Subject:
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Re: BZP hits 7,000th member-Lugnet is lagging behind.
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Sat, 31 May 2003 18:45:31 GMT
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Viewed:
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811 times
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In lugnet.general, Mark Papenfuss wrote:
> So what? Sorry Dave, you are just coming off as bitter here.
I'm sorry you feel that way, but it was not the intent. My intent was
primarily to point out that this was an apples/oranges comparison, and also to
help defuse another Brick Vs. Bionicle argument before it could happen. I
figured if people could see that there's not such a huge difference in the
number of people who post to the two groups, they might not see this as a reason
to harbor resentment for the popularity of Bionicle (or at least no more than
usual). Comparing paid LUGNET memberships to free BZP sign-ups (including those
who don't even post to the BZP forums) is a faulty way of looking at the
situation, and it makes the scales appear to tip a lot more than they actually
do. And if you guys always respond in this manner to any mention of BZP that
isn't consistently glowingly positive, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that
there's not really any positive sentiment for anything Bionicle related here
anymore.
> And yes, it _is_ one of, if not the most popular Lego site out there - and
> yes even more popular than.... Mask Of Destiny (gasp!). Would it have been
> that hard for you to pass up this post without taking pot-shots at another
> site that just happens to draw your visitors away from your site?
Um, pot-kettle-black? Last I checked, this thread had nothing to do with
MoD, which doesn't even have a forum at present. I certainly didn't bring it
up...
> And really - do you really have to post to be part of the community? Of couse
> not, to suggest that is just silly. So saying we have memebrs that never
> posted is not really saying anything afterall.
Saying that you have the most popular forum because you have 7000 members
is misleading. It suggests that you have 7000 people actively participating in
your forums. I have yet to see a response that actually comes forward and
states clearly how many people do actually post instead of skirting around the
issue, much as you just did. To be fair, I'd failed to consider the likelihood
that there are people who sign up for free LUGNET accounts without ever posting,
but there aren't nearly as many reasons to do so with LUGNET as there are with
BZP.
I saw Rich point out that you deal with duplicate accounts when it comes to
voting in MOC contests, but there was no answer to my question as to whether
you can guarantee that there aren't people who create duplicate accounts just to
increase their chances in the random giveaways. Given the percentage of current
BZP members who signed up just for the Rahkshi giveaway, I'd be shocked and
amazed if there wasn't at least one instance of this, but I've only heard about
it being discovered in regards to contest voting.
> You see what I am saying here?
Yes, but I also see what you're not saying.
> You are so far off here it is funny. No matter what age group you aim for
> there will always be people that post just because they like the sound of
> thier fingers hitting the keyboard.
Who said this has anything to do with age? All I'm saying is that if there
are rewards for posting, you'll see an increase in the number of posts that
people make. Some of them will be relevent, but a lot of them won't, and my
experience was that only the most blatant of count-boosting posts got dealt
with. Considering the amount of discussion that revolves solely around the
reward structure, you can't honesty tell me that you believe there aren't any
BZP members who start looking around for threads to contribute to when they get
close to the next post-count level.
> We have it here on Lugnet, it happens on Bricklink's forums - and neither one
> of them have a "cookie" reward for getting to the next level of post count
> rank. So what if the kids like to get new ranks? Is it actually hurting
> anybody? Does it mean BZP is not as popular as it looks? The answer is no.
If they're posting just to get new ranks, how well does that represent the
popularity of the forum in general?
> And what does post count have to do with the total amount of memebs anyway?
Everything. If one person makes 100 posts on Forum A, and 50 people all
make only one post on Forum B, does that still mean Forum A is more popular just
because there are twice as many posts? Without getting a clear answer on how
many people actually post on BZP, the total post count is a highly inaccurate
means of measuring forum popularity.
> And I noticed you failed to mention that we do regular sweeps to clean out
> non-active memebrs.
Actually, I didn't. I just figured there was a high likelihood that dead
accounts might still be counted in the total member tally. It's simpler for
software to move on to the next consecutive number than it is to go back and
reuse dead ID numbers, and if the official membership tally involved just
looking at the highest ID number, you'd be counting every dead or banned
account, no matter how regularly you cleaned them out. When you say that you
have 1000 members and that Joe Somebody is your 1000th member (and I do remember
something like that happening), it does kinda suggest that no more than 999
people have previously signed up for memberships, including people who might not
still be around.
> The filter is set on certian guidelines and every so often the dead accounts
> get cleaned out.
So how does that affect the people who sign up just to enter the giveaways?
> And every site has lots of memebrs that sign up and never post. I am sure
> Lugnet has a ton of them,
I'm sure LUGNET gets a lot less than BZP. There's less incentive to do so.
> By saying BZP has them and thus skews how popular BZP really is is nothing
> more than pure bitterness.
Saying that your forum is popular because of members that don't actually
use it is nothing more than pure misrepresentation.
> You know, it is you that compared the members on Lugnet to the members on
> BZP - but do you know that had nothing to do with Alex's post?
Really? So the fact that he said LUGNET is lagging behind in membership
means what exactly? Sounds a lot like he's comparing the number of LUGNET
members with the number of BZP members to me...
> All Alex wanted was to see if Todd could do something to try to "improve
> posting and membership." In fact, here is the point of his post:
>
> "I was thinking that Lugnet should make a few changes which would improve
> posting and membership."
Could it be that he's concerned with the idea that a forum dealing with one
single theme is seeing more action than a forum dealing with all LEGO in
general? I think he probably is, and rightly so. I am. Aren't you? Everyone
who cares about LEGO should be concerned. TLC should be even more concerned.
If one single theme is accounting for half or more of their total appeal, what
happens when the bubble bursts? What happens when the customer base moves on to
some other non-LEGO IP? I'm not saying that it'll happen for sure, but if TLC
isn't considering that possibility, it could be catastrophic if it does happen.
It's fine for Bionicle to be more popular than any other theme, but not more
popular than all other themes combined.
On a smaller level, the whole Bricks Vs. Bionicle thing is unhealthy for
the LEGO community in general. The people on both sides are missing out on a
lot of great building potential, both in regards to MOCs and the community in
general.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: BZP hits 7,000th member-Lugnet is lagging behind.
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| (...) But why? The original post had nothing to do with what you replied to. You just took his post as an invite to bonk BZP on the head. And for what? Was it really to "help defuse another Brick Vs. Bionicle argument before it could happen"? I (...) (21 years ago, 1-Jun-03, to lugnet.general)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: BZP hits 7,000th member-Lugnet is lagging behind.
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| (...) -snip- (...) So what? Sorry Dave, you are just coming off as bitter here. BZP is a great place to hang out. And yes, it _is_ one of, if not the most popular Lego site out there - and yes even more popular than.... Mask Of Destiny (gasp!). (...) (21 years ago, 29-May-03, to lugnet.general)
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