Forum getting too popular?

[Simon]

When we were smaller the quality was higher as there was a higher portion of knowledgeable people.

please send my regard to Hero999 if you happen to meet him. I hope he's doing fine. i dont know how his face looks like but he is a good member.

I'm going to try ringing him tonight, he's not been well for a bit but I think is getting back into electronics more.

[BravoV]

A pic speaks thousand words ... 

Last entry is at 13th March 2013.

[EEVblog]

A pic speaks thousand words ... 
Last entry is at 13th March 2013.

Oops!
I hope the newbies stick around...

Dave.

[BravoV]

Oops!
I hope the newbies stick around...

Dave.

At the comparison on the new posts vs new members chart, it shows your contest is definitely making an effective wake up call for tons of dormant non active members to post.

[madshaman]

Hi, I just found eevblog about a month ago, only joined the forum a few days ago.

I've been reading through recent posts and for my two cents, it's really encouraging to see so many people communicating so enthusiastically about so many projects and subjects.  There seems to be a very low (if non-existent) troll population.  It's fantastic to see people actually *doing* things and showing them.

I can understand if this forum has lost some of its small community feel, but, it could be worse.  I used to op on a few programming channels on irc, after 10 years or so of being MIA, I went back to a group of dead channels, no heated discussion, no personalities, no old friends, pretty much just tumble-weeds (relatively).

I'm also seeing many people like myself who are entering mid-life and getting back into electronics in a major way after maybe only doing it as a kid; makes me feel like less of a freak (maybe that's a bad thing though).  Whatever the case is, Dave's really done the whole world a favour by relentlessly and consistently providing good eevblog content which has attracted so many people to this forum.  I'm sure many people are like myself, when I look to start learning in a new area, I look for a community filled with good people, enthusiastic people who aren't afraid to share their knowledge and who have a lot of real world experience.  It's lets people like myself learn at a breakneck pace and the enthusiasm is infectious.

I certainly plan to stick around.

[Bored@Work]

At the comparison on the new posts vs new members chart, it shows your contest is definitely making an effective wake up call for tons of dormant non active members to post.

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror greed ...

[firewalker]

It was obvious tbh. I even asked Dave to check the statistics (didn't knew it was publicly available).

Alexander.

[grumpydoc]

Oops!
I hope the newbies stick around...

It's clear from the graphs that the current increase in new users started in December and, actually, has dropped back a bit since then. Obviously the contest will have drawn some new users but that largest part seem to have arrived before it started.

I note that there was a similar increase (though smaller) in new users last year around xmas, perhaps new toys has an effect.

Otherwise most of the numbers have steadily been increasing.

There does look to be a sharp peak in posts - no doubt people trying to satisfy the"5 useful posts" rule, but it's hard to see how big it is as it's right at the edge of the graph.

[blewisjr]

A pic speaks thousand words ... 
Last entry is at 13th March 2013.

Oops!
I hope the newbies stick around...

Dave.

I am a newbie that will be sticking around.  I just started electronics as a hobby.  Through some searches I think it was on Multimeters I found your video blog.  Then from your video blog I found your website and then the forums.  I really liked the diversity of your forums covering so many different areas including the one that interests me micro electronics with the use of uC's.  After browsing a bit I really liked the quality of the community it reminds me of another community I frequent called GameDev.net.  The people you have here are of various knowledge levels and each one has a unique input on solving a problem and when they answer they typically answer in a mature fashion.  So because of this I signed up for the forums and here I am.  So far I think I only had one really dumb post in General but my other posts have brought some great in site into what I was trying to understand.  I am here to stay

[rodcastler]

Do the contests have anything to do with this?
After all, they require you to register and post at least 5. I don't know how many contest besides the fluke one have taken place in the past though...

[tld]

I couldn't keep up before reading all the posts, and now it's shifted from simply too hard, to impossible! 

I know you'll probably not read this, since it's impossible to keep up (I've noticed myself), but on the off chance you do...

I'm thinking more categories, to spread the load around.  Don't just have "test gear", but have "multimeters", "oscilloscope", "DIY gear" and so on.  Spread the joy around, and let people more narrowly focus discussions on what's interesting to them.

Same for beginners.  Could be an idea to split into analog, digital mcu and digital other for example, or even more narrow.

