Replies to post #21015 on The Question and Answer Board (IHUB)

[Cassandra]

Matt: If the current EDIG folk leave and there is more fairness on that board, I am certain that those who leave would be replaced by many who would find the board a more inviting place.

The current board is populated with some of the most militant of EDIG shareholders. Fred Falk, the EDIG CEO, referred to them in an interview with Bloomberg, as a "cult following." I refer to them as EDIGinistas.

Since Tinroad puts a high value on proof, I suppose I should back up what I have said with a link:

http://quote.bloomberg.com/fgcgi.cgi?T=marketsquote99_news.ht&s=APDzAghPQRS5EaWdp

``It's a cult following,' said Falk at the company's booth at the trade show. ``I can't tell you how many people I've met who bought our stock who don't know what we do.' He said many first discovered the company on the Raging Bull Internet message board.

If the CEO of the company calls them that, you know it's bad.

[Cassandra]

WOW! I just noticed a very nice feature you have here - the ability to edit a post after you post it!

After using RB for nearly two years, I am very impressed with all of the extra features here, such as search, the mailbox, the ability to read all of the replies to a message (which has never worked in the time I've been on RB) and a responsive admin staff.

If I keep posting today, I'm going to have to upgrade to a paid membership.

I do have a suggestion, however. Could you set up a page to let newbies learn about how to use all of your features? If you have such a page, it wasn't included in my welcome e-mail.

Thanks.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

It won't make much of a dent at all in total traffic. More than a drop in a bucket, to be sure. More like a cup out of a large bucket.

I would guess that traffic levels in the EDIG board are way down from previous levels as evidenced by its Top Boards score tanking lately. In fact, looking at the daily posts for that board, it looks like its score is going to seriously plummet soon. The scores take the last 72 hours' posting activity into account (which is why the numbers change so often) and its 3rd-highest activity day was 2 days ago. When that day rolls out of the calculation and is replaced by yesterday's, today's, and tomorrow's lower traffic there, the score's coming way down.

Total posting volume yesterday was down 5% from the day before and down 10% from a week ago.

Pageviews were up 2% from the day before and up about 3% from a week ago. We're still hovering about 5-10% below the alltime record for daily pageviews, set a month ago today.

Really, that board could theoretically be shut down right now and it'd be no more than a small dip in the traffic chart.

That really blows out of the water the oft-stated "fact" that if the EDIG folks just abandoned iHub, it'd kill the site. Your workload of a few days ago would get cut by 90%, but not the site's total traffic. That board is seriously dwarfed by the #1 and #2 boards.

Edit: I looked at the formula for Top Boards calculations, and would estimate that that board's score is going to lose about 100 points this weekend if the current trend continues. Also, it looks like that board's traffic accounts for between 5 and 6% of the site's total traffic.