I'm asking this in the spirit of enlightened curiosity.
I joined the worldwide slinging group in 2021 when it had quite a low membership.
Recently something has happened and the membership has gone to over 9,000.
I remember CA telling me  that the membership of slinging.org was not accurate in the sense that people join and are never seen again so about 10% of membership was active.
Any thoughts on the whys and wherefores and wether any action should or could be contemplated  ?
Cheers.
:)

That is about what I would expect. I have joined several different forums and never posted anything, I'm just there to read. You always get some core people who post a lot and a whole lot of people who post occasionally or never.

Very true. I was a lurker for about a decade on this site. Then in 2020 I started to actually post.

I believe that Facebook slinging group is linked on our Social Media board, https://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1701227208.  If it's a different one let me know and we can link it.


On the other topic, if you're talking about active members, we're way lower than 10%.  For "active" I generally figure that's someone who posts at least once a month.  Yeah, the bar is low.  It's slinging.  What can we do... ::)

I keep meaning to tally some numbers to see where they actually are, but the largest percentage of slinging.org members fall into one of three categories:
[list bull-blackball]

Got an account and never logged in.

Got an account, posted an introduction, and never came back.

Got an account and posted for a little bit (say less than 50 posts, or less than a month or two of posting).
That is easily 90% of new member sign-ups.  Maybe that's what CA was referring to with the "10%" (but I'm skeptical if it's that high).  There are also hundreds (if not thousands) of old members that aren't around anymore.  It's actually pretty hard to tally things up.

At the end of the day, it makes sense to me.  The majority of people are going to see a slinging video somewhere and say 'That's super cool!  I'm going to do it!'.  They sign up on the forum, or Facebook, or whatever.  Sling for a week or so.  Lose the "coolness" aspect.  And then drop it.  You said the membership of that Facebook group has jumped to 9000 quickly.  I'd love to know how many of those folks are actually slinging regularly.  And how many will still be slinging regularly in 6 months.  I don't mean to be pessimistic about the situation.  There are tons of activities and hobbies out there that people try and don't continue doing long-term.  If 1 out of every 100 people that sign up on this forum really get into slinging and keep doing it for years, I would call that a win.

I agree with Joe, even if the number is small, it's still growth for this really niche but ancient hobby. I'll admit, I don't post much, myself, but that doesn't mean I'm inactive with slinging as a whole - I'm still slinging away and have actually recently started slinging with Benjamin Scott once a week.

I should in all honesty be more active here, but I'm shy and don't have anything really new to add to the table :D

And then there some of us who have been here for decades
But only post in spurts lol

lobohunter wrote on Aug 2^nd, 2024 at 7:49pm:

And then there some of us who have been here for decades But only post in spurts lol

Spurt away mate !

;D ;D ;D  [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

joe_meadmaker wrote on Aug 1^st, 2024 at 11:58pm:

I keep meaning to tally some numbers to see where they actually are, but the largest percentage of slinging.org members fall into one of three categories: [list bull-blackball] Got an account and never logged in. Got an account, posted an introduction, and never came back. Got an account and posted for a little bit (say less than 50 posts, or less than a month or two of posting). That is easily 90% of new member sign-ups.

Just ran the numbers on this. Looking at the members tab, 12.8% of members have made more than 50 posts, and 36.2% of members have made 1 post or less. Of course, this doesn't take into account whether they're active or not. Regardless, it's kinda disappointing, but important to remember when I'm trying to get others potentially involved in slinging.

Thanks Teeth.  Here's an expansion on that.  In 2024 we've had 62 new members sign up.  Attached is the activity rundown.

Now one thing to keep in mind, some members are very recent.  So obviously they're not going to have 50 posts already.  I'll also mention that the only reason for posting this is for interest purposes.  There is no judgement here.  Any forum member is welcome to engage as much or as little as they want (and feel comfortable doing).  But whenever you do have something to say, we'll be here.  :)

I'll include one more stat that I pulled down.  If we look at the number of members (new members this year) who have signed into their account at least one time, there are 17 accounts that have not been accessed for 100+ days.  So 17 out of 51 (exactly 1/3).

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I started the Facebook group 3 1/2 years ago. It took 3 years to hit 1000. Since April to August we added another 10,000. I believe it has to do with the Facebook algorithm. After 1000 members people were seeing it as a suggested group of interest. I’m curious if membership here has grown at all. This site is promoted frequently as a place of good resources.