Lurkers and Drop-ins: Some new data

Post by **sensei** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 7:37 pm

I'm working on making the rough draft shareable, and now can report that I've gotten twenty-six surveys back from Beta members, some quite lengthy in their responses. I feel bad that I can't quote all of them in detail, but I find that they show consensus on most fronts so that those who participated can feel confident that their ideas will be represented.

I've also gotten clearances to use material from all but two members, both people I'm quoting from a historical thread and who are not currently active. I can likely finesse these points and paraphrase their general points ("a usually reliable source close to Sailor Moon told this investigator...") without violating privacy. So I should have something for people to browse by the end of the week.

Meantime, I wanted to pass on an interesting result that I got when I took a series of "snapshots" of daily activity over a 9-day period.

1) From 3/11 to 3/20, daily visitations by registered members in 24-hour periods varied pretty evenly from 47 to 63, with the low point coming on a Tuesday and the high point coming on a Thursday. Average was 55 members visiting per day.

2) When I did some checking on who was doing the visiting, though, I found it was not the same 55 people coming back over and over. In fact, 102 different registered members visited at least once during the nine days. (That's over 10% of all the people who have ever registered at Anime-Beta since April 2002.)

3) Thirty-five members showed up every day or nearly so (7-9 times) during the week: 25 "Keys" (registered 2002-2005), four "Ibbys" (2006-2008), six "Newbies" (2009-last week). About a third of the total.

4) Forty members showed up just once, twice, or three times: 20 "Keys," 14 "Ibbys," 5 "Newbies." More than a third.

5) The remaining 28, who stopped in about every other day (4-6 times) were the most diverse bunch: eleven "Keys," ten "Ibbys," seven "Newbies."

6) And, when I looked more closely, it was pretty clear that the frequency of visits was not at all related to the overall number of posts generated. Some Keys who'd made over a thousand posts in their Beta membership just stopped by once, then silently moved on. Several people, Keys, Ibby, and Newbies, visited every day without posting.

So what I'm seeing (and about to add to the draft) is that the Beta community is a lot more diverse than just those of us who are putting up comments all the time. I'll need to do a little more bean-counting, but I'm right now guesstimating that there's a bunch of about 20 of us "regulars" (here nearly all the time, regularly making noise), plus a much bigger group of about 40 "occasionals" who stop by every other day to twice a week, mostly check out the posts, and every once in a while add a reply.

Then I'm guessing that there's an even bigger, less definable cloud of "lurkers" and "drop-ins," some who visit as often as every day and some as infrequently as once a month. They are not actively posting, and the only sign of their presence is the automatic record they generate on the site. But they are nevertheless constantly among us.

I got a survey from one person who falls into this category, who was concerned that s/he was not as productive a Beta member because s/he tended to visit just to read, rather than to engage in discussions. Yet it seems to me that this large a number of lurkers and drop-ins is a good sign rather than a bad one: it means the site continues to attract interested visitors. Such members watch for sales and gallery offers, which is part of the regular business of Beta, and their hits keep Beta high on the lists generated by search engines like Google, which several Newbies said sparked their first visits to the forum as outsiders.

Overall, I'm trying to get a sense of Beta as a dynamic community rather than just as the sum total of what gets said by the usual 20 people in posts. My thanks to those who helped fill in the picture by filling out questionnaires. And any thoughts on the role of lurkers and drop-ins would be welcomed.

Sky Rat · Post by **Sky Rat** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 10:07 pm

I probably do â€˜drive-bysâ€™ of checking the site without bothering to log in 2-5 times for every time I actually bother to log in. More often than not I just scan the most recent thread titles that are moving in the home-page ticker box.

I have my status set as â€˜hiddenâ€™ though, so itâ€™s just a matter of unknown visitor vs unknown member for showing up in your stats, which probably doesnâ€™t make a huge difference. ^__^;;;

(The reason for this is the same reason I keep my status hidden on all sites, like facebook and gmail chat for exampleâ€¦ because I do most of my internet browsing in brief stints throughout the day while Iâ€™m at workâ€¦which technically I shouldnâ€™t be doing in the first place. I canâ€™t afford for someone to start chatting with me because that would definitely interfere with getting my work done.)

Post by **sensei** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 10:35 pm

I see ... so there may well be even more lurkers than the forum index records. Interesting. In any case it's clear that this is a busier place than at first seems.

misa · Post by **misa** » Mon Mar 21, 2011 11:01 pm

sensei wrote:I see ... so there may well be even more lurkers than the forum index records. Interesting. In any case it's clear that this is a busier place than at first seems.

Yup I lurk as well.

