Members outnumbered 3:1 by guests - Really?

[OffGridForGood]

Everytime I sign-in on the forum I make a note of the number of Members, and number of Guests.
On average I see the guests outnumber the members about 3:1
Today for example the members were mid 200's and the guests were 750-ish
Why is this?
is there some reason that guests are so common, what do we need to do to convert more guests into members?
A guest can not contribute to the discussion, only read over the postings of members.
Are we missing out on 300% of the potential discussion, insight, new ideas?
are we scaring off potential members being to hard on newbies? early comments, Am I missing something?

 

[42OhmsPA]

I spent months as a guest absorbing info like a sponge so I didn't have to post questions that had already been answered countless times.... I wish I joined sooner to use the bookmark and thread watching functions as well as starting with last read...
I'm so glad I did make a membership, best forum I've ever been on. I haven't been this active in a community since my days/years on VWVortex.

I'd estimate we're missing out on 5-7 percent of people who could bring good discussions, the rest just asking questions that have already been answered.

 

[TorC]

I'd tend to agree with @42OhmsPA. Some of the guests could maybe contribute, but I wouldn't be surprised if most of them read here to get some more common questions answered reading the numerous threads, then fall away once they get their system up.

 

[Horsefly]

Don't forget that bots show up as guests.

 

[OffGridForGood]

Don't forget that bots show up as guests.

If I am reading the forum stats correctly, the Members are well over 60,000
meaning the guests could be 180,000 -ish or perhaps far more if as suggested, these are a fleating group that come and go after brief viewing and then replaced by new guests.
do you feel the 'Bots' make up a significate percentage of a number this large? Is there a way to check?

 

[Horsefly]

I actually have no idea how many bots are there indexing the content pages and such. I guess I just wanted to point out that not all "guests" would be able to contribute anything here.

 

[OffGridForGood]

I actually have no idea how many bots are there indexing the content pages and such. I guess I just wanted to point out that not all "guests" would be able to contribute anything here.

I will admit, it never crossed my mind that those guest numbers could be anything but people! LOL.
So, can the Admin's tell us? is there a way they can tell, like how fast the 'guest' interacts with the site?

 

[Lt.Dan]

I'm pretty sure they just show up as an IP address. It doesnt give them IN DEPTH info like reaction time with certain pages.

 

[Danke]

Don't forget that bots show up as guests.

And Feds.

 

[KITROBASKIN]

Candlepowerforums has a way to determine bot numbers. The number is larger than ‘guests’:

 

[KITROBASKIN]

 

[jballou]

Not sure if it's common, but I had an issue where trying to sign up the initial "wait X seconds to submit" button on the registration form was 5,000 seconds or something crazy like that. Left the window open overnight and then finished my registration the next day. That would have dissuaded me from joining had I not spent the last few days poring over the forums already

 

[SeaGal]

Sounds quite reasonable to me. I browse quite a few forums just to get information, find it and move on.

Once you register and become a member on a forum like this, it gets too addictive and uses up all your spare time

 

[Zwy]

Everytime I sign-in on the forum I make a note of the number of Members, and number of Guests.
On average I see the guests outnumber the members about 3:1
Today for example the members were mid 200's and the guests were 750-ish
Why is this?
is there some reason that guests are so common, what do we need to do to convert more guests into members?
A guest can not contribute to the discussion, only read over the postings of members.
Are we missing out on 300% of the potential discussion, insight, new ideas?
are we scaring off potential members being to hard on newbies? early comments, Am I missing something?

Have to laugh, I'm only logged in around a pc. I do read posts on my phone not logged in as a guest. I'm amazed sometimes when reading thru the posts and see what a fella named Zwy posted.

So that makes members mid 200's and guests at 749-ish.

 

[Bluedog225]

I do suspect lots of bots. And it will only get worse.

 

[JeepHammer]

Everytime I sign-in on the forum I make a note of the number of Members, and number of Guests.
On average I see the guests outnumber the members about 3:1
Today for example the members were mid 200's and the guests were 750-ish
Why is this?
is there some reason that guests are so common, what do we need to do to convert more guests into members?
A guest can not contribute to the discussion, only read over the postings of members.
Are we missing out on 300% of the potential discussion, insight, new ideas?
are we scaring off potential members being to hard on newbies? early comments, Am I missing something?

I 'Lurk' on several forums.

For instance, I don't have a PhD, I'm not a psychiatrist or mental health professional.

My two classes at the local junior collage in no way, shape or form make me qualified to give an opinion on which sandwich for lunch, so life changing medical advice is entirely out of the question.

I don't play one on TV or BoobTube, and I'll never pretend to be one.

I have an interest in psychology, so I lurk and learn from actual professionals.

If you want to talk PRACTICAL application of gears & wires, I'll do that since I have an actual education, 50 years experience, and no one dies in these conversations.

I don't have the time or the disposition for theoretical BS/non-sense, for instance the guys that bring up commercial aircraft no-solder terminals when talking about home solar, being up high frequency AC skin effect when talking about high current DC circuits.

It's obvious these guys have been misinformed, will not accept facts when corrected, can't differienate between applications, have no practical experience, and have a bad case of Dunning-Kruger, little education but absloute confidence they know everything...

Hard on newbies... or newbies aren't interested enough to actually join? There are 8 billion people on the planet, thats a lot of potential for internet 'grazers' to drop in and see what DIY solar is all about.

EVERY SINGLE PERSON STARTS SOMEWHERE,
So YOU were the 'Newbie' at one time... show a little respect and DO NOT crack on newbies outright.

Grandpa-isms... Grandpa used to say no one is an A-hole until they prove they are, and A-Holes will identify themselves in short order.

I've found this to be valuable information since it's very true.

 

[mptx]

I count as a ‘guest’ if I’m not logged in. Since I don’t store cookies that will be every time I connect and until I actually login.

 

[Hedges]

I guess I just wanted to point out that not all "guests" would be able to contribute anything here.

Not yet ...

ChatGPT will make 2023 go down in history as the time everything changed.

I am sure many of you have heard of Chat GPT but for those who have not let me say that your in for a big draw dropping surprise. It was released online at the beginning of January and I have been playing with it for a week. I am not going to go into details of it's use, but after playing around...

diysolarforum.com

Actually, having ChatGPT answer questions based on what's already in the forum would save a lot of duplicate postings.

 

[Ampster]

....
Actually, having ChatGPT answer questions based on what's already in the forum would save a lot of duplicate postings.

I wonder if the Similar Posts section which appears at the bottom of each thread has some sort of algorithm which picks similar posts. Much simpler than ChatGPT, but perhaps a first step in that process.

 

[Bluedog225]

Don’t trust anyone under 1000 posts….