Is the Forum Failing?

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Sharkey
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Is the Forum Failing?

Post by Sharkey »

Well, the short answer is, yes, it appears that it is, and perhaps not just from seasonal attrition.

The statistics for the forum, and the site as a whole have not be looking good lately, traffic is down in an accelerating spiral. Some of this can realistically be attributed to the more strict spam filtering that the server performs. Many of the bogus requests, phishing exploits, and access log spamming that were inflating the stats have been pruned back, and no longer show up in the numbers. This by itself does not account for the drop-off in visitor traffic. Even simple observation will show that the forum is getting much less posting these days.

Let's look at the hard numbers. Here's the General Report for the forum: http://www.mrsharkey.com/stats/forum_general Look at the line chart a the top of the page, the red and blue dashes represent page views.

From the first day the forum was installed, I denied it being listed in Google, Yahell!, etc, as the majority of spam and exploits are aimed at forum installations located by directory searches. The was very little traffic on the forum, and it always struggled to have even a few new posts most weeks. The page views are pretty flat, with a few anomalous exceptions, such as December of 2008 (don't know what happened there).

Then in January-February of 2009, I installed the new content management system on the site, and for the first time, allowed the forum to be indexed in search engines and directories. You can see that the traffic jumped right up to five times what it had been before. Most of this was spam, but I had hardened the forum against such garbage for the most part. The spam didn't show up much on the forum, but the bad requests still got logged in the stats as traffic.

In August of 2009, Rudy joined the forum, and things really started to take off. His frequent posting drew in lurkers, old members who hadn't posted in years, and new folks who dropped in from searches, etc, registered and decided to stay. The forum began to take on a life of it's own.

December 2009, I discovered a very effective spam filter program that I instituted on the site as a whole. It was so efficient that it prevented spam bots from even viewing pages, much less posting crap on the forum. The statistics show a significant lessening of "traffic" on the forum, but what that really reflects is a fallback to views and posting by legitimate users for once.

Since that time, forum traffic has steadily decreased. June 2010 saw only 17,300 page views, down from a high of 31,200 in March. Seasonal fluctuation? Perhaps. Time will tell. The weekly traffic shows a similar downward trend, with last week being the first uptick in traffic I've seen in a while.

The site statistics follow a similar trend, although site traffic is a much larger volume, it's declining as well.

The next five months or so should be telling. Might be that as the weather in the Northern Hemisphere declines, site traffic will climb back to "normal". It's also possible that MrSharkey.Com has saturated the web and is no longer a growth product. There are more sites dedicated to small housing, mobile living and alternative dwelling. I'd expect that this would mean greater interest and more traffic, but it also means a dilution of the available viewer base.

What can you as an interested member do? Well, not much more than keep posting, spread the word around the rest of the 'net, and cross your fingers.

(I wonder if the decline has anything to do with those millions of Chinese IP addresses I ban each week???)
Jones'n4chrome
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Post by Jones'n4chrome »

I logged on to post some pics, then I saw this thread....NOW I HAVE TO POST SOME PICS :oops:

I will be the first to admit, as I have before...that as I/we get busy it's easy log on to see if anyone has posted anything new, but then I'm too busy or too lazy to post anything myself.
That doesn't mean we have to post every time we visit the site, but I think we are all very unique, the result being that each one of us can contribute to this site in a way that no one else can.

It's not always easy, but try to post if you can.

There are lurkers and members who never post anything, PLEASE know that you are always welcome and posting is not a requirement to enjoy this site.

Chuck
rlaggren
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Post by rlaggren »

I'm not saying you need/want to hire Google PR people. However it seems to me you have a viable product here based on the times and economic situation which will lead more people to look into alternative life styles; also more retirees in the next 10 years. I think you have a right to be proud and some real reasons to believe that you have a potential membership out there. But the nature of the beast is that people need to find you at the time they are looking and that basically means raising your Google profile.

So... You _may_ want to think about checking into minor tweaks depending on your time/philosophy about this thing. I really don't know much of anything about this except reading occasionally about Google's effort to prevent scamming their system and some interviews with proponent of "profiling" your site. I suspect that a lot of it is snake oil but probably there is some stuff that actually does help your listings. Can't say if the effort is bad, medium or trivial.