I can't possibly keep up with all of beginner, but I'd be more able to follow, help and ask, in an msp430-specific forum section for example.

tld

[blewisjr]

I couldn't keep up before reading all the posts, and now it's shifted from simply too hard, to impossible! 

I know you'll probably not read this, since it's impossible to keep up (I've noticed myself), but on the off chance you do...

I'm thinking more categories, to spread the load around.  Don't just have "test gear", but have "multimeters", "oscilloscope", "DIY gear" and so on.  Spread the joy around, and let people more narrowly focus discussions on what's interesting to them.

Same for beginners.  Could be an idea to split into analog, digital mcu and digital other for example, or even more narrow.

I can't possibly keep up with all of beginner, but I'd be more able to follow, help and ask, in an msp430-specific forum section for example.

tld

I agree but it should not be done as new categories.  Maybe take the main categories and add sub categories to them.  For instance the Beginners forum can be subdivided into Analog, Digital, and MCU for instance.  Most forum software can handle subforums inside a main forum and the main forum becomes where the posts go for topics not covered by the more specialized subforums.

[Bomber18]

At the comparison on the new posts vs new members chart, it shows your contest is definitely making an effective wake up call for tons of dormant non active members to post.

I know it's what finally convinced me to stop being a fly on the wall and get some posts in after lurking for many years.

[peterthenovice]

well the graphs are starting looking very bell shaped,gaussian response

[Frantone]

I know it's a good thing...
But is it just me, or has the volume of posts increased a lot recently?
I now commonly see 3-4 pages of posts when I hit the Unread Posts link, and that's only after like an 8 hour sleep or something.
I couldn't keep up before reading all the posts, and now it's shifted from simply too hard, to impossible! 

Dave.

I just go to the general chat front page to see what's going on - but if volume is a concern then perhaps just expand the number of threads per page to accommodate the increase in new posts?  Honestly I think that if you log on every day you really don't miss anything, but if one were to check in once a week I could see the issue.

[Marco]

Oops, nm.

[BravoV]

New record ... "Most Online Ever: 5635 (Yesterday at 12:01:39 PM)" ... from the forum's stat at the bottom of forum's front page !

Interesting notes :

• Just see for your self at Most Online and Page Views !  The recent server tweaking & upgrade really paid off !
• This thread -> Hacking NVidia Cards into their Professional Counterparts created on March 15 (just five days ago) is now at rank #5 in the "Top 10 Topics (by Views)", and actually yesterday it was just at #8 ! 
• Looks like the junk posts storm is now over.

Congratulation Dave, and hopefully this will be useful when sitting with "FindChip" on next contract renewal.   

Attached below the normal chart with last update on 19th March, and the zoomed version starting from Jan 2013 for better detail.

[BravoV]

With the server's ram upgrade by Dave yesterday, time for new update of the forum's statistic.

[EEVblog]

With the server's ram upgrade by Dave yesterday, time for new update of the forum's statistic.

Awesome!
I recently updated the new registration security, so you can see the drop in the new spam accounts.

[BravoV]

Awesome!
I recently updated the new registration security, so you can see the drop in the new spam accounts.

Ah.. no wonder, the ratio between spam accounts vs genuine accounts is scary isn't it ? 

[Galenbo]

Getting too popular?

One day, your videos will be mandatory course material,
more and more teachers will ask questions in the forum,
and you will have "Dave Ambassadors" in every country.

And then: EEVblog, the Movie.

[EEVblog]

Ah.. no wonder, the ratio between spam accounts vs genuine accounts is scary isn't it ? 

Not any more, they have been purged. So the 7000+ accounts are now all genuine.

[lemmegraphdat]

Getting too popular?

One day, your videos will be mandatory course material,
more and more teachers will ask questions in the forum,
and you will have "Dave Ambassadors" in every country.

And then: EEVblog, the Movie.

Yea, cool. But who will they get to play the part of Dave?

[Rasz]

Getting too popular?

One day, your videos will be mandatory course material,
more and more teachers will ask questions in the forum,
and you will have "Dave Ambassadors" in every country.

And then: EEVblog, the Movie.

Yea, cool. But who will they get to play the part of Dave?

[c4757p]

Getting too popular?

One day, your videos will be mandatory course material,
more and more teachers will ask questions in the forum,
and you will have "Dave Ambassadors" in every country.

And then: EEVblog, the Movie.

Yea, cool. But who will they get to play the part of Dave?

If you squint really hard, the resemblance is striking!