What Does It Mean

[carolinarider09]

Ok,   I am relatively new here.  If you click on my "handle" you will see March 2, 2019 and the number of posts as 970.

This seems reasonable to me.  I have not been overly active but have been more active since I retired (yes I guess I have more free time).  And I may have had a  previous handle since my 2003 Valkyrie was new to me in 2003 and I must have found some information here because of some of the changes I made.   

So, in recent months, I have been interested in the responses of some "newbies". And by newbies I mean people who I have not seen posting before in the General Board section. 

So, what does it mean when I see a poster with a join date of sometime in 2011 but who has the a similar number of posts as I do?  Is that a problem with board statistics?  Have they been uninterested in the board for that last eight or nine years? 

Or what if the join date is sometime in 2009 and only has 79 posts.  Has that person simply been off line for 10 years? 

[scooperhsd]

In my experiance of Internet forums like this, you see a core group with long experiance / lots of posts, a group that may have long experiance but relatively few posts, and newbies who ask a quick question or two then bug out.

I would consider myself among the first group, as well as you, old2soon. Jess, DDT, and some others (and if I didn't include you it is not intentional / not to be taken as a slight ).

Lots of people in group 2 are the type that come here to read, and once in a while, something inspires them to post.

I call alot of group 3 the "Hit and run" - they ask some questions , get their answers, then we never hear from them again. Sometimes they are so rude as to delete their posts / threads (if the moderator lets them) - a practice I'm not too happy about - I feel that all questions should be left as a reference for history / so other people can benefit from the question being asked. I also feel that they should at least acknowledge the help they have been given, but most of this group is grab and go.

[Willow]

We have a lot of members who seldom post but regularly view the board some without even bothering to login.  The board can be viewed without signing on but requires a member be signed on to post.  We have a lot of members who only occasionally come to the board.  We have some members who post often but don't bother even reading sometimes other posts in the same thread.

a long membership time and a low post count doesn't really mean anything specifically as it could be the result of several different behaviors.

[carolinarider09]

Willow,

I had forgotten about the viewing and not being logged on. 

Thanks for the reminder. 

[grandpaweaver]

I'm one of those who doesn't post much but comes here a lot just to read. I've found I get more up to date news here than anywhere else

[carolinarider09]

Grandpaweaver:

Thanks for that information.  And I had to look up Isaiah 41:10.  Good verse. 

Thanks again. 

Sometimes, the only way to find the answer to a question is to ask it.