Forum Menbership- 3.5m registered only 56k members survived?..... Why?

[Bureau]

Everyone knows those registered members are for Bounty campaign. Next are alt accounts of active members. There after are those like me who want to genuinely contribute to the development of Bitcointalk, last not certainly least bots!

What made you believe these are actual figures. Another reason would be that you are getting those figures from a third party website.

Those are unrealistic numbers. Only the admin will have the correct data related to your query. Our admin has disabled a some of those detailed stats. The thing is that no one knows the original stats. What we see is something like what SEO based website show.

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[jokers10]

and spent lot of time searching for newbies with good posts which were not seen by senior users.

You don't need to specifically look for newbies who don't get merits, those that do get merits should easily be able to get more.

I also tend to drop my quality requirement as I go lower done the ranks, so a post by a newbie which I merit might not get any if it was posted by a senior or hero member. Simply making inquiries constructively and being consistent in replying to your thread responses is enough to get a merit for a newbie.

It was long ago as you can guess. Since then I definitely gave first merits to newbies several times and of course even a good question sometimes is enough to give a merit to newbie. But if I wasn't first merit giver for them most of them would have got some from someone else. Because there are enough users who is glad to help newbies to start on the forum. What I say is that I don't see any big lack of merits for prospective newbies. If there are any who are overlooked we can just share our thoughts about it and usually they'll get some more merits very fast if they are really prospective and got not so many merits yet.

There can be probably spent more merits on the forum but I'd not say that there is a problem that prospective newbies can't get their merits.

[Accardo]

Bitcointalk will not likely banish or disappear in your specified year unless Theymos pull the plug or unless Bitcoin goes to zero which is unlikely.
With over 30k organic keywords that show up in the search engine Bitcoin and Bitcointalk will stay even if the last Bitcoin is mined and even if Theymos grandson inherits this forum, with many new discussions and threads added daily the organic traffic keeps coming.

Considering the number of backlinks listed on google search engine, the forum will forever gain lots of monthly organic traffics, old threads of this forum are linked on top DA sites which helps the forum rank easily on google for any cryptocurrency related question. As for the decline of forum members they're two things to consider. First, lots of special interest board contributors declined on the internet, people moved to social media where they get almost every information they need. In those days, many people used forums to share information and answer each other's question, if you check the early threads in the forum it's quite very rich in quality and solves lots of problems. On the second flip, people farm accounts in the forum, and members are entitled to create multiple accounts. Hence, if 100k members creates 5 accounts each, it's about 500k accounts just an estimate, so don't conclude that 3.5m users joined the forum, consider the fact that most users had more than 1 account. Good observation.

[Asuspawer09]

...
• The merit system is also a barrier cause newer members see their time here to be unproductive as the bar for progress keeps getting higher, and the chances of your quality post being seen (outside certain boards) keeps dropping. There are fewer members sharing merits around these days.
This issue could be helped with more merit sources being added to ensure quality posts gets rewarded.
...

I thought so previously also. I was new in here, it was not so easy to get merits and I decided too keep some smerits for the newbies like me to share. I've got not many but enough for my idea and spent lot of time searching for newbies with good posts which were not seen by senior users. And I didn't fount anyone. Since then I just share my smerits when I see something I think deserve it and don't try to find an overlooked newbie. If you see the one, you can say to some merit source, many of them will be happy to help a prospective newbie, or you can just give him merits by yourself.

Would make sense it's not easy to be active here in the forum, especially with the merit system it surely affects a lot of members when it comes to being active. Just because it would take time to post and establish your profile or rank on the forum. It is difficult for sure to put a lot of time into the forum without getting something in return, I mean, to be honest, it's true, you wouldn't really waste your time to keep on making a useful posts here, you might just find a job that will actually pay you on your work.

