Could they be “Guests” and/or bots? I am on another forum where the lists say 28 named users and 158 on-line - if I drill down they are unregistered people looking - “Guests” or bots trawling the internet for Google etc. What happened around the change over from Voice Your Choice to the Community Forum? Were there remnants of past users?
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I don’t know but if the definition of guest or bot is an unregistered entity that doesn’t logon then we are are not comparing like with like as the list underneath are registered and have an identity on the system, when they last logged on is another matter as some have done so in the last year and some not. I suspect that summary figure does not contain casual unregistered browsers as it would fluctuate very quickly and drop way down late and night - it does neither.
The total users seems to be a cumulative count of visitors to the Community, both with and without userids.
Unregistered visitors can view posts but cannot post, reply, or like posts.
In that regard, they can’t be termed either members, or active.
So a somewhat silly metric that serves no purpose.
As for the shifting 364 / 365 for days visited. That just has to be a rounding issue converting to integer after some calculation that produces a non-integer result.
It serves the purpose of being able to evaluate how many visit the site. Comparing that to how many stay and participate could advise the relevance in one or another way? If the forum changes/evolves tracking whether the changes/evolution attracted more or fewer ‘drive by visitors’ who stay and participate, it could advise the worth of those changes/evolution. Maybe?
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The other forum that I am on (a specialist hobby type) has a much larger flow through and publishes statistics to its members. It is Australian centric, but still attracts a large number of overseas visitors, so the numbers burble along at night with the USA and UK/EU traffic.
A lot of the visitors find it through a Google search. We also see trends in subjects, time spent, number of threads visited etc. Only 5,000 are registered and there is a cull every few years or major upgrade to remove inactive users. An attempt was made to welcome overseas content (their legislation & conditions are different) with USA / UK etc forums, but it never took off.
The most notable trend over 20 years - traffic peaked and is now fast declining - suspect it is going to Social Media platforms - Facebook, Twitter etc. Looked at going there, but decided our members wanted an indepth discussion in threads - one of which is approaching 15,000 replies. Can’t manage that on FB.
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The gremlin is still active as @gordon got shunted once again today.
Another annoyance is the frequent display claiming that one has unread topics but when clicked on, it invariably states that there are no unread topics.
I am somewhat bemused that the thread has diverted into delving into the oddities of whether some summary statistics are exactly correct. The question of the consequences, if any, of most of the material being provided by very few people is apparently not important. I would say that the smaller the sources of the pool of answers the greater the risk of bias.
I am not fishing for any particular answer but some consideration of the issue. For those who have not noticed I am one of the top 25 who answer 79% of questions. It seems to me that some reflection of what that group does is reasonable.
On reflection, I can only agree.
If the question is concerning the potential for bias, is it worth considering what purpose/s the community serves? There’s more than one. Just a few as I see them.
- It’s a source of direct advice in response to consumer enquires,
- It provides feedback on Choice from members and non members,
- It’s a resource for those interested in consumer issues - from recalls to better legislation,
- It provides an opportunity for any contributor to increase awareness on consumer issues - includes calling out concerns,
- It provides an opportunity for those so inclined to share broader views than just the daily thrust of consumer issues - assuming there may be more like minds found in the community than elsewhere.
And … whatever else fits the original brief for the community.
For some ‘bias’ may not be self evident. Unless you are a retailer or industry on the back foot on a ‘Shonky’ or being brought to attention for less than caring behaviour.
Can we do better, and if so where and in which ways?
Compared to the tone of many other forums, the Community is very well grounded.
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Be careful of those double reflections, they can be tricky! 
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Join the conversation
Ask a question. Share tips. Help others.
I think that says it all.
Seems to me that regular visitors are interested in coming to this Forum to do all of those things. And it is a well moderated Forum that keeps things under control.
Plus some of us regulars like to have a chat, with like minded others interested in consumer issues. Or even special interest topics.
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Q1. <10%
Q2. I would guess about 50 to 100.
Q3. Less than 50.
John L.
