# 500th Member



## pjk (Aug 22, 2007)

We just had our 500th member join. Very nice to see it.


----------



## tim (Aug 23, 2007)

Speedcubing will overtake any other sport in its popularity


----------



## AvGalen (Aug 23, 2007)

And untill 6-8-2007 (competition 2007-25) only 64 of them have competed in our weekly competition. Why don't all of you do that?


----------



## Johannes91 (Aug 23, 2007)

AvGalen said:


> And untill 6-8-2007 (competition 2007-25) only 64 of them have competed in our weekly competition. Why don't all of you do that?


"Only" 64? You're quite ambitious IMO. I'm guessing there are 200 or more passive members. (And the search actually finds only 492 total, not 500.)

Some reasons why I don't participate:
- It seems very unorganized. There are many unrelated posts in the competition threads, and everybody seems to have their own format for posting the results. I don't think that a forum is good for this. Monday Contest and Ryan's competitions are much nicer.
- Demanding participants to explain their fewest moves solutions before the deadline seems very awkward to me. Especially because you participate sometimes, too!
- The results are hard to read.

btw: s/untill/until/g


----------



## AvGalen (Aug 23, 2007)

Johannes: You have participated, although only twice.

The competition-threads are indeed very unorganized. I think most participants actually like it that way. Just like in a real competition people like to talk. Everyone is allowed to post their results in the format they like and I have made a program that makes their results confirm to the format my database uses. This means people can post their times as either 1:30.25 or 90.25 or 90,25 or 1:30,25 or (1:30.25) (OP, best time ever with both parities!). I personally use the format I prefer: "eventname: xx:yy.zz, xx:yy.zz, xx:yy.zz, xx:yy.zz, xx:yy.zz = xx:yy.zz". Nothing is stopping you or anyone else from doing the same.

I have never demanded someone to explain their fewest moves solution, let alone before the deadline. I have only asked twice because I wanted to understand those solutions and I never look at those solutions until I have participated myself. I don't think anyone doubts that I come up with my solutions myself

Are the results really that hard to read? Does anyone have any tips on how to improve this?

I put a lot of effort into the weekly competition, both in competing and in organising. If someone has an idea to make the competition better, just let me know.

Until  then, I hope all 500 of us can make this forum better and better.


----------



## tim (Aug 23, 2007)

Johannes is right, a forum is a really bad place for a competition like that.
I once thought of writing a small (fully customizable) Rails application, where everyone could post his times.
I thought of:
- closing old competitions and generating (scramble generator) new ones automatically
- adding new events by an admin (Arnaud)
- nice statistics for anyone to see his/her (500 male users?) progress
- ... other very cool features .

But there are two problems:
- If we can't get the application work within this forum, there has to be an extra login, or anyone could post times under any name. (Perhaps the rails app can use the forum sessions? Have to do some research.)
- At the moment I don't have enough time to write such an application (learning maths ). Anyone interested in helping me? 

Thanks Arnaud for your weekly effort, i think i can imagine that it's not a small amount of work for you .


----------



## AvGalen (Aug 23, 2007)

Let's continue the "competition"-talk in this thread: How to improve the weekly competitions? I made a short (and hopefully accurate) summary of the discussion so far in that thread


----------



## CorwinShiu (Aug 24, 2007)

Wow, 500. I think I was near the 400th member. 

Also, congrats on your 2,000 post!


----------



## AvGalen (Aug 24, 2007)

If I click on your username you see that you are "u=457". Currently the last one is http://www.speedsolving.com/member.php?u=505 so I think that is how the 500th user was recognized. Also, pjk is "u=1".


----------



## pjk (Sep 13, 2007)

Just an update, we are nearing 550 members now. Not a bad growth in 19 days.


----------



## pjk (Nov 7, 2007)

680 members now. Quite a growth over the last couple months!


----------



## badmephisto (Nov 9, 2007)

i wonder if this growth had anything to do with nakaji's video being featured on youtube  I'd like to think it brought back some hype


----------



## pjk (Nov 9, 2007)

Possibly... but he doesn't link to speedcubing.com at all. If he did, I bet the amount of members would have went over 1k.


----------



## AvGalen (Nov 9, 2007)

> he doesn't link to speedcubing.com at all


 
I think you meant he doesn't link to speed*solving*.com at all


----------



## pjk (Nov 9, 2007)

Yes, I did mean that, my mistake.


----------



## pjk (Dec 31, 2007)

Over 850 members now. How long do you think before it will break 1k? I am guessing by the end of January to mid February.


----------



## slncuber21 (Dec 31, 2007)

^yeah i think that it will be over 1k by then too, yay speedsolving!


----------



## ExoCorsair (Dec 31, 2007)

1/15. Arbitrary date.


----------



## AvGalen (Dec 31, 2007)

pjk said:


> Over 850 members now. How long do you think before it will break 1k? I am guessing by the end of January to mid February.


