Does stats on the Forums matter?

[scottkoz20]

Something that I display on my site is the # of Posts and Threads. In reality, do these stats truly matter at all? Do you show them on your site?

Interested in perspective on this.

Thanks,
Scott

 

[R0binHood]

Yes, these stats establish social proof and provide context about the size and activity of the forum helping provide credibility and authority, which is an important factor for prospective new members in their decision making process as to whether they join or not.

 

[LeadCrow]

It's informative, not actually important. Both indicators could be replaced with a rough interval rather than an exact count.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I used to be obsessed with it. Now I could care less. I mainly changed by having a YouTube page. I have almost 2,000 subscribers which is not very much in the eyes of a creator, right? However, I have way more fans that people who have accounts on YouTube so anywhere I hike (my channel is about hiking), I get recognized. I have given autographs, selfies, etc. I get stopped in stores. I've been in all the local news and newspapers and am about to be featured on a St Louis News program. Stats don't matter to me anywhere, it's the actual people that matter - they will make you smile way more than an extra subscriber I'm going to take the same approach with my new forum.

 

[MagicalAzareal]

I don't really bother with it so much, it is either neutral (no signal) or negative (makes users think your site is inactive). It isn't as useful as you'd think either, as there are big boards that have been dead since 2004 which have several million posts.

It is also fluff that distracts from the site and yet another cache that needs to be kept carefully synchronised. I am in favour of a topic list homepage that takes people straight-in rather than the forum list too, depending on the amount of actual activity.

Does Facebook show stats? Does Reddit? If they do, is it front and center?

 

[zappaDPJ]

I think stats in general do carry weight. Think how often to you see a sign above a shop that tells you when the business was established.

I display forum and user stats, especially post counts and reputation.

 

[Chris]

I find it frustrating when I can't see how big the site is. Makes me wonder if it's worth a gamble to signup, etc.

 

[Joeychgo]

I find it frustrating when I can't see how big the site is. Makes me wonder if it's worth a gamble to signup, etc.

Agreed

 

[hurricane_sh]

I don't care as much like before, but it's important to me.

When I moved one of forums to xenForo, I deleted 400K word game posts, total post count dropped from over 1M to 600K. I kinda regretted it even though those posts are useless, 1M posts would make me feel much better, I wasn't aware of it at that time.

 

[User37935]

Do you show them on your site?

Yes, as it's only a small window and as others have said above, a nice large figure gives your site some weight. But I have also been asking the same question as you, is it worth showing them or could the space be used for something else?

I have also been asking whether to bother showing online users anymore. It's quite nice to see, but is it very much last decade now?

Online users + forum stats = space for more latest posts, perhaps?

 

[scottkoz20]

I have also been asking whether to bother showing online users anymore. It's quite nice to see, but is it very much last decade now?

i stopped showing the members online mainly to help speed up vB4 about 2-3 years ago. I had 1 member asking where it went...

 

[MagicalAzareal]

Yes, as it's only a small window and as others have said above, a nice large figure gives your site some weight. But I have also been asking the same question as you, is it worth showing them or could the space be used for something else?

I have also been asking whether to bother showing online users anymore. It's quite nice to see, but is it very much last decade now?

Online users + forum stats = space for more latest posts, perhaps?

I do show online users, although I don't show exactly what they're doing, merely that they're online. It costs approximately nothing resource-wise, but it is minus the guests.

It is nice to feel the presence of other people when you're going around a site.