Lack of Forum Participation

[chattycattty]

With over 300,000 members it is surprising to me that 99% of the activity  on this forum appears to come from less than 100 of its participants.  Thank you to those of you that participate.  I enjoy your stories, information sharing, and on many occasions your humor.
 
A forum is a valuable place to gather ideas and exchange information.  Why do you think that 99.99% of the members of this website choose not to participate in this forum?

[marie meijer]

Good topic, chatty, It's probably due to many reasons as other priorities demanding their time, lack of encouragement and interest, fear of being pounced upon, either fairly or unfairly, fear of spelling or grammatical errors that might lead to ridicule and apathy. Fear of run on sentences. We are all capable of spelling errors! Topics run all over the place. Some posts interest me more than others. Some posts shout at me to respond and others leave me neutral after a glance and I move on. I do thank all of you who participate here. I have learned new, useful/valuable info and also had many good laughs from this site! I avoid those tedious word wars!

[BillyJoe]

I post just so I can get "VP Master" next to my name. Bob Dancer doesn't even have that..

[Tedlark]

  What I found funny was the spike in forum participation during the emancipation of the daily contest.

[Webman]

The percentage isn't quite as low as you say. 300,000 people have signed up over a period of several years, and over those years a lot of people have participated who are no longer around or visit only occasionally.

But yes... We've found that a lot of members have very little interest in forum or chat participation, they just play the games. I'm sure they each have their reasons. But we keep the chat and forum, because they are good features for those who do enjoy them.

I personally am not too troubled by these numbers. AAA has over 50 million members, and their member forum has had fewer posts in the past week than this one.

[faygo]

AAA has over 50 million members, and their member forum has had fewer posts in the past week than this one.

I knew this site was a success.    You would think the AAA site would have more posts just about cracked windshield.   

Oh, and one more post and I am going to retire myself. No cheering!

[Tedlark]

I personally am not too troubled by these numbers. AAA has over 50 million members, and their member forum has had fewer posts in the past week than this one.
  Quite possibly because there is a high percentage of AAA members who don't own computers?

[chattycattty]

  What I found funny was the spike in forum participation during the emancipation of the daily contest.

Don't you mean the reverse emancipation of the daily contest?

[chattycattty]

The percentage isn't quite as low as you say. 300,000 people have signed up over a period of several years, and over those years a lot of people have participated who are no longer around or visit only occasionally.

But yes... We've found that a lot of members have very little interest in forum or chat participation, they just play the games. I'm sure they each have their reasons. But we keep the chat and forum, because they are good features for those who do enjoy them.

I personally am not too troubled by these numbers. AAA has over 50 million members, and their member forum has had fewer posts in the past week than this one.

I am not comparing this to a AAA website.  I am comparing it to other websites such as slotfanatics.com and slotmachineforum.com.  They have a smaller membership but a much more active forum.
 
Even if there are only 10,000 members of the 300,000 who have signed up over a number of years still actively participating you are still looking at a number of about 1%. I agree that a sizable majority just play the games.  I would be more concerned with what happened to the other 290,000 people who have left the website.
 
I introduced this topic b/c I think their is opportunity for greater participation.  Thanks again to those of you that do post because it is enjoyable to hear the stories, take in the humor, and live vicariously through some of the big monster hits that many of our members are getting at the casino.
 

[Vman96]

Most people sign up to play the games. If slotmachines forum offered play money versions of the exact same slots in the casino, but you had to register for free to play them, their registration numbers would probably eclipse this site.