Are you sure about the 850? If I look at http://www.speedsolving.com/memberlist.php it says 819


----------



## ExoCorsair (Dec 31, 2007)

What's Going On?
Speedsolving the Rubik's Cube ( Speedcubing ) and Other Puzzles Forum Statistics 
Threads: 2,369, Posts: 26,855, Members: 852
Welcome to our newest member, Nghia

Bottom of the main page.


----------



## Johannes91 (Dec 31, 2007)

pjk said:


> Please don't delete posts unless it is absolutely nescessary. For me, I just move messages to an admin "trash can" so therefore the postcount doesn't go down, which will affect the activity of the forum.


Maybe pjk does something similar to spammers/not-wanted-users?

(Not that anyone asked my opinion, but I think that's really lame.)


----------



## pjk (Dec 31, 2007)

Arnaud: That is odd that it shows 819 on the members list. There are a couple of things I can think of. That may only include people who activated their account. It may not also include anyone who was banned or is suspended. But I dont think there would be a 30+ difference. That is quite odd...

Johannes: All spammers have been banned. This means their account is removed, but it also blocks that user from viewing any forum. Their account I don't think shows up in the members list, nor as a "Member", as I have seen the count drop when I banned a member. In regards to the deleted posts: You would be surprised how many times I have deleted a post on other forums and then I wish that I could see it again. I used to run a sports card forum with 3k+ members, and we would always have mods delete posts that we would later need. You would be surprised on how far some of these members when in regards to their ban (long story). So we came up with the idea, lets move them to the trash. This way we can view it later. At the same time, this preserves the post count. Typically, if someone goes to forum and there is almost 0 activity, they will not join and participate - there is no point. But if there is some activity, they will join, read, and participate. This is simply how people think. For a forum to be successful, you have to start off with activity. So those are the two main reasons why a trashcan exists. And almost every forum with decent activity you see these days will have a hidden trashcan.


----------



## AvGalen (Dec 31, 2007)

Another option is that on the member list people need to have at least 1 post?


----------



## pjk (Dec 31, 2007)

No, there are many people on there who have 0 posts. Not sure what it is, but I will find out.


----------



## pjk (Jan 15, 2008)

I ended up finding out what it was. The stats at the bottom include anyone who has completed their registration. The members list includes only people who have activated their account. I looked an there were over 35 people who never activated their email. I resent activations to all of them. Most likely the user entered in the wrong email, therefore never getting the email(s), and will have to re-register.

anyway, we are over 900 members now, and about to surpass 30,000 posts. I am also getting ready to upgrade the server, and upgrade the forum software. I will post details in the announcements forum when the time gets closer.


----------



## Dene (Jan 15, 2008)

Wow, that is amazing! Thanks for all your hard work! *cue the suck up*


----------



## slncuber21 (Jan 16, 2008)

^ yeah great job! (lol Dene!)


----------



## AvGalen (Jan 29, 2008)

Are you kidding Patrick? Only 30.000 posts?

You and I together have about 5.000 posts so that means 1/6 posts is ours?


----------



## Johannes91 (Jan 29, 2008)

AvGalen said:


> Are you kidding Patrick? Only 30.000 posts?


Why do you ask instead of checking it yourself?



AvGalen said:


> You and I together have about 5.000 posts so that means 1/6 posts is ours?


Yes.


----------



## pjk (Feb 11, 2008)

Feb 11th, 2008: 1,000th member has joined.


----------



## Kenneth (Feb 11, 2008)

But are there really 1,000? At SveKub we got over 500 but I guess about 20% are double registrations (wrong e-mail adress in registration so the auto reply don't get to the proper place or simply forgotten passwords makes that).


----------



## AvGalen (Feb 11, 2008)

How many different users have actually posted ever and how many have posted in the last 6 months?

I think about 2000 should be reachable by the end of this year?


----------



## pjk (Feb 12, 2008)

Ken: 1,000 people have registered. I'd guess 5 or so are double registrations, and I'd guess around 50 haven't activated their accounts. The other 945 have either visited, continue to read, or post regularly. All spam accounts have been deleted for the most part. 

Arnaud: I will have to look into those stats. I would say maybe half have posted in the last 6 months. I suppose it is time for a mass email. By the end of the year, 2,000 is possible, it just depends. Speedcubing is certainly growing quick.


----------



## Johannes91 (Feb 12, 2008)

AvGalen said:


> How many different users have actually posted ever


Click "Members List" and sort by post count. According to it, 634 have made at least one post and 291 at least ten posts.


----------



## pjk (Mar 3, 2008)

1,102 now.... the last 102 came quick.


----------



## Dene (Mar 3, 2008)

Lol, woo! OP members numbers. 2k by the end of May, who agrees?


----------



## pajodaep (Mar 3, 2008)

hmm... here in the philippines, in our local website ( www.pinoyspeedcubers.com ), we already have 965 members, but i'm not sure about the double registrations...


----------



## pjk (May 7, 2008)

We just surpassed 50,000 posts.


----------



## Dene (May 8, 2008)

Wow, what a bunch of spammers


----------