The forum is surely useful for some people that are new to Bitcoin or the Crypto world since it actually helps them ask some questions, share experiences, etc. but only to that extent, getting involved or committing to the forum is a different story, posting daily and ranking up to legendary is not easy. Most of the inactive members are the kind of people who just wanted to learn but don't really commit to the forum. We sure get a lot of newbies that are starting on crypto but just like what I've said maybe only a few of them will stay active and commit, but on the other hand some of the OGs sure are getting old, some are already inactive, and some of them have already died. With just a few people getting in and most of the active members already missing, were surely going to decrease our active members each year.

Still, I don't think the forum is gonna die, I mean the creator of this forum makes it different from others, I don't believe decreasing members will be a problem since Bitcoin and cryptocurrency continue to adapt, I really think its a big factor because not all people are interested in Bitcoin or cryptocurrency. And campaigns, services, goods etc. surely help.

[DaveF]

I am going to have to go with more places to get info and for lack of better terms more 'specific' info.

Bringing it into the car world. There are a lot of Honda forums / places to talk about Honda cars in general. There are a lot fewer Honda Accord forums. There is only 1 that I know of and it's invite only for later model (9th, 10th, 11th) gen Accord Hybrids.

This is a very general forum, so we have a lot of users registered who came and went. Had an issue, got it resolved and never came back. Same as the car forums.
The people who stayed may also be on the late model Accord Hybrid forums. Same as here, I am on a couple of more hardware (non mining) tech discussions. But we don't really talk about everything else that we do here. Even a post like this would be purged. So the people who are here want to be here. The people looking to talk about a specific programming thing in core or some alt coin or some other thing might come here and stay, or they might come and then wind up on a much more detailed discussion.


Another question, is how the number of  users (active / registered  banned / etc) here compares to another forum.

-Dave

[Pmalek]

I don't think Bitcointalk or its members are doing something wrong that drives members away. it's just that the newer generations don't want to concentrate and spend time in these types of communities. Their Tik-Tok and Instagram brains are used to visual stimulus and short to the point content that doesn't last long. They aren't going to read through 100 posts of a thread spanning across multiple pages before replying.
 

unfriendly environment for Newbies/users?

Sometimes it is, but I don't remember seeing anyone being treated unfairly that didn't deserve it or didn't do things to provoke such reactions.

DT members oppression ? ( so much red than green these days)

I doubt it. Honest users don't get painted in red.

The merit system (high demands for quality) ?

You don't need a high-ranked account to read, learn, and post about bitcoin. It's only important if you want to rank up to join quality signature campaigns. So if that's their goal and their only goal, then yeah, they need to show some quality.

The moderation/rules ( using the ban button more often) ?

I think that admins aren't banning users as quickly as they did in the past. Even plagiarism cases are sometimes forgiven. And I don't know any other community where you can scam, lie and steal, and still have a home there.

Low Bitcoin adoption ?

Better yet, Bitcointalk might be hard to find for users who never heard of the forum. It's again connected to the newer generations not being interested in this way of discussing and talking. So when they search for places to learn and talk about crypto, a forum might not be something that's on their mind.

[DdmrDdmr]

<...> Could someone give us the stats of active users over the last five years so we can evaluate? Loycebot, DdmrDdmr ? <...>

I don’t really have any data on the number of active users, but playing around with the way back machine we can retrieve some historical snapshots based on BPIP’s Active Profiles counter:

Code:

Date   ActiveUsers    Diff 2019-11
2019-11   135.075         0%
2020-04   116.163         -14,00%
2020-08   92.443          -31,56%
2020-12   98.529          -27,06%
2021-04   324.800         -outlier
2021-07   99.344          -26,45%
2021-12   96.327          -28,69%
2022-05   72.579          -46,27%
2022-08   61.684          -54,33%
2022-12   56.814          -57,94%
2023-03   54.618          -59,56%

Comments:
-   The data snapshots are sparse, and do not allow to perform a homogenous monthly tracking. It does provide however a rough evolution that I’ve tried to space out as even as possible.

