CactiGuide.com

I notice that there have been over 500 looks at the contest entries, but only 47 votes.

Thats only 10%. I know that not all the lookers are registered, but 10% seems awful low.

Come on people this is "our" group. The more people that vote, the better contests we will have.
Competition is what makes everything worth while.


How many people are registered with this group?

Frank

some members look that group fews times to see results?! every member who voted if look 10 times, there is 500 looks...

Frank,
Hold on! I love the enthusiasm first of all, but there is a piece of information that you will find very useful. The views or "looks" that display on the forum are not the number of UNIQUE members who have viewed that post, it is the number of TOTAL views. In other words if you looked at the voting page 10 times, it would count as 10 views. You can test this out by clicking back and forth on the topic. You can watch the number count.

Another factor is guests. There are just as many, if not more people who look through the posts that are not registered users and their looks count too. These people cannot vote and may not even care about cacti. For example they could have typed "Picture Contest" in a search engine and found this page. If they were expecting a professional photography contest, they would likely leave the site and not even think about joining the forum. That would still count as a view.

Hopefully this will ease your mind on the participation factor. Note there are just a couple over 500 members total on the member list, but less than 50 that are very active. It is just the nature of the on-line forum.

By the way, feel free to invite as many people as you can to jump on in to the forum. To paraphrase what you said, "The more, the merrier"!

I really doubt if 50 members looked at this page 10 times each. With odds like that we would all be in Vegas. :O)

The only way anything becomes successful is by involvement and getting members to participate.

I realize we all want the people with more than just a passing interest, in cactus, to get involved and be active. As members in good standing, that is the what they should do, it keeps the club/web site, healthy with new discussions and ideas.
Just my -2 cent's.

Frank

I have not posted any picture this time, but I'm regularly checking to see how my favorite picture is scoring.

Prospector wrote:I really doubt if 50 members looked at this page 10 times each. With odds like that we would all be in Vegas.

I know I looked at it more than 10 times, but you are right, there probably weren't 50 people that looked at it ten times. I estimate that 50 or less are responsible for at least half the views. The rest probably come from guests and robots.

My point was simply that the number of views is not accurate enough to draw conclusions about participation. It should be taken with a grain of salt.

There is no formal commitment to join the forum and people will only participate as long as they want to. If they don't feel like participating, I wouldn't want to pressure them into it.

Just like plants -water them, give them good lighting, fertilize and the growth will come naturally!

That said- I like the idea of new members, lots of participation, and great discussions!

I can quarantee I did my share of viewing, maybe more than my share

I went to Vegas last month-- the odds are better here on the forum and less costly.

I belong to many forums and the post to view ratio here is very normal.

Just trying to get a little interest going. My mistake. I'll keep quiet from now on.


Prospector.

Prospector wrote:Just trying to get a little interest going. My mistake. I'll keep quiet from now on.

No! Don't do that! I think your intentions were great and I am positive the other members feel that way too. The only "mistake" was citing the number of "views" in a topic, but that was an honest mistake and nobody is going to fault you for it. After all, if there actually were 500 different members looking at the posts and only 47 voting, that would not be a very good ratio.

Prospector, you fit right in around here -keep on posting! After all someone has to ask the "hard" questions.

i have not voted in any contest than one as yet. but i view the contest, entries, comments many times.its ok as long as active participation is increasing and thats the fact.so am not bothered about the percentage.(please dont bar people from participating in contest if they dont score a single vote many times

Hi there,

(...) participating in contest if they dont score a single vote many times

That's me!

But I don't care if I'm scoring a big nil. Well, it would be nice to have the world at my feet. But this is not the point. I really enjoy competing & admiring other's pictures at the same time. Few of the pictures are really amazing, fresh and out of the ordinary. This picture contest ideea is great!

Cheers,
Eduart