[Sniper]

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These post counts are cool, but as has been discussed they are flawed in some ways. The view counts was also a good idea, and while it does give different info it is also flawed. Assuming no limitations, what do people think the best overall stat in determining a forum's popularity would be? Number of unique visitors per day?

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MEb, I don't think its correct to say that the data is flawed. Post counts (gathered over about a year and half) and view counts (once we see good data collected over a reasonable time period) are useful in providing information about usage of 2+2.

Certainly if we had access to "unique visitors by forum" data, it would also provide useful information.

But, as Neil pointed out, the real issue is in defining what you mean by popularity.

Post Counts represent Posting Popularity.
View Counts represent Avg Viewing Popularity.
Unique Visitors represents Unique Visitor Popularity.
# of members represents Membership Popularity.

Just to give you an idea, 2+2 is ranked on big-boards (out of almost 2,000 forums tracked):
#63 by posts
#429 by members
#38 in posts last week
#430 on post per member ratio
#17 in unique daily visitors
#8 in daily page views
#13 in avg users online
#13 in max online users
#107 by Alexa ranking

So which is the most important in defining 2+2's popularity among the tracked forums? [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Answer: they are all important, each in their own way.