-   2021-04s reading is odd, and doesn’t seem coherent. I’d discard the reading.

-   The diff column is all in relation to the first data reading (not the prior one).

-   The descending trend pattern is clearly visible, and pretty steep in the course of just over three years (-59,56%). Roughly the last rolling year is down near to 25%.

-   BPIP’s definition of Active Profile is that of having logged-in within the past three months. It’s a very useful indicator to follow.

-   Ideally though, on a deeper level, we’d pull numbers from Ninjastic, broken down by number of posts (i.e. Heavy posters, Medium Posters, Lightweight posters), in order to see just how Active those members are.

In order to do that, we’d need to count the number of distinct posters in a given window timeframe (i.e. 3 month periods) and categorize them according to the number of posts they made. We can't analyze the logged-in but not posted profiles nevertheless.

On a side note, just to point out that I recall seeing thousands upon thousands of accounts that were created and just stayed there with no activity whatsoever, often seemingly created in batches (likely bot/experiment related). Those cases will represent a very significant chunk of the Archived Profiles counter (as per the "Inactive profiles that have no posts and no trust" part of its definition).

[Dr.Bitcoin_Strange]

Most of the ban accounts are probably affected by ban invasion, bounty cheating, signature cheating, and users that commit high levels of plagerism and some are also chronic shitposters.

unfriendly environment for Newbies/users ?

DT members oppression ? ( so much red than green these days)

The merit system (high demands for quality) ?

The moderation/rules ( using the ban button more often) ?

Low Bitcoin adoption ?

Lets Talk...

Unfriendly environments can be one reason why most people who also create their accounts, after being active for some time, just lose interest and leave. That's because some high-ranking members respond so rudely and badly to them that they can get discouraged and leave. When I was still a newbie, someone gave me the advice below.

Oh, it helps if you have a thick skin and can shrug off vicious criticism/trolling/attacks without acting like a baby.  Bitcointalk is one of the freest forums I've ever seen, so moderators aren't going to step in when someone calls you a bone-headed asshole.  Not saying that's going to happen, but it could, so toughen up if you're not tough already.

Some people are so fragile, and when they feel they are being intimidated, they will just leave.

I was also criticized when I started in this forum, even to the extent that a legendary member made specific criticism of me. He said I was only showing some kind of newbie enthusiasm and that he knows it's not going to last for a very long time because he has seen people act in my manner in the past and that am just like them. He said more but I only remember the few I said.

Honestly, I felt discouraged after reading it, but come on, I am not a baby, and I just felt less concerned about what he said because he has not seen it all; he just saw how active I was at my newbie level and made some false assumptions, but not every newbie was going to handle that criticism so well.

Well, I think I have also had the drama of this merit issue, but come on, which member contributes positively to the forum and will not desire to receive merit for any post they feel is very quality? But when some memebers try to earn merit, some legendary memebers take it as begging and phishing for merit. Despite that, some people still put much effort into their posts, but they might not get lucky enough to be seen by any meritorious source.

Red-tagging is also a reason why some people have abandoned their accounts, but I can't say it's really wrong to tag any account that deserve to be tagged. By doing so, it helps to prevent other members from being scammed by the tagged member. Just that accounts should be tagged with an appropriate reason.

[Mpamaegbu]

Lets Talk...

Generally, I think of two factors that could be responsible for what you've observed regarding the decline. The first you mentioned "unfriendly environment for Newbies/users?" is my pick. I've read posts from veterans who said they were leaving the forum for what they termed the unabated toxic nature of the forum.

The second factor is the peak and off peak periods of Bitcoin circle. We tend to have more active users here whenever there's Bitcoin bull rally and vice versa. The excitement is often electrifying during bull period and we get to see many accounts come alive to make contributions and participate in signature campaigns. There's proliferation of signature campaigns around this period as many new projects tend to spring up, both scam and genuine ones.

