33,000...

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Over 33,000 who signed up,

Visitors usually outnumber members three to one.

That means most do not post, who do view, and the same for Members,

That gets up to 150,000 who have viewed the site at least once.

The growth rate for members seems to be doubling in less than a year,

So half have been recently active.

Visitors have been a constant, three times members on line, and on line now grows at the membership rate, it was close to 1,000 a few days ago.

Following the growth curve, there will soon be over 1,000 on line now, most reading.

That is a very large readership.

Considering the 24/7 nature of the place, the time zones covered, Online now could turn over four or more times a day, which could be 4,000 member and visitor visits a day.

That is over a hundred logons an hour and people come to read, so they stay for a while.

That is a very high rate of service for an obscure mental state known in 1% of the population,

The best known autism clinic, Tony Attwood's Hearts and Minds, might have a hundred visits a week, Alex provides that level of service every hour, 24/7.

So viewing it for what it is, it is the World's largest information source about Autism.

Ok, round 2 of the numbers game...

Total Accounts: 33,513
Total Accounts with 0 posts: 14,986
Total Accounts with >2 posts: 15,213

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2004: 813 accounts
2005: 2287 accounts
2006: 4944 accounts
2007: 7586 accounts
2008: 7880 accounts
2009: 8559 accounts
2010: 1467 accounts (as of 02/23/2010; trending towards ~9800 for 2010)
(these figures show all accounts during that calendar year)

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Will continue to play with the numbers more later.


M.

I think the best estimate of active members would be based on, say, who has posted in the past week, month, or half-year. But I obviously don't have that data, and I don't know if the mods/admin here have any way of getting it either.

I'm sure there is an admin-level report, but that's not something I have access to... plus it takes away from the fun of generating numbers.

Total number of accounts: 33,513
Total number of accounts with 0 posts: 14,986
Total number of accounts with 1 or fewer posts: 18,300
Total number of accounts with 2 or more posts: 15,213

Roughly 45.4% of all users have two or more posts, so I'm going to reference this later when attempting to project a final guestimate.

The last time I ran the numbers, I discarded these individuals who had less than two posts. However, given the number of first posts I've seen in the past 3 months alone from accounts that were created 2-4 years ago, I can't discount this value in figuring a total number. However, I don't think it's a considerable amount either - for the sake of argument, we'll say that roughly 5% of these individuals are actual lurking members and not either spammers, duplicate accounts, or sheer clutter.

5% of 18,300: 915

Now, I need some percentages of total growth by year in order to better refine that information - for that, I'll use the number of total accounts created by year to get an idea of what percentage of WP's total membership joined in that calendar year.

2004: 2.4%
2005: 6.8%
2006: 14.9%
2007: 22.6%
2008: 23.2%
2009: 25.5%
2010: 4.6% YTD

(All relative to that date in February)

So "silent" users by year...

2004: 22
2005: 62
2006: 136
2007: 207
2008: 212
2009: 234
2010: 42

In my initial figuring, I used an attrition rate of 50% per year - or 1 / [2^(x-y)] where x is the current year and y is the year being analyzed. This gives the following percentages of members considered "lost" from the current year moving backwards: 0%, 50%, 75%, 87.5% 93.7%, 96.9%, 98.4%, 99.3%, and so forth. At some point, there will be a few who defy the numbers, and some who return that will further skew the actual figures.

42 + 117 + 53 + 26 + 9 + 2 + 1 = 250 active silent users

Seems a reasonable figure, would welcome suggestions as to how to better refine that.

Now let's apply those same percentages to the total number of accounts created during those calendar years:

1467 + 4280 + 1970 + 948 + 309 + 71 + 13 = 9058

And let's not forget that 45.4% from earlier, when we figured the number of members who had two or more posts - a seemingly acceptable standard for defining an 'active' member thus far.

45.4% of 9058 = 4112

Previously we discarded 20% of these accounts as being either hyperactive trolls or super spammers. I think that percentage is on the high side, to be honest - perhaps 10% would be a more accurate figure, one out of every ten, when looking for a realistic number.

90% of 4112 = 3701

...and we add the 'silent' users, and we get... *drum roll*

3951 members who are "active" on WrongPlanet, whether they are posting or not. If we go back to the original 20% of those with two or more posts aren't legitimate, then the total is 3540. Either way, when we look at the number of individuals online ranging from 350 to 800 at any given point in the day, that seems to be a figure within the realm of possibility.


M.

Forgot the summary. Using the figures available at the time...

* 33,513 total accounts.
* We have chosen 2 or more posts as the defining line between someone who was active for at least a period of time on WP, and those who signed in perhaps once and are not considered to be 'valid' for the purposes of this examination.
* Total number of accounts with 0 posts: 14,986
* Total number of accounts with 1 or fewer posts: 18,300
* Total number of accounts with 2 or more posts: 15,213
* Of those with less than two posts, we assessed that approximately 5% of that number should be considered as viable silent contingent, based on the number of first posts recently from accounts that are 2-3 years old.
* Of those with 2 or more posts, we assessed that 20% of that total were active trolls and virulent spammers.
* Over the years, we used an annually compounding 50% attrition rate, where half the remaining number drop off over time.
* Rough estimate of 3,951 "active" members under the conditions applied above.


M.

Getting back to the original topic and in light of what you have extrapolated here.
I think 33000 is not a membership to be excited about. It is kinda meaningless and telephone figures and doesn't mean a lot to me.
Close on 4000 real members? I will tell you what that means to me.
I am a member of a lot of board which have a strong member base. They could probably boast to similar calculation given them a real membership of maybe 60.
60 people posting regularly is a bloody active forum and in no means quiet.
How does 4000 stack up to 60?
I think you see where I may be coming from here. 33000 = meh, whatever.
4000 real members = wow.

33,000 is a milestone, a marker - it's McDonald's "Over A Billion Burgers Sold" in a way. To some people, the 33,000 is a more important figure since it shows growth over time. I personally agree about the active numbers being the more impressive - 4,000 individuals is about the size of the larger high schools that I taught music at in years past. Therefore I have a physical marker that I can correlate to that figure, and it's astonishing. And what I think is curious is that the same sort of divisions that were observable as a teacher in that mixed environment still exist here in an ASD-laden environment, just with more common features. There are still cliques, social strata and all the rest. That was a startling realization, to be honest. But yes, that much activity is something to be proud of. Do you have any feedback on the methods or percentages used to enhance accuracy? As I said before, I'd like to find an equation that I can use moving forward to continue with these projections over time.


M.

It seems that there is a core group of people who consistently post, these form the bulk of the userbase. There certainly aren't 33,000 people who USE the site, but there are quite a lot of us. Currently 541 online.

Many people do join and then ask if we think they have AS, then they leave. That in itself would take the space of a few thousand memberships I think.

I can't be bothered writing more, I'm tired and sick, and irritable.