First, let me say THANK YOU for a well written post, and for resisting the temptation to lash out. I greatly appreciate a civil conversation !!
Here are some numbers for you to chew on that we used in our determinations.
Average number of posts in a thread on SnoWest = 23.73
Average number of threads that have more than 75 posts = 9%
Average number of threads that have more than 100 posts = 4%
What this means.
Free Members can read 100% of the contents of 91% of all threads on SnoWest.
The much bantered about argument that people are leaving because they can't read any of the threads is just a Red Herring. The hard cold numbers prove otherwise. Could we increase the free allotment? Sure, we could push it to 100 posts per thread, and you know what, it would make ZERO difference.
We understand that people are cheap.
We get it.
Very few people are willing to pay for anything that they can find a way of obtaining for free.
We understand that.
What we have tried to do, and what we will continue to work on, is trying to find a "reasonable" medium between giving it all away, and charging for our services.
Will we be making more "Adjustments & Tweaks" as Spring/Summer rolls along?
Sure, you can count on it.
While I will agree that the forums seemed "quieter" in March, than in February, it wasn't because people stopped coming to SnoWest. Not Even.
New Members, March 2010 1,374
While some will argue this was a great season and there is plenty of snow and terrific riding still, by and by, from an industry perspective this was not a great year, we had poor snow, and what we had went away sooner than normal. And those events have a real impact on daily traffic on SnoWest.
But..
I have NOT been an admin on this site long enough to have the historical records to see the hard numbers on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis. That data just wasn't collected before I came, and there is no data at all from more than 2 years ago when they upgraded the whole system to vBulleten and lost MILLIONS of posts and over 40,000 Membership records!
If they were ever able to find those backup disks I could triple our post/thread count with all the material that was lost in the upgrade! (just makes me cringe).
Landings, Page Views, New Memberships, ect all remain strong.
What we need to work on is member participation/posting. The members ARE here, I can see them log in every day. I can see what they read and follow their path through the site. What your seeing is the fact that they are now reading far more than they are writing.
Our goal, as we move forward, will be to drawn them back out.
A good part of that will only happen after the "Prophets of Doom & Gloom" give their pronouncements of the death of SnoWest a rest.
We will get there.
We are patient.
And like all sledders, we are eternal optimists that the next season always has good things in store for us.
This will be a busy Spring/Summer as we prepare for next Fall.