Active member stats

[Aussie Bob]

Not sure if this is the right forum for this, but here goes.

How does one define an "Active Member"?

(1). A member that posts more than once a day.
(2). A member that posts more than once a week.

And does anyone know if there's general stats, about what % of a forum's userbase, would be considered active?

[Matthew]

Good question... I wonder if it's best to measure activity by the posts per day in a users profile and if it's 0.5+ then they are active :)

However... on WHT I have an average of 1.06 posts per day (1377 in total) and I wouldnt consider my self active... but also I wouldnt class my self as inactive either as I visit daily but do not always post replys.

I havent found any stats that give details in vB... they are just general numbers for the day about those who have visited etc...

[Tyler]

I know in the new vB 3.5, there is a "Active Members" by default. I do wonder what they classify as an active member, Bob. May be worth postin' over there.

[Jan]

I think I figured out on another forum where this was asked, that they have visited the forum in the last month.

[ldcdc]

Matthew makes a good point. "Active" really depends on the forum. Take Dennis in relation to this forum: he's hyperactive. :D

(2). A member that posts more than once a week.For most hosting forums out there, that would be a reasonably active member (IMHO).

[Aussie Bob]

Dennis, Jan, are you able to share any WHT stats, as to the % of active (however you define that) members?

IMO, the number's probably very low. I know with httpme, there is around 2,400 members, but only a small core group that would be considered active.

[Jan]

You can work out the percentage :p

6072 posted in the last month.
11526 visited in the last month.

[Aussie Bob]

6072 posted in the last month.
11526 visited in the last month.
Hmmm, those numbers are higher than I thought they would be. :think:

That's around 5% who posted in the last month, and around 9% who visited WHT in the last month.

Do you have those stats for weekly, instead of monthly?

[robert]

You can work out the percentage :p

6072 posted in the last month.
11526 visited in the last month.

Very interesting! More than half of those who visited posted. That's an impressive rate.

[Jan]

As you can see, there is no rhyme nor reason to the activity.

last week 2783 posted
last week 5309 visted
last fortnight 3843 posted
last fortnight 6529 visited

[Jan]

Still trying to figure out what constitutes active members. At FWS, active members is 2855 - visited in a month was 3027, visited in 3 weeks was 2576.

[adb22791]

From the vBulletin AdminCP:

Active Members Time Cut-Off
Enter a number of days here that represents a threshold for 'active' members. If a user has visited the board within the past number of days you specify, they are considered 'active'.

Enter '0' to treat all members as 'active'

[Mikey]

The way i see it, someone who makes at least one post per two weeks is an active member.

[A_Jelly_Doughnut]

Activity of a user is based on the activity of the board as a whole. At the OCbb board, there are 65 activated members. Just over half (34) have posted all time.

If I were to look at logins from the last week, I'm looking at 16 active members (25%), which is really good. But for posts in the last week, there are 4 or 6%, which is still pretty good based on Jan's WHT stats.

Um...did I make a point? Yep, see first sentence.

[Tyler]

Activity of a user is based on the activity of the board as a whole....

Of course. How would you post, and never visit the forum? :crazy:

[A_Jelly_Doughnut]

I think you misunderstand...If there are 5 posts per month on a board, and one user posts two of them, that user is 'extremely active' for that board.

[Floris]

An active member is a member who has completed their registration, has contributed to the forum one way or the other and browses around from time to time.

Depending on how busy your community is, these variables change.

If you prune users with 0 posts, you can consider those users inactive. But keep in mind that there are many people who don't want to post, but just want to read up and send the threads to friends, etc. They indirectly also generate more traffic. So 'last visit date' is important in that case.

If you prune users who have not visited your site for 6 months .. post count is important. You could do that for 0 posts users, but do you also prune members who are on vacation or have recently moved, are pregnant .. and have 50+ posts, and who will probably be back after a while?

Active members are those who contribute to the web site :) And keep doing that from time to time.