Personal Development for Smart People Forums - View Single Post - How many visitors do you need to start a forum?

CoolBee · 10-25-2009, 02:47 PM

I've done some checks on forums I belong to before now - listing out members by posts made and it seems to me that what you really need is 20-30 very active posters to keep a forum alive, people who will visit several times a week, start threads, answer questions, pontificate, got opinions. You then probably also need another 40-50 occasional posters who pop in, say, once every couple of weeks just to add a soupcon of flavour!
Can you tell from your stats how many are returning visitors?

PS I just (sadly) checked this forum - there are just 676 members out of over 21518 who have made 100 or more posts including the legendary Angela at over 11000 with a sprinkling of members in the 3000-5000 range. A total of 51 members have made 1000 or more posts.

10-25-2009, 02:47 PM	#3 (permalink)
CoolBee Family Member Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 2,044	I've done some checks on forums I belong to before now - listing out members by posts made and it seems to me that what you really need is 20-30 very active posters to keep a forum alive, people who will visit several times a week, start threads, answer questions, pontificate, got opinions. You then probably also need another 40-50 occasional posters who pop in, say, once every couple of weeks just to add a soupcon of flavour! Can you tell from your stats how many are returning visitors? PS I just (sadly) checked this forum - there are just 676 members out of over 21518 who have made 100 or more posts including the legendary Angela at over 11000 with a sprinkling of members in the 3000-5000 range. A total of 51 members have made 1000 or more posts. Last edited by CoolBee; 10-25-2009 at 03:03 PM. Reason: prolong the agony