Forums Statistics

Should They Be Shown Or Not

[webdev]

I have a pretty good forum on one of my sites that has been going for about 2 years now and the forum stats are as follows.

Members 4,500 (All confirmed emaill addresses)
Posts 21,544
Threads 3,671

General average of 40 members over a 24hour period online and a good 300 + guests a day

My question in this:

Should I leave these stats available on the bottom of my forum as its handy for people to see who is online etc but I sometimes feel that these stats can show a little bit low especially if there's like only 1 or two members and 7 guests online.

So would it be better to hide these stats, leave as they are or would it not really make any difference.

I notice webmasterworld never has these stats available and if this was a tactic.

[rogerd]

Don't forget "views", "members online", and other stats.

I think it's personal choice. I lean toward eliminating clutter whenever possible (I'd say that's the philosophy here, too). Having tons of stats doesn't improve the user experience. Understanding which forums are active, though, probably does help visitors and members, so having some indication of posts or threads is probably a plus. Recency is important, too - "last post date" or a new post indicators are good.

[webdev]

Hi rogerd thanks for the reply.

I agree with the new posts, thread views, and replies thats all fine - what I'm wondering about removing is the part that says exactly how many people are online - as when this is low it can make a forum look less busy than it can be - does this make sense?

[encyclo]

It really does depend on the particular forum. On mine, the majority of categories are hidden, so when logged-out the index age gives a pretty barren impression if it wasn't for the statistics which show how many members and how many thousands of messages. When logged out, I don't show any information about which users are online (and anyway profiles are only available when logged in), but for the members, those stats remain by popular choice.

Certainly it is important to simplify the design and reduce the clutter as much as practicable (especially for bots and non-members), but for smaller boards, those stats are often a very important sign of the vitality of a community. Once you reach a critical mass and it is obvious at a glance at the categories that the forum is active and busy, then the stats become less relevant.