Threads VS Posts (Replies)

Sharon

Sharon

Seasoned Veteran
Joined
Nov 14, 2013
Messages
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992
FP$
20,830
For me, when the number of threads in a forum is roughly the same amount of replies in the forum it immediately make me wonder why aren't people responding to threads and ultimately gives me the impression that that forum isn't very active.

To reinforce the point of this topic I pulled up the stats on three different forums and here are their percentages based on the # of posts of # of threads:

Forum Promotion - Threads: 119,954 Posts: 1,281,116 (9.36%)
Political Debate - Threads: 6,096 Posts: 88,632 (6.88%)
Revillution - Threads: 1,260 Posts 28,036 (4.49%)

In a forum community the amount of threads vs posts (replies), in your opinion does this matter?
 
I don't usually look at it right away, there are often enough other elements of a forum that can convince me to join or avoid (i.e. the appearance, the layout, what the posts/threads actually are, etc.). But once I join (or continue to lurk as a guest), I'll check it out. I'd also do the same kind of math you did when I was reviewing forums, it's good for evaluating on a generally reliable system.

I certainly want to see more posts than threads, and also a respectable number for however old the forum is. I wouldn't expect a brand new forum to have the stats of FP, but I would expect a few thousand if they've been open for a few weeks.

Some sites don't (either by choice or software limitations) show the threads/post split in their stats too, which doesn't really bother me, but is also why I don't put value in looking at this sort of thing. It's more of a fun thing to consider when you're bored with not much else to do. haha.
 
I feel that if you don't have many replies to your threads (unless you are a new start up forum) then something is wrong somewhere, either the topics are really not generating any interest or, the forum is dead.
 
I think almost all forums will tend to have more replies than threads especially massive forums like forum promotion etc.
Never really noticed a forum with a large amount of threads the same exact amount as the amount of replies
 
kingcool52 said:
I think almost all forums will tend to have more replies than threads especially massive forums like forum promotion etc.
Never really noticed a forum with a large amount of threads the same exact amount as the amount of replies
Click to expand...
I've only seen it on new forums where the staff are intentionally only creating new topics and waiting to reply to them. Which is understandable at that point in the forum's life.
 
There are a ton of variables that go into how many threads you have, versus posts. A lot of it is just dependant on the type of community you have, but you also have to keep the size of the forum in mind. I've also noticed that forums with a lot of active staff members tend to have more discussions created.
 
I've noticed people post to an already existing topic rather than starting a new one.
 
I think it is important that there are more replies than threads for a forum. If the ratio of threads to posts is 1:1, that is effectively saying that you are pretty much talking to yourself as no one is replying to your threads and I think that ruins the point of a forum.

From the statistics on average, there are 10.7 posts per thread. That is pretty good in my opinion but I think the higher this number, the better.
 
I'm not even sure that IPB shows you the number of threads of the community... :|
 
alakazam said:
I'm not even sure that IPB shows you the number of threads of the community... :|
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it does but I haven't seen a forum with more threads than posts 😛
 
MasterA said:
I think it is important that there are more replies than threads for a forum. If the ratio of threads to posts is 1:1, that is effectively saying that you are pretty much talking to yourself as no one is replying to your threads and I think that ruins the point of a forum.

From the statistics on average, there are 10.7 posts per thread. That is pretty good in my opinion but I think the higher this number, the better.
Click to expand...

I never thought about it that way but you're absolutely right that if you have a ratio of 1:1 then you are pretty much talking to yourself. lol

It personally bothers me when I see a thread that hasn't received any response. A person took the time to click on 'New Topic' think of the topic they wanted to propose and for it to just sit there and not get any replies... it's almost like someone in a group saying something and everyone just continues to talk about other stuff. It's kind of rude. lol
 
More threads only mean more replies, but the threads must not be carbon copies of the last one. I merge all relevant threads into one.
 
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