what happened?

[WindFox17]

Ok last year this site had alot of people on it but this year so far its kinda not that many. Whys this?

[Horendithas]

[COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]I think this is more of a suggestion and feedback issue so I?m going to move the thread.

Anyway as for the actual question?It may not be an issue of less people, but rather one of the information is a bit different when you are looking to see who is online. When you click on who?s online, it now only shows what the members who are logged in are doing, where before it showed everyone, including all the guests.

But if you simply go down to the list on the main forum index that says Currently Active Users: you will see a total and then a break down of which ones are members and which one?s are guests. At this moment while I am typing there are 15 members and 159 guests. So just clicking on who's online doesn't give you the whole picture.

Also, many people are back in school again and I?m sure that if they are like me, they have less time to spend online than they use to. ;)[/COLOR]

[Dagger]

[quote name='WindFox17']Ok last year this site had alot of people on it but this year so far its kinda not that many. Whys this?[/quote]
Haha. I was waiting for a thread like this to pop up (it's already appeared at one of the other forums I post at). The short answer is that everything goes in cycles on message boards. It's not even that predictable--sometimes activity is higher during the summer, and sometimes it's not. And so on.

The slightly longer answer is that this is a particularly busy time of year. I don't remember if we had a higher level of activity around the same time in '05, but people always have school, jobs, new hobbies and other committments to deal with. Things will pick up eventually. :)

~Dagger~

[Boo]

[size=1][b]indifference[/b], I'm pretty sure he didn't mean a lack of people in the 'Who's Online?' section, but more a lack of amount of posts (posts equal activity on a message boards, pretty much). Which is understandable because this time of year, people actually act like they have lives outside OtakuBoards (you can act all you want, but you can't fool me).[/size]

[BlueYoshi]

[color=darkred]That may be the case regarding the forum overall, but I think Play It has had sort of a boom in popularity with the upcoming releases of the Wii and the PS3, and posts aren't even limited to those subjects.[/color]

[Desbreko]

[quote name='Dagger']The slightly longer answer is that this is a particularly busy time of year. I don't remember if we had a higher level of activity around the same time in '05, but people always have school, jobs, new hobbies and other committments to deal with. Things will pick up eventually. :)[/quote][color=#4B0082]This is where the Statistics feature in the admin control panel comes in handy. Turns out activity was higher during this period last year:

October 1-19 2005: 3194 posts
October 1-19 2006: 1881 posts

Overall, the number of posts per month has dropped a bit from 2005, but not a ton.[/color]

[code][font=courier new]Month Year Posts

January 2004 11851
February 2004 7534
March 2004 7967
April 2004 6625
May 2004 5940
June 2004 6831
July 2004 8647
August 2004 7135
September 2004 5769
October 2004 5351
November 2004 5084
December 2004 6359

January 2005 6836
February 2005 5781
March 2005 6707
April 2005 6537
May 2005 5901
June 2005 5942
July 2005 6077
August 2005 6721
September 2005 4690
October 2005 5386
November 2005 6620
December 2005 6627

January 2006 6650
February 2006 4262
March 2006 6175
April 2006 6136
May 2006 6242
June 2006 4919
July 2006 5643
August 2006 4913
September 2006 3676
October 2006 1881[/font][/code][color=#4B0082]That 11,851 for January 2004 makes me want to go look up what was going on that month, though.[/color]

[Ellerby]

[COLOR=DimGray][FONT=Tahoma]I also think this has some relation to the teenage posters on OB going into their senior years. sakurasuka, myself, Sakura, Kitty, Retribution, and The Boss for example all used to be frequent posters this time last year but we've all traversed into the senior year and have found the homework load is fairly heavier.

Older members, like DW and Pumpkin (I believe), are going into their first year of College/University so the same goes for them.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[Aaryanna]

[COLOR=DarkOrchid][quote name='Boo][size=1][b]indifference[/b'], I'm pretty sure he didn't mean a lack of people in the 'Who's Online?' section, but more a lack of amount of posts (posts equal activity on a message boards, pretty much). Which is understandable because this time of year, people actually act like they have lives outside OtakuBoards (you can act all you want, but you can't fool me).[/size][/quote]Even if they didn't mean that I know when that switched it threw me off at first as I was wondering why there was so few people online. ^_~ It didn't take me long to figure it out but I was what the heck? lol

Anyway, I would imagine that like Dagger already said it just varies a lot. And like indifference also mentioned, those of us who are back in school again, have less time for being online. And with that note...I'm off to do my homework. ^_^[/COLOR]

[Ikillion]

[color=#56995e][SIZE=1][FONT=Comic Sans MS]That would have been th reason for me. I have no reason of knowning why but ever since the jump from 9th to 10th grade the load of homework seems to be extremely different and when it felt like I could post every day way back in 9th grade now it seems near impossible since it seems like I am doing homework for almost 4 - 5 hours.

I am suprised to see how active the boards were in 2004 though. I mean 11851?!? Ever since I have been ehre it hasnt been over 7000, times do change though I guess.[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[John]

[QUOTE=Desbreko][color=#4b0082]October 1-19 2005: 3194 posts
October 1-19 2006: 1881 posts[/color][/QUOTE] It's not quite fair to measure by the current month, though, since we're only two thirds of the way through it yet.

And of course, a lot of the long-term drop in posts is probably due to the raised quality standards.

[James]

[font=arial]As has been said, activity changes all the time. Some months are inexplicably less active than others...and sometimes when we expect the place to be quiet, the activity skyrockets. That's just the nature of a message board.[/font]

[Petie]

[QUOTE=John]It's not quite fair to measure by the current month, though, since we're only two thirds of the way through it yet.

And of course, a lot of the long-term drop in posts is probably due to the raised quality standards.[/QUOTE][font=Verdana][color=blue]Just to clarify, those stats are only taking into account October 1-19, not the entire month.[/color][/font]

[PWNED]

It's because that everyone are out of holidays or are working; I'm in Yr 11 right now and I get tons of homework and my exams are coming up in 3-4 weeks so my post rate will decrease. I'm sure that most members also have other things to do that require a bit of time.

[DeadSeraphim]

[size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]Personally, I'm shocked that homework is being used as a scapegoat here. I mean, who [i]actually[/i] does their homework? Who?! [u]Noone[/u], that's who. Blame schoolwork all you want, but we all know it's just because you're a bunch of slackers.[/font][/color][/size]

[Ellerby]

[quote name='DeadSeraphim][size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]Personally, I'm shocked that homework is being used as a scapegoat here. I mean, who [i]actually[/i] does their homework? Who?! [u]Noone[/u], that's who. Blame schoolwork all you want, but we all know it's just because you're a bunch of slackers.[/font][/color'][/size][/quote]
[font=tahoma][color=dimgray]Hence why I'm still active. XD[/color][/font]

[WindFox17]

I will admit yes I was not on during the summer much but when school is in session (yes I can't spell I know) I am on almost everyday. And I have never seen so many admins in one page its kinda neat. :catgirl:

[vegeta rocker]

I know i have gotten way busier, and i dont post as much poetry anymore.
Though, when i have a break i post when i can.

Blame school.

[Desbreko]

[QUOTE=John]It's not quite fair to measure by the current month, though, since we're only two thirds of the way through it yet.

And of course, a lot of the long-term drop in posts is probably due to the raised quality standards.[/QUOTE][color=#4B0082]Note the "1-19" in the dates on those. :p

And yes, higher standards have a ton to do with the drop in post frequency over the long run. Before 2004 the numbers are significantly higher than the data for 2004-2006 that I posted up there but most of it wasn't nearly as high quality as what we see today.[/color]