Just a thought, and like as not you have considered it. Just wanted to say I think there might be some reason to give it a try.

Rufus
Dusty
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Post by Dusty »

[is the forum failing]

NO , just busy ,, we'll be back :)
58 Bedford House
Rudy
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Post by Rudy »

Failing? To do what? I see it growing. I did not realize that I had such an impact, when I first started posting. It must be time to start another thread. I have been working out some ideas to pass on about "urban camping". That is, stealth camping on the streets.
Got love? Give love.
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Dennis The Bus Dweller
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Post by Dennis The Bus Dweller »

"Failing " Is a pretty harsh term. How can something so great be failing. Maybe it slowed down but I don't see a failure 8)
Peace along the way
Dennis the bus dweller N.Y.
Rudy
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Post by Rudy »

The other day, I was chatting with Orbit. We were having a pretty good time. A few minutes into my chat, Sharkey entered. Both Orbit and I were really happy to see him there.
He couldn't stay long because he was busy taking care of his many chores. He does that well. Just go back and read about his hydro-electric system he developed.
Nevertheless, I cherished each and every word he wrote to Orbit and myself that day.
It is beauty, not failure.
Got love? Give love.
Jones'n4chrome
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Joined: Mon Dec 31, 2007 3:10 pm

Post by Jones'n4chrome »

Rudy wrote:The other day, I was chatting with Orbit. We were having a pretty good time. A few minutes into my chat, Sharkey entered. Both Orbit and I were really happy to see him there.
He couldn't stay long because he was busy taking care of his many chores. He does that well. Just go back and read about his hydro-electric system he developed.
Nevertheless, I cherished each and every word he wrote to Orbit and myself that day.
It is beauty, not failure.
Well, I think he was going in there to to chat with Wallfly, but then Wallfly and Orbit were startled to see each other so it never happened. :lol:

It's always fun in chat when Sharkey has time to get in there.
Wayne Bus
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stealth urban living thread

Post by Wayne Bus »

This stealth-low lying approach is one of many a bus dweller who live in the city\suburban centers. The design of my bus, for instance, is without bathroom or kitchen facilities...why bother when there are 24 hour gyms with pools, whirlpools, saunas, tanning beds, weight lifting facilities, clean public bathrooms 24-7-365 in multiple locations and 24 hr.fast food, slow food and everything in between, of every imaginable flavor cooked for you on and at whim and if those don't suit you, there's always a 24 hr.Walmart complete with a grocery in almost every minor city, and hands full of them in major cities along with 24 hr just about everything store wise , a person could ever need. Point being, to chat with persons other than "home on the range" types, would be most helpful to those of us who seek a " home -Without -a range", oven, frig or other wise. My approach to bus dwelling, is not to "export a house to wheels, but to import public luxuries, amenities and locations to my huge limo type bus based on everybody else picking up the tab and expenses, taxes, regulations, oppressive constictions involving brick and mortor investment living. Let them keep the joint...I just want to rent it for a few hours of its omniuance, a few times a week, month, year, etc.. Can't take it with you, and I don't waste my wheels time trying. But to chat and trade urban steath and suburban leisure living ideas with others would excite my mind to volley.
graydawg
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mr sharkey what do we need to do

Post by graydawg »

I get on the computer about 3 times a week at a starbucks for now till I can get a little income back coming in and always make it a point to come in and see whats going on here, love the site and enjoy it, I will personally try to post here if that helps out, deffinately not a computer guru so yaw try to bear with me, hope to get my digital camara back from kodak in a few days and will try to post some interesting pics when I learn how, still learning about all this computer stuff, said I would never own one but here I am at 50 and trying to figure this stuff out, wish I would have started earlier now. come on folk's do whatever needs to be done to keep this site going or I will be one pissed off coonass!!!!! and no one wants to see a coonass that's pissed off or on, take care graydawg
Griff
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Post by Griff »

I'd post more often, but I rarely have anything useful to say...kinda like this post. :oops:

I'm gonna toss something at ya Sharkey, on one of the other forums...Electric Vehicles or Alternative Fuels...I'm not quite sure which one it will fall under...Stay tuned for what could wind up being more than my usual drivel... :roll:
~(G)Q Arduously Avoiding Assimilation
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