Converting lurkers into members

[BigBaldBlk]

Since I'm pretty analytical and statistically driven at times, most of the times when I sign in, there are (+/-) 10% members and 90% lurkers of people viewing TOB. We all had reasons for joining, but wondering what it may take to bump the lurkers into members? Say up to 20%?

Maybe, some lurkers are just ass-hats, filled with drama, yada, yada, yada, but, there may be some pretty interesting people who could add interesting perspectives to threads or their own posts.

This thread is not for TOB membership drive!Lurkers - c'mon join and shake some things up!

[Coloseeker]

I would say some of the lurkers are members that are just not logged in, because they are too lazy to log in with whatever device they are on.

Also just because someone is a member of TOB doesn't mean they actively participate at all on the board.

[sysconsimon]

Some of us just don't have anything useful to contribute to a conversation and don't want to sound stupid by typing drivel into a thread.

[Guest]

I would say some of the lurkers are members that are just not logged in, because they are too lazy to log in with whatever device they are on.

Also just because someone is a member of TOB doesn't mean they actively participate at all on the board.

Also, many Only use TOB as a resource and don't want to be a member as they want this to be Private and Discreet, or at least I have been told many times.

[mrvegas63]

Maybe, some lurkers are just ass-hats, filled with drama, yada, yada, yada...

Hell, half the non-lurkers are ass-hats filled with drama...

As sysconsimon said, most of the time, I don't log-in and make a quick drive-by to see if anything interesting crops up. Usually not. And that could be why lots of lurkers (lots of same-o same-o threads/posts started by the same-o same-o suspects).

[lewd5050]

Some of us just don't have anything useful to contribute to a conversation and don't want to sound stupid by typing drivel into a thread.

Thats never stopped me.

[MrReindeer-9515]

Hell, half the non-lurkers are ass-hats filled with drama...

As sysconsimon said, most of the time, I don't log-in and make a quick drive-by to see if anything interesting crops up. Usually not. And that could be why lots of lurkers (lots of same-o same-o threads/posts started by the same-o same-o suspects).

This^

Also, bear in mind that the numbers of members and "guests" displayed at the bottom is not entirely accurate when it comes to the number of active users at a given time. A good way to find out how many are actually on:

1. Go to the link for "Who's online"/"What's going on".

2. Find and click the tab for "recent activity".

If someone has been looking at the main page(or whatever) for longer than about 10-15 minutes, they are probably not really an active user. I think what happens is that when you first go to TOB, check 1 "user". User then logs in, check another "user"; so now, assuming no one else was online, you would have 2 "users" logged, but actually only one person. Add in the quality that there is a lag from when someone opens TOB(1 "user"), doesn't log in but follows the link for the Review database(still 1 "user", but nobody actually on), then comes back and starts looking at the General Discussion forum(now 2 users, but only 1 person on), then his wife walks into the room and he immediately clicks off TOB(still 2 "users", but again nobody actually on), the wife leaves, and he opens up TOB again, assuming this all transpires in a short amount of time, we are now up to 3 "users", but still only 1 person. A good way to test it is to get on really early am/late pm when the traffic is light.

[urfan]

B4 - interesting post. do i sense a 'spring membersip drive'?

[2Big]

Lurkers = Members.

[BoobLoverJoshua]

Since I'm pretty analytical and statistically driven at times, most of the times when I sign in, there are (+/-) 10% members and 90% lurkers of people viewing TOB.

That's about average across the Internet, as a whole, so it's really not something to be concerned about.