Just struck me today.

Friday Joke - 1201567 views.

Silly Pictures - 159801  views.


Perhaps we have more forum visitors who come here just for silly photos and corny jokes. Add those to caving politics and you get a very diminished number of views and threads for actual caving itself. Up to date news, exploration and digs. Also of course not that many photos of caves. ( Except from " The Old Splodger " ). OK thats an observation of mine not a moan though in truth I would like it to be different. With forums and Facebook I really cannot see see why forums are so depleted.  My collecting field is awash with Facebook groups now so many that I have given up following them. My caving club has two Facebook groups and a website. Rarely do issues and news featured there appear here. The same with the Mendip Cave Digging group which is by invitation only. Forums seem to exist in a strange universe somewhere between the written word and that mass of information that flies through the internet. No I really cannot account for it. Can you ?

Probably because most people prefer to go caving!

The 'silly stuff' is what helps hold a forum together just as the casual chat in our club houses helps hold the membership together.

People are not caving 24/7. Other interests help create other common bonds. It's the same in any Forum, irrespective of subject matter. If anything, this forum has a better ratio of "on topic" posts vs "idle chatter" posts than any other active forum I am a member of.

Also those threads have been running for a long time, the views per day may tell a different story on relative viewings...

Up to date news, exploration and digs.

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Don't see that much of that, if it is news is AGMs and things of that like.

Done a bit of maths on the Idle Chat - the Wezzit leads with c. 380 views per day average, which is quite impressive since it hasn't been posted on since February...

Friday Joke 240 views per day

Cryptic caves on 140

Mendip Wezzit 110 (again nothing since June 2018, so was much higher when active)

Silly pics 80

Welsh Wezzit 60 (Dec 2018)

What caving related thing 20

Interesting statistic would what percentage of forum members have posted zero times.  I reckon 50%

It's not just the length of time they've been running, it's also the total number of posts. The "friday joke" thread I estimate has around 6500 posts - in other words, fewer than 200 people each viewing each new post once would more than reach that number of total views. Of course, some people will only read a few posts, others will catch up on a dozen posts in one view.

Interesting statistic would what percentage of forum members have posted zero times.  I reckon 50%

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you're about right. There are 5 pages of members. If you order them according to number of posts, you reach 0 about half way down page 3. I don't know whether the "0" posts are regularly killed - the previous owner of the site used to cull, so the percentage of people who are registered now or were registered at some time in the past who have never posted will be greater than 50%

Yep, Silly pics wins the most views per post at 205, then Friday Joke 187, so they are the most popular in that sense.

Surprisingly What caving related thing comes in quite strong at 145...

Then Wezzit 124, Mendip Wezzit 114, Cryptic 77, Welsh Wezzit 49.

& you don't even need to register to view, so a lot more will have seen them!