Do I have a small community?
 

Hey...

I've been thinking about this as I've been reading up and I'd like some feedback. BTW, Hi... I haven't introduced myself -- I tend to get carried away and just THROW myself into stuff.

Anyway. Just out of curiousity, what is considered a small community? I have a small membership (24 members, about 15 very active members). We've been up and running for just short of 2 months. We have about 13,500 posts.

I've noticed that my server load averages are higher than I've read they should be and I have a relatively small shared server. I'm trying to plan for the future and wondering if I'm underestimating the volume of posts and focusing too much on the small membership.

Is this normal or do I really have a higher volume board than I should for this number of members?

Thats alot of post from so few members. While you may not have many members, at least more than half are active and going by the number of posts and the time the board has been open you have done very well.

As for the server load, it depends on the other sites that share the server, its quite posible that its not your site generating a higher than normal load, or that the server specs a low.

Assuming that the majority of the posts have "real" content and are not just SPAM or other useless posts then its all good IMO, otherwise it could put members off thinking its just a site with a bunch of people posting mindless rubish, you'll be the best one to judge this :)

Oh... LOL... well. We are private and invite-only.. so any spam is spam between friends. :)

It's good to know that it might not be my site messing with the server load -- cause it's way wrong.

Try contacting your host, they should be able to identify the site thats causing the load and hopefully stop it :)

You're lucky. My forum has been up for 2 weeks and I got 40 members but only about 10 are active :(

This was kinda a ready-made community of friends who have been chatting for months and some for almost 2 years. I think we might just be more chatty than your average new board because we know each other.

I wasn't sure at all whether we had more posts than normal so I figured I should ask. :)

I feel my board will never grow :(

course your board will cat, it just takes time, my biggest problem was no one wanted to invite their friends because they felt like they'd cramp their style/take the ++++/too immature/too mature/didn't use the net :shrug: endless excuses, as times gone on i've taken the board more and more seriously and the members have really grown, new ppl coming all the time, everyone tries recruiiting, it's really good at the moment, minus the bad attitude of a few of the older members and mods, but that's being sorted, it's just a matter of persisting and spamming the url about ;) the ppl that join your board and stick around will be there cos they like it and a regular is worth 10 signups any day.

MaDCat what sabret00the says is right , it take time to build up membership.

I started my forum with phpbb back in late january with about 10 members , beggining of feb i had 20 members so i got vB. Now i have 210 members only 90 odd are partially active & i have 20 members that post a lot. I would keep the 20 rather than have 1000 that dont post.

Considering im targeting the uk Bride audience im doing very well with 1,434 Threads And 13,666 Posts. And the post/threads only date back to march/april time cos i pruned a load.

AndreaBash,

You are currently showing up as unlicensed. To be able to download hacks and/or receive support here at vBulletin.org, we ask you to please click here (vB-germany users click here) and enter your email address, to show us that you are licensed.

You will need to use your customer number and password (which will be in the email you got when you paid for your license) to access that page. Please note that your email is case sensitive.

Thank you.

Goodness. You guys are fast. I just changed my e-mail address yesterday and didn't know I needed to enter it in the form. My other e-mail is temporarily down.

Anyway... I guess I am in a weird position. I want my forum to grow -- but just a little. I think we use our board for a very different purpose than most of you guys do.

We discuss every new member and how they will fit in with the group before we invite them. We turn down people who join without an invitation.

I'm just hoping that we will get to stay on my small server, because I really can't afford to upgrade to a dedicated server and I don't have enough members to share the cost. Another community I visit was forced to upgrade to dedicated based on their CPU usage -- and they were only able to afford it because a single member gave a $1,000 donation (and they have 5 times the active members that we do).

You're now showing up as licensed :)

- miSt

Im seconding that Lee, Thats VERY good.

So Andrea, whats your secret?

LOL. Like I mentioned, we all knew each other from other communities and have been chatting for a long time. It's not like I went out and advertised. I just happened to luck into a group of people who really enjoy the message board format for chat. I didn't really DO anything.. just invited them and they came. :)

When mine first opened I realy wanted to grow, but as I watched numbers slowly move. I found hacks lmao.

Now they trickle in about 5 a week, 221 members last I looked.

I always said if I hit 100 I would be happy and I am. I have about 30 active members per day who atleast look at the board.

I may buy a vb tonight and start another site. And work more on my current toy (perosnals)