MLP Forums. Only 15,000 Members?

[MelancholicMemory 2,025]

I would say MLP Forum's numbers are actually much smaller than 15,000. Consider people who make accounts, but never used them, people who abandoned the site, people who barely use it, etc. Also consider the number of people who only go into forum games or roleplay, and never contribute elsewhere. The number of regulars is probably in the low thousands.

[NavelColt 22,880]

I would say MLP Forum's numbers are actually much smaller than 15,000. Consider people who make accounts, but never used them, people who abandoned the site, people who barely use it, etc. Also consider the number of people who only go into forum games or roleplay, and never contribute elsewhere. The number of regulars is probably in the low thousands.

 

That's why 'Members' and 'Regulars' are two different terms :3

[Crispy 5,563]

It also really depends on what measuring stick we're using.  Shining Force Central has been around a damn long time, and still has yet to break 10k members.  And on the other end of the spectrum, you have forums like Something Awful, who's membership number is up near 150k.

 

As far as normal post quality and design goes, pound for pound, this forum is damn good at what it does.

[John 793]

A lot of people actually know about MLP Forums. Just about everyone I talked to at BronyCon knew about this site's existence, and I've run into some people elsewhere who've heard of it as well. The figure on the front page is merely our number of registered users; we have a whole lot more traffic than that number lets on, from unregistered guests. Last time I checked that number, it was in the ballpark of about 300,000 monthly uniques.

 

As far as brony forum communities go, we're the largest one by far, and are fairly well established as the go-to brony forum. The real "issue" that keeps more of our visitors from actually registering accounts is that forum-based discussion is inherently a very niche interest. Being involved in a forum requires a more active commitment to coming up with stuff to talk about or tell people about; more consumer-oriented activities such as listening to music, reading fan fiction, or watching YouTube videos - basically anything of a relatively passive nature - carry much more mass-market appeal, and are interests you'll see a much larger chunk of the fandom partake in.

 

Most of the aforementioned people I mentioned are familiar with MLP Forums cited that they're "not a forum person". Make of that what you will; but based on what I've found out from talking to them, it simply means that the idea of registering an account on a site to discuss a TV show carries extremely little appeal. You'll find a similar story with any other large fandoms or interest groups out there that have Internet forums dedicated to them: a miniscule portion of the people in the group are actually interested at all in long-form discussion about their interest, which is what forums are designed for.

 

All things considered, we're doing pretty damn strong for a forum community, considering how few people on the planet really want to be part of one in the first place.

 

This made me feel a lot better about our population.  The fact that this site gets 300,000 monthly unique visits is a testament to our size.  I was just concerned because at certain times throughout the day, there can be as little as 30 or less members online.  I forgot to consider the amount of people who come to the site just to read.

[Splashee 28,563]

It's been stuck for 425xx members for quite some time now. I see a lot of new members that join, but never even get to introduce themselves. It saddens me