The landing page for WOOF states the following:
Most users ever online was 1,020, 12-02-2020 at 09:44 AM.
This date rings no bells for me. What on earth happened on a Wednesday morning a few months back that caused such an influx of traffic?
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The landing page for WOOF states the following:
Most users ever online was 1,020, 12-02-2020 at 09:44 AM.
This date rings no bells for me. What on earth happened on a Wednesday morning a few months back that caused such an influx of traffic?
That is a lot of people, especially for a morning
Unfortunately it's not people that are causing this level of traffic. They're actually 'bots's that scan websites and try to join
We get a number of bots joining the site and I clean that up each week. Our simple security measures block 99.5% of it
The biggest day I can recall in terms of posts being generated in recent years was around the Brendan McCartney sacking.
I think we had something like a 1,100 posts on the one day and 3,500 to 4,000 for the week.
We used to regularly get more than 200 posts per day every day but those days are unfortunately long gone
Axey is right about drafts we normally get a kick in contrbutions
Here are some numbers by day by contributions (posts) from Oct 2014 when McCartney was being moved on
October 05, 2014
226
October 06, 2014
333
October 07, 2014
338
October 08, 2014
366
October 09, 2014
980
October 10, 2014
1070
October 11, 2014
369
October 12, 2014
423
October 13, 2014
568
October 14, 2014
478
October 15, 2014
969
October 16, 2014
655
And now for the month of May 2020
May 01, 2020
54
May 02, 2020
69
May 03, 2020
72
May 04, 2020
111
May 05, 2020
50
May 06, 2020
19
May 07, 2020
21
May 08, 2020
21
May 09, 2020
20
May 10, 2020
38
May 11, 2020
55
May 12, 2020
76
May 13, 2020
70
May 14, 2020
38
May 15, 2020
33
May 16, 2020
30
May 17, 2020
26
May 18, 2020
64
May 19, 2020
32
May 20, 2020
36
May 21, 2020
39
May 22, 2020
49
May 23, 2020
19
May 24, 2020
17
May 25, 2020
85
May 26, 2020
65
Interesting that the number of posts are down so much.
Have we not had an influx of new members in recent years? Wonder if it's something we could pose to the club, almost as their 'official' fan forum to try and generate new contributors.
I know that personally my contributions have dropped significantly over this time and it's predominately due to time - though I still check the site daily.
Hopefully that will pick up soon once the season gets underway again.
Could the gradual decline be due to something bigger, like the maturation of most of the posters on here.
I mean if you consider the vast majority of the regular posters have been posting on here for 10+ years, maybe we've just seen a lot of posters change from enthusiastic posters who just want to be part of any discussion to older posters who are more inclined to only post when they feel they can add to the discussion? I know that's certainly a change I've gone through having joined here as a teenager and now being in my 30s.
This could also be combined with a change in mindset since the premiership. After 2016 perhaps a few of us have "lost the hunger" as such and are more relaxed supporters now, and maybe even our poor performances since the flag that would have previously riled us up and gotten us making more posts pre premiership now just leave us a bit flat.
We've also potentially struggled to bring in an abundance of new "talent" potentially because a) we seem to spread through word of mouth more than anything and everyone has exhausted their Bulldog friends already and b) as a new poster there aren't a bunch of topics you can ease your way into, aside from some of the post match threads.
Having said that this is still the best forum in terms of well thought out discussion I frequent and still has a fair bit of activity so the bar is still set pretty high here.
Facebook kills sites like this too I think. It's much simpler while you are on FB to post to check the proliferation of Western Bulldog fan sites than check on or to have to register on WOOF.
Are those Facebook sites moderated? The ones I have seen (haven't looked for a few years), there were some very nasty people on them.
I don't like any forum, or social media where people get personal and attack you, and that is the beauty of this forum. We may disagree about someone's view point, but very few times in the last 14 years have there been too many personal attacks, and if there were, the moderators quickly shut it down.
There's certainly a level of competition which didn't exist 10 years ago.
There's multiple large supporter groups on Facebook, BF will always attract a large audience, you've got Instagram/Twitter for quick 'news grabs' and discussion and the AFL and its clubs have all dramatically improved their content in that time.
Soup's post above about the maturity of our posters rings true. Ultimately the key is bringing in a steady influx of new contributors, and how this can be done. I do wonder if it's something that could be put towards the club - particularly in the current space.
Facebook pages make Big Footy look like a Mensa meeting, absolute cesspool, our club included (with the exception of Rocco's page of course).
I've got nothing against Facebook either, use it daily, but I don't get involved in any discussions on fan pages and the like. There are some good footy pages to follow for a laugh, or some nostalgia, but certainly not for serious discussion.
Some good points made about the increased competition for our attention. I think WOOF is better off as a smaller, more mature platform for the reasons that have been raised.
I'm still all for paying/donating to the site to help cover costs, maybe even set up a WOOF patreon account or something similar. I'm sure those that visit the site daily would be happy to pay a few bucks every month to keep it ticking over...