I'm not convinced this is the correct place to put this, as it's neither Feedback or a Suggestion, but as it concerns the forum, this is where I'm stickin' it! No doubt if I got it wrong someone will stick it where it belongs - maybe even the deleted dustbin, I don't know.
Anyway - Measures of Success
Prompted by Barry's observation that the AoS member head count is approaching a landmark figure, I was thinking about how difficult it must be to measure the success of a thing like an internet forum.
So I'm interested about how the various members of the team view this.
Obviously a measure of success can only be defined if you are clear in your own mind about what your goals are and, depending upon those goals, I suppose each owner and member of the management team will have different measures of success.
Bearing that in mind there will be a different perspective from everyone concerned can I ask that those members of the team who're sufficiently motivated might help me understand what your own personal measures of the success of AoS are. Also, if they differ from their own personal view, could Steve & Marco tell me what the AoS 'corporate' measures of success are.
Personally, I think it would be naïve to settle on a single factor to measure this nebulous thing that is success, so I've listed some of the things that I would expect to take into account were I asked to define this. Can you give each a score out of 10 for me or number them in order of importance to you?
- Number of Members
- No. of Posts
- The ratio of number of members to the number of posts (ie: is the bulk of the traffic caused by a low number of highly active members or not?)
- Quality of posts (Purely subjective but everyone will have their own view on this)
- Returning visitors - members who stay for more than x no. of visits/weeks/months
- Search engine results
- Advertising revenue
- Variety of content
- Amount of advice given by you personally
- Increase in your personal knowledge
- Conversion to 'the cause' – whatever that might be (if indeed one exists in your mind)
- Low number of management interventions - bans / warnings / post removals or edits etc
- Something I haven't considered – if so, what might that be?
……….alternatively, you could tell me to mind my own bleedin' business.