Going forward, I think the numbers will be better next year as we get into the bull season.

[KingsDen]

I'm curious about the forum's membership reduction and what can be to blame. A community with 3.5 million registered users has 2.7 million banned/nuked accounts, 700k accounts are dormant, and just 56k individuals have been active for the past three months.

I acknowledge that is place is not a forum that you can get flowing immediately you join. There is a standard (high), which if you cannot meet, you would be forced out and that is why honest learners and those with knowledge of bitcoin are people that tends to survive here on a long run.

2.7 million banned/nuked accounts should not be taken serious. Just go to the bounty section and see where one user will create 20 accounts and when the likes of Lovesmayfamilis burst them, the 20 accounts may likely be banned and the same person will in the next day create another 20 accounts to continue hunting and cheating. That is how the number grow.

I did some analysis and there is a somewhat high chance that the forum will disappear before 2030 if the information on https://bpip.org/ is accurate. Since the forum is losing traffic each month, which is awful from a financial standpoint, I'm wondering what might be the issue.

This forum goes no where till the last bitcoin is mined
Infact, it goes no where till bitcoin disappears. This is because I believe here will in the future be like a bitcoin meusem or something like that. Maybe in the future, this forum would be managed in a decentralized manner. But for now, as long as theymos is willing to pay for and maintain the domain, bitcointalk.org is lasting as long as bitcoin will last.

[Adbitco]

unfriendly environment for Newbies/users ?

This is another major factor that are affecting people here most especially the newbies, they might thought here is a free to use platforms just as other social media platforms. Eg, FB twt and IG, TTK, unfortunately for them this forum doesn't work that way where they could spam and post all sorts of nonsense post. As a matter of fact it is a place for study and not for cruise like other app.

[DT members oppression ? ( so much red than green these days)

Usually the rate at which they tag account are too alarming forgotten that is a blockchain and all transactions are interconnected by one way or the other.

The merit system (high demands for quality) ?

For this, I think it's to entirely keep forum clean from spammers and shitposters. Although if I were to be Theymos I don't mind releasing them once in a year. That is to say, any account that is actively posting either after completing one year here they should be automatically promoted to the next rank given due merits according to their activity and post, with this forum could be more friendly because there's always a merry point. Then for account not active for about 8 years or 10 years those accounts could be returned to zero merits until they start being active after 1 to 2 years they gain back their previous position.

For ban account, their merits should be removed and returned back to newbies, maybe if they owner come for appeal and they noticed such person could be considered to retrieve back the account then Theymos restore back their position but for those accounts that has no chance for appeal should be finally returned to newbies and this steps will totally eliminate account sales or hack account. With this steps I believe the forum will be more attractive imo.

The moderation/rules ( using the ban button more often) ?

This is not a case to me at all, ban is a usual thing if account violate the rules or didn't comply with the sets of instructions give, I believe every board here have some sets of rules before posting.

Low Bitcoin adoption ?

I don't think this really matters a lot over the forum, there are some people who knew about bitcoin but doesn't know about this forum and there were people who came to this forum through their friends or relatives. Normally here is community so not every one that must know about this forum, bitcoin adoption must not come only from this forum but also from other social media platforms.

Lets Talk...

The above reply are just my little point of view, although I don't know if someone else already outline them.

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

Since the forum is losing traffic each month, which is awful from a financial standpoint

I don't think the forum has any intention to generate money. It's obvious from the steps theymos has taken with not auctioning the ad space.

unfriendly environment for Newbies/users ?

This is a key reason in my opinion. Unfriendly environment does not mean newbie jail like time delay between posting or not able to post image. There are a group of people who are actively insulting newbies when they find they are making simple mistakes, leaving insulting neutral feedback even tagging them without a concrete evidence of they scammed.

So many people like to think they are some type of authority figure to the forum and it's their ground to correct others. Genuine newbies are losing interest. We are only seeing alt accounts who have good understanding about the forum, they are building up their accounts. May be signature campaign is their only motivation except few exceptionals.  

