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Joined: Sep 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788 |
According to the Main Page, there are 3947 registered users of this board. It is easy to understand how that number grows: someone signs up, acquires a board name, begins to post, and the counter clicks one up. It is more difficult to discern if the number is ever reduced. There are not 3947 posters elbowing one another aside to find space to post here. Does the proprietor never clean the closet, removing and discarding those identities which have been silent for some period of time? If not, the number doesn't mean much. It stands for how many people started the race but not how many runners are on the road, which is not a particularly useful thing to know.
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Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 3,230
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2003
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After what time would you designate runners as due for culling? I can think of at least two oldtime regulars who dropped out of the race for a long time, and have recently resurfaced.
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
FS, your analysis is spot on; it is quite a useless number. In fact, I could be heard recently remarking to myself that I hoped it would go unnoticed this time around. (I recall big hoopla for numbers 2000 and 3000.)
just for grins, here is the grand progression:
1000 - June 30, 2000 (this went almost completely unremarked upon)
2000 - Jan. 26, 2001 (this thread nicely melded the 2000 v. 2001 debate)
3000 - in or around the Ides of March, 2002 (the insignificance of this statistic is finally broached)
Notes: 1) one can only note that the rate of incidence has rather dramatically slowed.
2) I found these via the following searches: x000 AND users
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
> I can think of at least two oldtime regulars who dropped out of the race for a long time, and have recently resurfaced. your point being, max#2?! 
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Joined: Jul 2003
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 3,230 |
My point is that I was addressing the suggestion that closet should be cleaned from time to time. I have no beef with the irrelevance of the "registered users" number, I don't even know where to find it. Our Pacific Rim padre, though, mentioned reducing that number from time to time, and that was what prompted my reply.
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
along the lines of 'those who stand and wait, also serve', there are lurkers (you know who you are!) who rarely post.
they are registered... and are welcome.
there have been times, when we(the long time poster) have been accused of running a closed club- partly because some of the long time posters know each other, not just in cyber world, but in the real world. Even those of us to don't know each other in the real world, have developed long term relationships based on a long time knowledge of each other (in the cyber world).
Deleting a member because they don't post as 'often' as You (or I) think they should would make it closed club. It would send a message: only regulars welcome, posting once or twice, and lurking not permitted!--a message, i don't endorse!
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788 |
I, too, am one of those who took a leave of absence from the board, for good cause, I thought, and returned. A year seems about right. And perhaps, rather than "kill off" an inactive account, there could be an intermediate state into which these identities were placed, for another time, and from which they could be resurrected.
P.S. Somehow, that image from the movie Logan's Run, where the people float up into the ceiling and are vaporized, keeps coming to mind.
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
>Our Pacific Rim padre, though, mentioned reducing that number from time to time, and that was what prompted my reply.
to which my nicely obfuscated riposte only hinted at the possibility that, had your original personna been so reduced, you might well be max¹ again today. (or we might have other doubles)
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Joined: Jul 2003
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Sorry, mijnheer, I don't do observation before coffee. Remember, I mentioned that I didn't know where to find the number of registered users, and that little datum is VERY well hidden!
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
not all *that well hidden..
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3947 Registered Users.
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