What's more important: members or posts?

[AlexIsaacs]

What do you believe is more important on a site? Activity or member count?

Would you rather have 10,000 members and 50,000 posts or 1,000 members and 100,000 posts?

I'm having trouble deciding between the two as my site is currently stuck in the latter. Insane amounts of posts every day but only 1-2 new members per day, even with some ad campaigns.

[Arantor]

I'd personally have 100k posts - if they're good quality posts. 100k posts of rubbish is not my idea of a good forum.

[Uhura!]

Here's my 2 pennies:

I have seen many forums with hundreds of members with no one saying a thing.

That's quite pointless.

Forum = discussion / communication / talking

[SteveFJ]

Member count says nothing. Some can be there just curious to see what might be hidden from guests and not post at all.

But then I don't think it's post count either, but rather the quality of the posts.

[Artica]

I think it's all about post count. I went through and cleaned my member list, I have 90k+ posts and only 90 members, I think a ratio like that shows some good activity. Could have hundreds of members and only a few thousand posts, that wouldn't say much.

[die4me]

I run a forum for support and information so neither is more important. But if i was running a normal i'd have to say activity is more important.

[Verso]

Activity wins hands down. I have over 200 members but only 20% of them post..........

[H]

Neither. It is activity and quantity that really matters

[N3RVE]

Polls are good for surveys .

-[n3rve]

[Uhura!]

I think it's all about post count. I went through and cleaned my member list, I have 90k+ posts and only 90 members, I think a ratio like that shows some good activity. Could have hundreds of members and only a few thousand posts, that wouldn't say much.

Exactly.

[Jade Elizabeth]

Neither. It is activity and quantity that really matters

Agreed. On AC we had <100 members and averaged around 300 posts a day. The activity was what made us seem alive when people came to visit.

But, I am a stats nut. I don't like it when there arent enough posts.

[babjusi]

Neither. It is activity and quantity that really matters

Same thing here.

[TheDisturbedOne]

I'd rather have posts.  Because when there's tons of posts, SEO goes up which brings up members.

[Uhura!]

I'd rather have posts.  Because when there's tons of posts, SEO goes up which brings up members.

Yep.

[AlexIsaacs]

Neither. It is activity and quantity that really matters

Agreed. On AC we had <100 members and averaged around 300 posts a day. The activity was what made us seem alive when people came to visit.

But, I am a stats nut. I don't like it when there arent enough posts.

Same here, I constantly push to increase our average posts per day haha.

I personally think that requiring quality posts is rubbish. From my experience those kinds of forums tend to die without an extremely large financial backing.

A forum is for discussion and if the discussion doesn't always warrant a 500 word reply then so be it. I'd rather have 500 3-star posts per day than 10 5-star posts.

Thanks for everyone's input. I was seriously considering concentrating on only bringing new members in but I think I'll just stick with what I'm doing and have things go along as always.

[Artica]

Neither. It is activity and quantity that really matters

Agreed. On AC we had <100 members and averaged around 300 posts a day. The activity was what made us seem alive when people came to visit.

But, I am a stats nut. I don't like it when there arent enough posts.

Same here, I constantly push to increase our average posts per day haha.

I personally think that requiring quality posts is rubbish. From my experience those kinds of forums tend to die without an extremely large financial backing.

A forum is for discussion and if the discussion doesn't always warrant a 500 word reply then so be it. I'd rather have 500 3-star posts per day than 10 5-star posts.

Thanks for everyone's input. I was seriously considering concentrating on only bringing new members in but I think I'll just stick with what I'm doing and have things go along as always.

Agreed... forums are for fun. =P Good to moderate to make sure everything's all equal and appropriate but beyond that, I think people should just have fun and do whatever. Not to mention if people see the place is really active, that in itself should start gaining new members as well, and people will be more likely to promote it.

[codenaught]

Agree on many of the points already brought up...

However I do think its important to have some range with members that actually post. It's good to get newcomers to post even a few times. If the forum literally had 25,000 posts but had just one member, frankly I'd be a bit scared in joining in with some member who has split personalities and enjoys talking to themselves.

It's great to get a large volume of posts, but it's also great to actively seek new voices. A forum with just 5 or so posters making up 95% of all of the posts may feel somewhat personal and closed off to others taking a peek in.

[[Hurricane]]

In my opinion,

I belive neither members nor posts really are set apart in "Which one matters more" because both are important, members on one hand are what keeps the forum alive, and posts are generally what keep them coming back and joining, but I guess if I have to choose one I would choose posts I would rather have a good amount of quality posts than a gob of members.

-[Hurricane]

[Realinfo]

It's good to have more members but I like more useful posts, as If u have more content, more Traffic come from Search engines............. and I have adsense and I feel GUESTS made more click on them rather than regular members..................

[[Hurricane]]

Yes,

I feel GUESTS made more click on them rather than regular members..................

As an end-user I usually avoid clicking on the ads, and hardly ever pay attention to them, generally I would think people have the same opinion, unless it's in a board for forum advertisements, but that's just my view on it.

-[Hurricane]