[CryptoHeadlineNews]

A community with 3.5 million registered users has 2.7 million banned/nuked accounts, 700k accounts are dormant, and just 56k individuals have been active for the past three months.

But it's sad that of the 56k individuals claimed to have been active on this forum for the past 3 months now, that tool couldn't differentiate bounty hunters and members who post valuable quality contents daily on the forum, which is very much important. So in regards to the statement made by O.P about how this forum is likely to fade away before 2030 as a result of the recent increase in dormant and inactive account, I was able to make some research and I got to notice that for the past 3 months this forum have been said to have at least 1million+ monthly visits, which is quite not bad for it's sustainability as you can see below.

That is;
In the month of February, the forum got over 1.3million visits
While in March, the forum got 1.1million visits
And in April, the forum got 1.3million visits
So in this May, we should be expecting nothing less than a million visits.



Tool: Semrush.com

[_BlackStar]

Every user will definitely give a variety of answers, especially for those who are affected. They will surely vote intimidation from DT members as the reason why they left the forum. I'm not really sure if they would say that honestly, but there are quite a few users who have voted for that category in the poll.

Apart from that I think that the bitcoin price will also have an impact on user activity. Bitcoin has lost a lot of value since bitcoin hit ATH $69k, so this seems to be another reason why some of the forum users have been inactive so far. I will definitely see the user base increase when bitcoin is more bullish than it is now.

[coin-investor]

I did some analysis and there is a somewhat high chance that the forum will disappear before 2030

Your analysis is not accurate Bitcoin adoption will sustain Bitcointalk in terms of organic traffic and I don't think people will just lose interest in discussing Bitcoin and I don't think businesses and platforms related to Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency will just leave Bitcoin for unknown reasons, there are many factors that contributed why some of the accounts are not active anymore, and some of the points that you laid out are all true but if you notice the other reason is getting a lot of supports.

They may not be active users of the forum anymore but they know Bitcointalk and use it as a guest it is not the number of memberships but the traffic flow coming from keywords Bitcointalk build up over the years, that will sustain Bitcointalk.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

I'm curious about the forum's membership reduction and what can be to blame. A community with 3.5 million registered users has 2.7 million banned/nuked accounts, 700k accounts are dormant, and just 56k individuals have been active for the past three months.

You shouldn't be worried Igebotz, we were in the bear market and just recovering from it. The forum isn't the only cryptocurrency related platform or business (as you call it) that has been affected during this period. We have seen reduction in trading volumes on exchanges and account creation, the activities this period are always at the minimum and that's because people are taking a break from the market as things aren't always exciting this period so I believe we have those staying away from the forum as well. People use the forum for information gathering on their favorite projects and since their isn't much going on at the moment, they're not logging it.

The forum has become more accommodating than it usually was when the likes of Lauda and her gangs were giving newbies a nightmare. The DT system is more friendly now as minor things that would had easily gotten your account red trusted are now been overlooked. If the merit system chased away spammers then it has achieved the purpose behind its creation so that shouldn't be a reason. If spammers are the ones to make the forum active, we don't need them. Let the forum stay boring instead of to bring them back. Earning of merits is very easy now with all the giveaway threads available so that shouldn't be a reason as well. I just think the reduction in activity is as a result of the bear market effect.

[yahoo62278]

I'm curious about the forum's membership reduction and what can be to blame. A community with 3.5 million registered users has 2.7 million banned/nuked accounts, 700k accounts are dormant, and just 56k individuals have been active for the past three months. I did some analysis and there is a somewhat high chance that the forum will disappear before 2030 if the information on https://bpip.org/ is accurate. Since the forum is losing traffic each month, which is awful from a financial standpoint, I'm wondering what might be the issue.



unfriendly environment for Newbies/users ?

DT members oppression ? ( so much red than green these days)

The merit system (high demands for quality) ?

