Why are there now only 6659 registered users? I though the number was in the 12,000's or 21,000 around a week ago. Does this have to do with the new email notification, because I never got anything.

Maybe a sweep of non-posters during the last year? In that case, why???

What's the difference Really?
How many people do you see post regularly? 100? Less?

There are lots of sites that advertise xxx Members but the reality is that is the total number of registrations they have had since the site began. That could be nearly a decade ago with some of the early starters and you would probably find only a minute percentage of first year members are still active in any way.

I used to frequent a particular site/forum that was free then decided to charge the people that made it anything a fee to participate. The site was basically a business contact facility but the greatest majority of the overall membership was old profiles taking up space and making it harder to find current members. The admins made all sorts of excuses for non deletion of the old profiles but then the site was sold and advertising splashed all over it. Obviously the didn't want to delete the dead wood because they could count that as their membership which would give a higher sale price and space rate for the advertisers.

Not surprisingly the site is all but dead and the people that paid for life membership are getting a lot less benefit than every one enjoyed when the site was free and people didn't have a financial barrier to contributing to help others.

Membership numbers are irrelevant.
It's the spirit of the site that matter and the willingness of people to help others and share their experiences. A handfull of regular contributors is a whole load better than 10,000 people who only ever watch and that's it.

quote:

A handfull of regular contributors is a whole load better than 10,000 people who only ever watch and that's it.

That depends on what the goal is.

If the goal is to provide a source of information to as many as possible then it is better if lots of individuals are "watching". I don't know what the goal might be if only those posting really count.

It could be (joking, of course) all of Tilly's alias got deleted.

Seriously...

quote:

I don't know what the goal might be if only those posting really count.

IMO, both count.

The goal of the posters might be to exchange info. One person may have good info in one area, while another may have good info in a different area. On the BD side, this is clearly the case. Someone may have questions about conversion with low methanol or 3/27 for me, acid base for dkenny, building bigger processors for fabricator or murphy, small commercial scale stuff for kumar, eductor use for jamersl or rick, biopro for graydon, etc. (sorry to the great posters I have left out, these are just examples that come to mind at the moment.) Personally, since my interest is more hobby than commercial or advocate, I value the forum for the ability to exchange info with people who have or need info in one area or another.

It is also great to be able to discuss new ideas. Recently, the use of wood chips comes to mind.

It was more than likely a cleanup of members who have not logged on in four years or something like that.

quote:

It was more than likely a cleanup of members who have not logged on in four years or something like that.

Very likely.

The number of registered members changed when I set it so only registrations who have confirmed their email addresses are counted as registered members.

Every now and than I also delete registered members who have never posted and not logged into the site in over a year.

Shaun

I keep track of stuff through the email digest. Could it be possible to send out a warning before
dumping people??? I know I would appreciate the warning.
thanks
al