What percentage of your forum's posts are yours?

Discussion in 'Managing Your Online Community' started by Peace, Jul 8, 2013.

  1. Peace

    Peace Regular Member

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    If you divide your own post count by your forum's total post count (not threads), what percentage do you end up with? I get 0.055, or 5.5%

    This sounds about right to me. It used to be higher in the beginning, but I imagine all forum owners need to get things started with some content.

    What about you? And once you get your result, do you think it is high or low? Should admins drive a large percentage of their community's content?
     
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  2. ProSportsForums

    ProSportsForums Regular Member

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    In the beginning the percentage is always extraordinarily high. Forums require content. Administrators typically have to supply said content at least until forum forum is sustainable. I don't stop creating content when the forums are sustainable. I simply focus more on quality and less on quantity. The site I am currently working on has over 500 forums. I can't possibly fill all of them with anything other than either crap or RSS feeds, which are also largely crap. So, I focus on what I care about and let the inmates run the asylum elsewhere. I am responsible for somewhere in the neighborhood of one of every 5,000 posts on that forum. On the largest site I administrate, there are over 500,000 active members every NFL Sunday. My percentage of content compared with that forum is negligible. One in every 50,000 posts or so is mine. That's fine. Mine is generally on the front page while the rest of it is buried in the forums.
     
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  3. petertdavis

    petertdavis Old Timer

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    Fun question. On CoinTalk.com, my post count is 4,590, and the total posts are 1,742,876. So, something like 0.26% of the posts are mine. On my forums, I try to find the "sweet zone" between having the forum revolve around me and still being an important part of the community. I don't want to have the forum dependent on me for keeping the activity going, in my opinion that is not a healthy community. But, on the other hand, I'm doing these forums because I enjoy the topic and I want to be a part of the community too. It's harder especially just starting out, sometimes questions will come up that I know I could answer and could jump in real quick to respond but I'll hold back to let other people have a chance to answer it because I want other people to feel involved. I think when your forum is really small, it's important to keep threads going but if your personally responsible for more than about 5% of the posts you probably should spend more time recruiting members who will help you out with keeping discussions going. After you hit critical mass, it's easier and more of a matter of not letting your ego ruin what you've built.
     
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  4. Sylvain

    Sylvain Regular Member

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    Excellent post.

    That's my problem, I like when members' questions are quickly answered. Most of the time, I jump on the question and answer it. I should let others members reply to create more engagement
     
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  5. petertdavis

    petertdavis Old Timer

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    If you have specific members you're trying to engage more, it might help to ask them directly if they'd answer questions from new members, ie send them a link to the post you want them to reply to. The potential side effect of that being that you could create a clique of a few members who dominate the conversations.
     
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  6. petertdavis

    petertdavis Old Timer

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    Oh, and the tagging feature in XF 1.2 is great for this kind of thing. For example, I'm wondering what @Brandon might say on this topic. :)
     
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  7. Shawn Gossman

    Shawn Gossman Regular Member

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    I can say that most of the topics on my forum are from me. Some days I have posted more than 100 topics. I do try to post less new topics and more replies though now in an attempt to mix things up here and there. However, it doesn't matter to me. As long as people are replying to my topics, I am happy. :)
     
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  8. iPhonefreak

    iPhonefreak Regular Member

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    I have 21% of my forums overall posts.
     
  9. Superboy

    Superboy Most Likely, I'm Insane.

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    We have nearly 280,000 post so out of that only 20,000 are mine. Iam third highest poster
     
    Last edited: Jul 10, 2013
  10. cpvr

    cpvr Regular Member

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    We have 168k posts and I'm the top poster with 23k posts. How many posts does your top poster have?
     
  11. Superboy

    Superboy Most Likely, I'm Insane.

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    I think she is 40,00 posts and the 2nd highest has like 28-32K

    then there is me at 20K
     
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  12. Peace

    Peace Regular Member

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    Hey Micah, I think I remember you from AW a long time ago :) Nice to bump into you again - your forum looks great!
     
  13. BlckBrd103

    BlckBrd103 Regular Member

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    I'm into the 30% range right now, I've got about 550 posts out of nearly 3,000, I'm the second top poster on the forum, while the member with most posts is at nearly 600 posts. So I'd say roughly 30% if not less are actually my posts.
     
  14. thebrad

    thebrad Regular Member

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    Around 20% or so probably a bit less really, i have about 90 posts although most of them came from announcements and help so i don't just spam my own forum mad like some people actually do i do like being active on my forum but not to active as it seems people will look at the forum and think the owner is the only active user.
     
  15. Zerth

    Zerth Regular Member

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    Hmm interesting question, I currently get like 10% which are mine. When the forum first started I used to post a lot, now that it's growing, I don't need to post anymore, I can just let people do it ;]
     
  16. cpvr

    cpvr Regular Member

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    That's the spirit. I love posting on my community though and getting to know my members the most. I take breaks sometimes especially on weekends, so its always nice to return to an active forum. Once the users decide to post a lot, the forum grows more.
     
  17. Superboy

    Superboy Most Likely, I'm Insane.

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    AW(Absolute write)? :)

    And thank you so much!
     
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  18. NotoriousMK

    NotoriousMK Regular Member

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    Mine's at 12.84%
     
  19. cpvr

    cpvr Regular Member

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    How many posts does your community currently have?
     
  20. benjaminp

    benjaminp Regular Member

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    I'm at 10.22% currently. Not such a high number that I feel too concerned, but still greater than most people who've posted here.
     

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