bigger spike in traffic than any estimations can have. I fully suspect that there will at least be 15,000 posts in March. I will not be surprised if it surpasses 20,000. Beyond that, I have no idea. Needless to say, we will be watching the server very closely in March in case it dies. The site's massive growth led to new mods. Rest assured, we will be policing the forums very intensely and ensure that it will be clean and polite. You guys consistently amaze me how it should not be long before the ever-powerful Chaos is unseated from being the highest poster by the likes of non-staff such as Kurkistan or Shardlet. I know I won't go down without a fight, though, darnit... However, it is inevitable that staff gets dethroned from top posts, and is probably a really healthy sign when it finally happens. That means that the staff are not the source of the activity, the members are. We have gone far beyond the point where me or any one person is keeping the site alive, and that makes me so incredibly happy. I've ran much smaller forums where the staff really do keep it alive. When they left, nothing happens. 17th Shard is not that, which is phenomenal. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delightful Posted February 10, 2014 Report Share Posted February 10, 2014 I think you're probably right about the Shardhunt being a large factor, though I don't know if many users who joined for that have transferred into active users. If anyone is one of those, correct me! I'd seen that the site existed previous to the Shardhunt, but only made an account because I really wanted some help with it. I didn't post a while after that, but eventually found my way back, and - now that I think about it - mainly stayed because it *finally* gave me people to be as excited about WoR as I am to talk/joke/theorise/analyse with. (No one else I know has read any Sanderson books, except for one person I finally got to read Mistborn). On top of that, everyone's just so welcoming and polite and funny and thoughtful that there's really no reason *not* to stay. So, thumbs up for all you guys 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Claincy he/him Posted February 10, 2014 Report Share Posted February 10, 2014 I joined back in June last year, I remember back then (when I had a reasonable amount of time) I was actually able to fully keep up with the stormlight archive and cosmere subforums. It's a lot harder now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreyPilgrim he/him Posted February 10, 2014 Author Report Share Posted February 10, 2014 Yeah, I stopped trying to keep up with the Words of Radiance subforum a long time ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elbereth she/her Posted February 11, 2014 Report Share Posted February 11, 2014 I think you're probably right about the Shardhunt being a large factor, though I don't know if many users who joined for that have transferred into active users. If anyone is one of those, correct me! I'm one of those people. It took the Shardhunt to get me out. But then again, I might have joined anyway. It's just that this is only the second forum I've ever joined, and I'm very careful in general with subscribing and posting and things like that. I've even noticed the increase, though, and I joined only a few weeks ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awesomeness Summoned he/him Posted February 11, 2014 Report Share Posted February 11, 2014 Every time I take a look at the recent visitor numbers at the bottom of the forum there are at least twice as many "guests" browsing the forum as there are "members". I don't have enough experience with forums to know if that is kinda the norm but it seems like there is quite a bit more potential for growth if WoR entices a lot of those lurkers to finally set up a profile. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuantumHarmonix he/him Posted February 11, 2014 Report Share Posted February 11, 2014 It's possible that the other lurkers may join after WoR. Personally I was one of those guests until the Shardhunt got me to join, even then I didn't plan on posting. It wasn't until I had a theory, that I didn't see anyone else addressing, that I started posting. And now that I've started, I'm finding it harder to stop than to keep posting. It also doesn't hurt that the community is very polite, nice, supportive, and a few more positive adjectives. I also like that posters usually build on an idea from a previous post, it makes the discussions very constructive. I've seen some forums on other sites where that is not the case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreyPilgrim he/him Posted February 14, 2014 Author Report Share Posted February 14, 2014 So I guess it bears noting in this thread that today broke the record for most online, increasing it by nearly 200. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaos he/him Posted February 15, 2014 Report Share Posted February 15, 2014 That's especially noteworthy because that previous "most online" was due to a crazy influx of spambots due to a very poor setting change on my part that had been fixed very rapidly. Of course, Brandon did link to the site, so it isn't surprising, but wow. Pretty awesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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