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.

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.

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

> 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?!

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.

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!

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.

>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)

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!

not all *that well hidden..

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3947 Registered Users.
Welcome, sjmaxq

>not all that well hidden

Was the point I was trying to make. It turns out that, in addition to not doing observation before coffee, I shouldn't attempt self-defecating sarcasm either. Time for a vertically-challenged African-American.

d'oh. ironic, isn't it?!

I am poster who seldom writes post, but I read many posts and better and better know English. It is not necessary remove me.

Dear krzysztof: Welcome to you! I hope you will post often.

krzysztof is not new Bill. He simply posts infrequently. Don't worry though krzysztof, nobody's eliminating you.

IMO guys, that number is really unimportant. It's just the total number of people who have registered here. Some come and go, some stay. Is it really important to assign a number to the quantity of people who stay? There's really no purpose to that number.

We're having a conversation amoung friends is all. Enjoy.

It is not necessary remove me. Don't worry, Sweet Thing, you're not going anywhere if I have anything to say about it. I think Anu is pretty much hands-off for this board; he answered my panicky question ages ago about how long PM's would stay (forever), so I can't see him* suddenly deciding to terminate memberships. There are lots of people who registered but have never posted; I'm not sure why--you don't have to be registered just to read, do you?

*The phrase "I can't see him" = saying "I can't believe that he will", = "I don't believe he will".

Dear Krzysztof ~

I have been sufficiently chastised for raising this issue that I think your membership in this board is entirely safe. My new proposal would be to remove the total number of registered users from the Main Index, as it is a less-than-useless number. I doubt if anyone would seriously object to its removal and it's loss would not jeopardize the valued of memberships of occasional posters like yourself.

The Old Padre (who now boasts 700 posts)

As long as Anu's hard-disk capacity is holding out, I am also against deleting anything, even though I agree with the limited usefulness of the statistic. What is useful, anyway? A long time ago, in my favorite coffe-house, a philosophy-minded friend raised the question: what's the use of a fly? The answer was: just ask a fellow fly.

well, I like looking at statistics and I wish there were more to choose from! a list of members would be nice, and when people last visited, number of posts per day, and that sort of thing. only because it's interesting to look for patterns; which day of the week is busiest or most slow, etc.
only curious...

if Anu uses any sort of web counter (site meter), he (or more likely his minions) probably has that kind of data at his disposal.

my experience (though the raw numbers wouldn't come anywhere within the effective range of a supernova of those generated here) is that traffic peaks in midweek and drops off about 50% on weekends (no "daily" word then).

that's what I assumed. I know that forum software is all different, and wasn't sure if there were features such as those sort of statistics that were disabled. guess we may never know...

eta, why don't you write a program to crunch these numbers? I mean, you've got the day off, I assume... [duck]

gosh, Anna, I would, but I'm knee deep in an arrangement of a song for the next Counterpoint CD...
got a good Hebrew to English site?

There's some good Hebrew scholars at the Word Origins message board:

http://pub122.ezboard.com/bwordoriginsorg

Tell 'em Faldage sent ya. (Or maybe better you *don't tell 'em Faldage sent ya)

thanks, Fald. I have a pretty good English version, that's is, it's purty, but I just need to check some specific words, mostly. want to amke sure I'm actually using nouns and such, rather than all them indefinite articles...

> amke [...] all them indefinite articles...

yeah, never bin too sure about that article meownsef :)

for eta, and maybe Max would be interested?

http://milon.morfix.co.il/

There's also this one, specifically aimed at modern-day immigrants to Israel:

http://www.dictionary.co.il/

jheem, do you know of any others/better ones?

Sorry, no Anna. All my Hebrew linguistics books are of the paper and print variety. I'm sure folks around here know this already, but algorithm has nothing to do with rhythm, it derives from an Arab author's name ('al khwarizmi, born in Baghdad) who wrote a book on the algebra that was translated into Latin in Europe and became a staple. I have a xerox of one of the editions which I'll see if I can yank any interesting material out of.

Personally, being not very mathematical, I've always been found of the aptness of the name algebra, seeing as how attempting it always leaves me feeling broken in pieces.

what I'm finding that I need is a transliteration dictionary. from transliterated Hebrew to English. any ideas?

Eta, have you thought about contacting rabbis in your area?

contacting rabbis
I already had my shots...
sorry, I couldn't resist.

actually, there is one member of the group that knows Hebrew quite well, but I was hoping to be able to just do some research online. thanks for the thought.

"woeizmi"--just caught that!

Does being almost 58 count as "oldtime"?

And I'm hoping to make that three.

I got a note from Theresa this morning, looked out at the snow and ice, made another cup of tea, and settled in for a few minutes of AWAD. One of the reasons I kept shying away from even looking in was how intimidating it is to look at the main screen and see that there are something like 9000 new messages.

ANYWAY! I'm alive and well and reveling in my retirement in Western North Carolina. I've been building a workshop in the back to build furniture in, being a full time househusband, and trying to keep this big old house running. Peggy's working full time with a one-hour commute in each direction, so the housekeeping's on me, as well as most of the child-rearing during the week.

All this is in way of apogizing for my disappearing act! I'm gonna try for half an hour to an hour a day for aWAD.

I've missed you people a LOT!

TEd

And we have definitely missed you and your inimitable pun making, Ted. Very good to see you here this morning and hope you can make good on that half hour a day! I can't often because of school, but, oh, with this long weekend and now the snow, it is very good to be here.

Father Steve said he limits the number of *fora he keeps up with--I think he said he limits himself to Q&A and this
one, so that might be a good approach for those of us who are pressed during the week.

Best regards,
Theresa

*fora: a word I delight in using, although Father Steve, I don't believe, used it in the post I'm remembering of his.

*fora again edited: Oh, Father Steve, I just read your post and see that you did use *fora! Good for you! Doesn't surprise me. I just couldn't remember your words on the other thread and thought perhaps you'd simply written that you'd posted on Q&A and here--without referring at all to forum, either in the singular or plural.