Retention Rate

[Tear-Down-the-Wall]

The past few days I've seen "Welcome new member X" at the bottom of the screen. There have been several new people joining, which is good, but they don't seem to stay long.

I was looking over the members list and saw many people with no post and were only on the site a day or two. Many others were folks under 50 post that haven't been active in months, or even over a year. There were others that maybe posted a few times over a period of about a week and left.

My question is, how do we keep these folks around? What could be added or done to make people want to post and participate more?

I'm just asking because the more folks posting, the more discussion. The more discussion, the more people participate, and the larger the site grows.

I'm just wanting this place to be the best it can be. Not saying Seth isn't doing a great job, he's doing fine, but I want this place to be a major success.

I'll take your calls on air.

[State-God]

I say we offer every new member the finest meth the black market can produce along with a copy of "Anatomy of the State".

Seriously though, a lot of those people are probably spambots, and a few more undercover cops or something of the like. But we just need to realize that there's going to be a lot of people (in any online community) who just aren't forum warriors and prefer to read about other people's thoughts.

Along with that, though, I seem to recall registration being difficult. Don't you have to do a ridiculous matching game (I might be confusing this site's registration with RevLeft) to get in? If that's not the case, then I imagine the previous paragraph summarizes the causes.

As to what we can do about it, I guess just try to be friendly and open to people who may not 100% agree with us, be it because they never will or because they're just exploring more radical political theories.

[Tear-Down-the-Wall]

I say we offer every new member the finest meth the black market can produce along with a copy of "Anatomy of the State".

We'd probably do better with Quaaludes.

Seriously though, a lot of those people are probably spambots, and a few more undercover cops or something of the like. But we just need to realize that there's going to be a lot of people (in any online community) who just aren't forum warriors and prefer to read about other people's thoughts.

Oh I saw a few that looked like spam bots but a few looked like they could become good posters. I remember one guy who posted here who was a public school teacher. He had formed a Mises Institute after school club where they discussed Rothbard and anarchy. Would've loved it to have had that guy stick around. My question is how do we get those guys to stick around?

Along with that, though, I seem to recall registration being difficult. Don't you have to do a ridiculous matching game (I might be confusing this site's registration with RevLeft) to get in? If that's not the case, then I imagine the previous paragraph summarizes the causes.

Unless Seth has done something, was rather easy when I signed up.

As to what we can do about it, I guess just try to be friendly and open to people who may not 100% agree with us, be it because they never will or because they're just exploring more radical political theories.

That can be a problem at times. I know it was a big one at the RonPaulForums/LibertyForestForums. If you didn't line up 100% with somebody then you weren't a "real" supporter. I know of threads over there were some tried to get the anarchist out. Parts of that forum had members eating each other.
Now, I don't see that much here but I have seen it. Nobody is going to be 100% with you and reading Mises/Rothbard/Paul/Rockwell/etc will cause different people to read, interpret, and come away with different conclusions and ideas. Again, doesn't seem to be too bad of a problem here but it has sprung up before.

Good points.

[Seth King]

I delete about one of every three new registrants because they are clearly spam. Another third of them are those who never post, which means they could be spam or lurkers, and then another third are people who aren't spam that will actually post once.

Eventually, I'll get around to deleting all of the members who have never posted and are older than 6 months. I do that every once in a while to keep the members list a little more accurate.

[MAM]

meh... Maybe they have to square away their life. I know for me that is paramount and for a time it involved a lot of drugs and no FB or DA... Then I came to my senses... a little.

[Twilight Sparkle]

I've noticed there are quite a few members I have stumbled across in earlier threads who posted regularly but eventually stopped. Hopefully this cycle doesn't continue   

[Seth King]

I've noticed there are quite a few members I have stumbled across in earlier threads who posted regularly but eventually stopped. Hopefully this cycle doesn't continue   

A lot of people still peek their heads in, but don't comment.

[Syock]

I got to a point where I saw the same topics coming back in new threads.  I didn't want to type a new response for the same issue.  I started to hunt down posts/threads and reply with links.  That wasn't very entertaining.