The moderation/rules ( using the ban button more often) ?

Low Bitcoin adoption ?

Lets Talk...

The forum really is friendly to most users unless a newbie is perceived as trying to scam. I don't think people wake up looking to crucify a newbie, but they do look to protect the forum. DT can be stubborn with their tags. Doesn't mean they cannot be shown evidence of something and change their minds.

The merit system isn't perfect but what is? It's not meant to hinder a user from growing, it's just a tool to try and improve quality. Whether you earn a ton of merits or not, it does not hinder you from using the forum. Only from ranking up quickly.

Moderators aren't just banning for fun. They get reports and take action. Simple as that. If you aren't messing around plagiarizing, scamming, or spamming you probably will not find yourself banned. Just follow the rules.

People also die. There are many users not in the greatest health. Who knows how old some users were when they created their accounts and what sort of medical conditions they faced. Then you have the people who made accounts to use for their farms and creating the buying and selling accounts market. That's probably where a lot of the dormant accounts come from.

[BlackBoss_]

I don’t really have any data on the number of active users, but playing around with the way back machine we can retrieve some historical snapshots based on BPIP’s Active Profiles counter:

Code:

Date   ActiveUsers    Diff 2019-11
2021-04   324.800         -outlier

Comments:
-   The data snapshots are sparse, and do not allow to perform a homogenous monthly tracking. It does provide however a rough evolution that I’ve tried to space out as even as possible.

-   2021-04s reading is odd, and doesn’t seem coherent. I’d discard the reading

Is the number for 2021-04 is not correct and you discard it?

Or it is a correct number but only unexplained by what happened on forum in April 2021?

2021 is a bull market after 2020 halving and the forum could possibly have more new users and more active users than in previous years with bear market.

[Mpamaegbu]

I acknowledge that is place is not a forum that you can get flowing immediately you join.

To be honesty, I think this forum is more friendly to navigate than most crypto fora I've come into contact with. The only thing that should be confusing will be the boards and their areas of discussions which are mostly technical. As someone who had zero knowledge of Bitcoin coming to this forum, one is bound to be lost a few times around subject matters. What I did when I came here was to start with Off Topic and Politics boards to further arouse my interest and that kept me posting while reading about Bitcoin to get myself abreast it. It's the same thing I advise those I bring to the forum or newbies with zero Bitcoin knowledge to do.

This forum goes no where till the last bitcoin is mined
Infact, it goes no where till bitcoin disappears.

Hopefully our wishes stay that way. However, we can't be too sure as unfolding events may suggest otherwise especially with government anti-Bitcoin policies or allegations of criminality against projects advertised here like the case of CM. That could (in my thinking though) cause trouble for the forum too.

The forum has become more accommodating than it usually was when the likes of Lauda and her gangs were giving newbies a nightmare. The DT system is more friendly now as minor things that would had easily gotten your account red trusted are now been overlooked.

Yes, you're right. I remember that era too. Compared to what we've now we can say now is more accommodating. Most of the OGs in DT then have relaxed their rods and I think it's to the benefit of this forum. Even now, any DT on loose will have other DT members who will call them to order if they overstepped their limit.

[ScamViruS]

unfriendly environment for Newbies/users ?

DT members oppression ? ( so much red than green these days)

This is a much bigger reason. Low rank users are still treated badly in this forum if they make any mistake even if it is not a big mistake. But not all newbies come to forums with good intentions, some newbies do activities that make the community think wrong about newbies. This forum is a place of education, if someone does shitpost, illegal work, he should face ban, tag and get out of the forum.

But I think DT is more flexible now than before when it comes to giving tags, and that is evident by reviewing the tags given by DT members. And the tags given by DT members are not given without evidence, they are given based on proper evidence. When I joined this forum, tagging was a lot more than it is now. So hopefully in the coming days this forum will be more friendly for newbies and the number of users will continue to increase not decrease.