Weird little observation (and a question) about the Warrior Forum . . .

I'm a little surprised no one has questioned this. If the forum stats say 1000 people are viewing the WSO subforum, and 650 people are viewing the Main Forum, that should be accurate. There are more people viewing WSOs than the main discussion.

What is the forum software doing?

Counting someone twice if they spend twice as long in the main forum and write a post?

Counting someone as half a person if they have spent less than a minute in a forum?

Without question, the main forum while necessarily get more posts and 'action', but I see that as a different issue from how many people are perusing different parts of the forum at any given time.

I always thought of this as an instant snapshot - at the moment you're visiting a forum home page the software is listing the number of other current visitors.

Not using some easy to manipulate statistical algorithm that can fudge the statistics.

I suppose one could visit, leave their computer on, and come back the next day. Not sure how the forum software counts that during the day.

But if the WSO subforum's numbers appear inflated, wouldn't that imply for the other subforums with lesser numbers that those lesser numbers are also inflated?

Basically, don't you hate it when it turns out something you've been taking at face value turns out differently? And a lot more complicated?

Sashas, that doesn't prove anything. It only proves that more people are posting in the main forum than on the WSO forum.

There could easily be a ton of people simply reading on the WSO forum and not posting. Which actually makes sense when you think about the purpose of both forums.

I think of the WSO as the shopping section, or "store," while the main discussion forum represents the public gathering area outside the store where people are sitting in chairs and chatting.

Maybe not the best analogy, but that's what came to mind.

David, that's the way I look at it, too. And that's why I wondered by the numbers wouldn't be reversed . . . but then it shouldn't be surprising at all.

And given what is contained in the War Room, probably an even better question is, How come 90% of the forum traffic isn't in THERE? (Including me at this moment!)

There was an earlier question about why this is important. Here are my thoughts:

There was another thread a couple months ago where people were trying to figure out how many people join the forum each day. I believe the best guess was about 200. Of course, that was based on numbers publicly reported by the forum software.

That's a lot of fresh people so its a good reminder that even though some 'old timers' have seen the same questions a thousand times over the years, it's still new to so many people. It also means these are new people who have never seen your sig line, so it is worth posting even if you feel like you've provided that same information before.

Assuming, of course, you feel like you have something valuable to offer.

But then the question is, where are these new people? If they are all hanging out in the programming subforum then you could bet I would be making more posts in the programming subforum.

If they are mainly in the WSO subforum that also tells me a lot. Are people looking for general information in the main forum? Or are they looking to buy? (Not that this is exclusive as much info in the main forum is better than some WSOs.)

Assume I want to sell something. Should I pay to post a WSO, or should I just post in the main forum and let people read my sig? (Again, not mutually exclusive.)

If I post a WSO, is my potential audience really the number being listed by the forum software, or is it much less because statistics are manipulated due to time spent, postings, etc.? To me, anyway, the validity of those numbers is important.

Apparently, the WSO subforum is as popular as the forum software is reporting. And, it is the most popular forum of its type on the net.

The numbers also tell me the relative important other people assign to different topics. For instance, twice as many people right now are viewing the Adsense / PPC forum as the Mind Warriors forum.

If I wanted to help out more Warriors, I would probably want to consider PPC issues as opposed to mind exercises - even though my personal belief is that mental issues are what ultimately differentiate the bank accounts of Warriors - not who knows the most PPC tricks.