WWLaidback
Well-known member
Over on the upper-right side I see 138 people on the web-site, 5 "members" and the rest on them "visitors". What's up with that?
Some will be people just browsing, some with be bots from places like Google that are mapping out the internet for search engines.
One forum that I frequent will show how many bots are browsing threads. There are often a few dozen.
Not necessarily a retention rate.... Remember, this is a worldwide forum, so you have 138 people out of 7.9 billion. There can be a lot of lurkers out there. I browse GearSlutz.... er GearSpace all the time, have never signed up. There are some interesting threads on there occasionally. I find too much of it is over top.
It has ever been thus. Whenever I have a particular issue that I use the web to try and resolve I invariably check out a few forums where there have been discussions. I don't join them. Anyone researching home recording subjects will pull up this site fairly early in the results.
The concept of a home recording forum is antiquated at best. What information is on here or any other recording forum that can't be found on Youtube, Reddit, or another social media site? There needs to be more than just threads about mic placement and tube selection to retain visitors. Like an off topic forum that builds a community of users AROUND the HOBBY. A place where people can congregate and get to know each other outside of this hobby. A place where those users can speak freely and really get together and know each other.It still seems very high to me. Let's say 100 of the 138 are real live visitors. Why wouldn't they want to register? Are they scared?
I'm really starting to like this ^^ guy. He gets it.I just checked a guitar forum that I frequent and here's the breakdown:
2,493 total
262 members
1,947 guests
284 robots
guitar forum rate = 262/2493 = 10.5% member rate
Home Recording forum = 5/138 = 3.6% member rate and that seems awfully low.
....or something.The concept of a home recording forum is antiquated at best. What information is on here or any other recording forum that can't be found on Youtube, Reddit, or another social media site? There needs to be more than just threads about mic placement and tube selection to retain visitors. Like an off topic forum that builds a community of users AROUND the HOBBY. A place where people can congregate and get to know each other outside of this hobby. A place where those users can speak freely and really get together and know each other.
And maybe on occasion, that has led to real life events for those users to get together and play music and enjoy each others company while camping over the course of a weekend. Annually. In a central location for users to fly in from literally all over the world to connect with the people in that off topic forum that we used to talk to every day and make each other laugh hysterically without being overly moderated into oblivion. So much so that new users can't even grasp the concept of that idea because any part of what that off topic forum used to be has been erased from the internet completely.
In theory.
I think the real question to ask is why people LEAVE this forum.......not so much why they don't join. I'm sure that there have been more than enough initial sign-ups to say that the retention rate might be the problem.
I have my opnion on that......but it would not be welcome I'm sure.
I know, right? But it's an unanswerable question and will remain a mystery forever. There's just no way to know.I think the real question to ask is why people LEAVE this forum.......not so much why they don't join.
They are snobs. They were so proud to have 16 Avalon 737's, 8 Bricasti reverb's, and over 150 guitars too.I browse GearSlutz.... er GearSpace all the time, have never signed up. There are some interesting threads on there occasionally. I find too much of it is over top.
This is a thread about member retention. And off topic forums are by their very nature not about recording. And there is still the same vitriol as ever but if I had to guess it would align with the mod team's vitriol now. But you know that. Also, there's WAY less members to converse with now. And that's true in the off topic and on topic forums. But you know that, too.HR is now much less a place of discussion and social interaction than it was ten years ago. It is still a place where you can get useful answers to recording questions. However, those who enjoy the adrenalin rush of vigorous pff-topic debates are probably better going to sites dedicated to that, rather than one focused on recording.