"There are now over 15,000 forum members, a 36% increase over last year"

Off-Topic
#1

The line that REALLY caught my eye from the keynote was “There are now over 15,000 forum members, a 36% increase over last year”.

That would be really something. Assuming we are talking about 12 months here.

So I had a look at the available data:

[code] date Posts Conv. members plus plus/day

17-Aug-2013 19816 2847 2364
31-Oct-2013 35276 4888 3152 788 11
9-Jan-2014 49698 6721 4455 1303 19
9-Feb-2014 55535 7532 5030 575 19
26-Jun-2014 95704 11598 8254 3224 24
18-Nov-2014 135061 15494 9694 1440 10
19-Dec-2014 144522 16492 9999 305 10
12-Feb-2015 157653 17914 10367 368 7
15-Mar-2015 165094 18823 10669 302 10
8-Jul-2015 189421 21748 11913 1244 11
18-Aug-2015 197970 22709 12314 401 10
2-Sep-2015 201826 23149 12445 131 9
14-Jan-2016 230826 26852 13726 1281 10
13-Mar-2016 242598 28252 14272 546 9
28-Mar-2016 254584 28683 14411 139 9
12-Oct-2016 16013 1602 8
17-Oct-2016 281569 32862 16049 36 7[/code]

or as a graph

My guess is that the stronger increase till July 2014 was probably due to people moving over from the mailing list.

But since then growth has been remarkably constant, although there seems to be a slight slowing down.

So what about the “36% increase over last year”? If we compare the closest dates

15-Mar-2015 10,669
13-Mar-2016 14,272

we get a plus of 3603 or 33.7% in 12 months.

For dates closer to the keynote (but more than 12 months)

2-Sep-2015 12,445
12-Oct-2016 16,013

we get a plus of 3568 or 28.7% in 13.5 months or about 25.5% over 12 months.

How to explain the discrepancy? It doesn’t necessarily mean that Geoff’s numbers are “best case” or span a period of more than 12 months. It could well be that the numbers I got from the forum include deleted accounts while Geoff is working only with active accounts.

In any case growth is stronger than I would have expected.

#2

Glad we got that cleared up.

#3

all this means is there is another 3,568 accounts that will probably never ask a question or contribute to the over all subject matter :slight_smile:

#4

Geoff was referring to the previous XDC (pretty obviously, seeing as he was standing on stage) , which took place in May 2015. He did not say “year on year”. So, the closest figures to that date show (picking July 2015, to be conservative):

16013 - 11913 = 4100 = 34.5%

Assuming they have access to figures closer to XDC 2015, I’d say their figure of 36% is therefore likely to be absolutely accurate and you should probably retract your assertion that they’re incorrect or lying.

Edit: I see you’ve now edited your post to remove the line “But is it TRUE?” and softened it by adding the new lines at the end. A true politician, you would make.

#5

I’m okay with this - what does it really matter?

Now, if they promised 64 bit and we only got 62 bits then that would be a problem. :slight_smile:

#6

[quote=292605:@Joseph Evert]I’m okay with this - what does it really matter?

Now, if they promised 64 bit and we only got 62 bits then that would be a problem. :-)[/quote]
This is a good point! Someone should count them to make sure we actually are getting 64 bits…

#7

Well the CPUs will most likely only use 48 bits and may have even less physical address lines.

#8

The 48-bit is only for memory address, which is already up to 256TB. This can be increased by CPU manufacutuer to 52-bit or 64-bit when the world need to use that much memory.

The CPU will be 64-bits for everything else - example 64-bit integer not 48-bit integer.

#10

[quote=292613:@Norman Palardy]As of May 23, 2015 there were 186,573 posts
Today there are 281,617 - up nearly 50%

[/quote]
how many where made by Michel ? :wink: 20000 I think ?

#12

I have been trying to quit :wink:

#13

Evidently there was a controversy I missed out on. At any rate, seeing that graph, I find it to be quite impressive.

Other than a few hiccups, my impression is that Xojo just keeps getting better.

#14

@Geoff Perlman at his next keynote:

“We have more forum members than ever, but for some reason traffic has dropped by 50%…” :slight_smile:

#15

people been posting to your Pet Peeves thread at a lower pace.

#16

No, there wasn’t. Markus seems to want to try to create some frequently, though.

#17

Over 15,000 members ?

So, more than 14,000 lurkers ? :wink:

#19

It’s an old one. I just ignore Gavin.

I agree. The points I was trying to make:

Growth seems to be linear and quite healthy, though that is forum members and not necessarily active or paying members. Only Xojo knows how that translates.

The “39% increase” (while technically correct counting from one XDC to the next) is somewhat misleading. At least in our Statistics classes we were taught that you need to give growth as “of hundred per year” which would come to 16-17% year over year (much more interesting would of course be how the number of active users developed, eg the ones active within the last 2 or 4 weeks at each time point).

Adding new targets (for example iOS in Dec 2014) does not seem to have had an impact on forum user numbers (but again that might be different for paying users, and it might have had a positive effect on Xojo’s balance sheet by shifting users to the Pro edition). On the other hand it could reflect that it’s the desktop versions which are the mainstay of Xojo developers (with iOS and Pi more a hobby for most).

#20

Oh thanks, Markus. You edited your post several times, people aren’t stupid. It doesn’t have the same negative sentiment that you originally expressed.

Your original intent was clearly to say they were incorrect or lying but you were called out because the numbers actually work.

Anyway, this is a good example of why editing a message, after it’s been replied to, should not be allowed, which is how it used to be. And I’m done with this thread. <https://xojo.com/issue/45520>

#22

Did Norman just say something? (JUST KIDDING!!!)

#23

Another example, but pro this feature, is when you wrongly wrote something misleading / by error and want to modify your text. Say you discover minutes after the text sent that you wrote "Xojo 2015r3” instead of "Xojo 2016r3”.

#24

If you are editing, consider using the strikethrough strikethru tag so that it’s clear what’s changed.