Keropi · Post by **Keropi** » Tue Mar 22, 2011 12:35 am

I don't show up on there either. But the only reason I keep hidden is because someone would PM me (someone no longer here) when they would see my name listed. I didn't have much time to compose a decent reply, but on the other hand I would have felt bad ignoring it.

otakusin · Post by **otakusin** » Tue Mar 22, 2011 2:03 am

I have my status hidden when logged in so that I can pop in without feeling obligated to chat. As I mentioned before I have very little time nowadays, so as much as want to I cannot and rather than be rude I just avoid it altogether. Even so I check Beta every 3-5 days.

Post by **sensei** » Tue Mar 22, 2011 7:38 am

Interesting. I've never chatted (except a couple times with students as part of a planned activity) so I guess this part of the forum's business slipped right past me.

I vaguely remember someone passing on that this habit (or lack of a habit) made me something of a figure of mystery among some Betarians. Gomen: I don't try to be reclusive. But my academic routine didn't make chatting (even with academic friends) a feasible activity during the day, and so when IM became popular, it just didn't seem useful enough to learn.

Ditto with Twitter these days. I do have a Facebook page, again more for academic contacts than for family, friends, and victims, but lately I have not been over on it much.

Thanks for the info. The amount of traffic moving through Beta surprised me, as from the posts one would think that the community is centered on a fairly stable bunch of talky regulars. But now I suspect this is just one of the "centers" in a more complex shape.

syan · Post by **syan** » Tue Mar 22, 2011 5:21 pm

Sky Rat wrote:I probably do â€˜drive-bysâ€™ of checking the site without bothering to log in 2-5 times for every time I actually bother to log in. More often than not I just scan the most recent thread titles that are moving in the home-page ticker box.

Same - if I do a quick check from work or browse via my phone, I don't bother to log in. No need. I can tell what's new based on the latest post timestamps.

cutiebunny · Post by **cutiebunny** » Tue Mar 22, 2011 8:40 pm

I head to Beta at least once a day. Like most people, I don't bother logging in unless I have a pm or want to post a message.

ginga123 · Post by **ginga123** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 1:09 am

i drop in like a rock falling from the sky and post a reply every few wks to a topic. i lurk a lot, visit maybe once or twice a wk if i think about it-- hardly log in when i do do this.

i use facebook at least once a day or every two or three days if i have time. no twitter for me.

i'm always on the go, very busy; if i get a PM or email- i'm likely to forget about it unintentionally. somedays i'm lucky if i get to RS at all to see gallery updates. (heck, i still need to update mine. lol) it is a rare occasion when you see me logged in RS chat; however, i do log into RS every time i visit for good measure.

Quacker · Post by **Quacker** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 2:22 am

I actually 'drop-by' at least once a day during a normal work-week. It is now part of my morning 'ritual' if I use the train to get into work. There is a brief 10minute window of opportunity whereby reception is at its strongest and I am able to download all of the stuff I plan to read for the one hour trip. While this download is proceeding, I head across to the AB website to see what the latest Topics & updates are.
Very rarely do I log-in unless there is a topic I absolutely must participate in. The Internet security at work has been beefed-up quite considerably lately, so much so that I can no longer access AB using a work computer.

Macron one · Post by **Macron one** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 3:37 pm

I visit Anime Beta about 2 or 3 times per day, but only log in if i'm going to post, which i only do when something particularly catches my interest.
The same applies to every forum i check regularly. The forum i've posted in the most is a dutch anime fan forum called Aniway, but even there it's taken me about 5 years for my post count to reach 400.

eyes0nme19 · Post by **eyes0nme19** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 4:03 pm

Drop by two or three times a day, only because it's a part of my routine.
I'm also automatically logged in every time, too lazy to manually log on or off

rosesleep · Post by **rosesleep** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 7:54 pm

At least once per day but I think my visit is coming more regular lately.. at least 2 or 3 times per day? Other days just once.

Post by **sensei** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 10:18 pm

Here's what I tentatively put into my draft:

[quote]Keeping in mind Masonâ€™s observation that the health of the footballersâ€™ forum relied on a mix of active, occasional, and passive participants, I looked at the rates at which those who showed up at the forum on a typical day had made posts. I did indeed find a wide range. Using the siteâ€™s index, I recorded the visitations of registered members for nine consecutive days. The overall numbers varied from 47 to 63, with a mean of 55 members per day. And when I looked more closely at the identities of the visitors, I saw that it was not the same 55 people returning over and over; in fact, 102 different registered members stopped by at least once during the nine days, the proportions closely reflecting that of the overall numbers of keys, inbetweeners, and newbies. Of the 56 key members who checked in, 25 did so on a daily or nearlydaily basis. These people are clearly both regular customers and talkative ones. But a greater number stopped by only occasionally. Most of the visits were silent ones, indicating a social network in which about two dozen members took the lead in generating posts, with about twice that number contributing occasionally, and an even wider, less definable cloud of â€œlurkersâ€