In the last month Dakka has broken a few benchmarks that have been impressive enough that I've decided to share some of the secret stats with everyone. In this thread (most likely just in this first post), I'll run through some graphed versions of the stats I collect. All opinions that are not about Dakka are my personal conjecture and are to be taken as drunken rambling rather than anything factual. I do have (volunteered) access to data from other sites but have no permission to share it so stay quiet on those fronts.

First and foremost is the most significant of the graphs. This graph indicates the total average posts per day over a month for each site listed. I started collecting stats for Dakka when we launched the current version of the forum software to make sure I was not going to screw anything up, and monitored a number of other websites so that I could see the overall traffic trends for wargaming, and to ensure dakka could replicate anything that was especially successful elsewhere. Here is the graph:


There are a few things of note in the above graph. First off, I have cut out abnormalities like batch post archiving (which would cause some forums to lose thousands of posts per day) and replaced them with 0 values. If a 0 value is in place followed by a spike upwards, it means that the site in question was unavailable at the time of stat gathering so it gets skewed in the following month's data. There are dozens of caveats in the above data as all forums are operated differently. Any with automated post archiving or removal will have lower scores than they should. Any that include RSS feeds for posts, post lots of automated messages or suffer from lots of spamming are inclined to have higher scores than the average. Registration and login simplicity is also a factor, as is anything that is done to encourage registrations (like Dakka's extra advert for guest users).

I'll dig into the stats in more detail later if people are interested, but I can only really offer personal conjecture and mention when sites were having technical difficulties. A few of the more interesting things of note are:
- last month dakka had more posts than any other site at any time I've been logging it (woo! - and it was not all down to Alpharius posting in the DCM naughty thread!).
- Warseer had severe server load issues in Nov/Dec 2008 and you can see the effect quite significantly in the graph
- Dakka launched our gallery in Dec 08
- You can watch Tau Online die as it got bought out by someone who ran it until the users rebelled and left (and started Second Sphere)

The forum choices are a bit odd in my graphs and I've added a few more each year. The reason for the choices is varied and I'm too lazy to go into it for now, but basically it comes down to sites that were doing something interesting that I wanted to watch or were some of the first results in google for warhammer or 40k forums at the time. Not including other forums (even if they are large) is not a personal thing, just that I am only after a general overview of the community, not every single forum.

So that is that graph. I've been tracking registrations as well but that is such a loaded figure it counts for almost nothing. Here is the graph for average number of signups per day:


I've smoothed it out a bit to hide Aug-Sep 2010 when 40kforums jumped up by 10K users as I think that is probably an artificial statistic, and if it isnt it skews the graph so much as to be unreadable. The graph above has loads of problems:
- Spam registrations vary a lot from site to site. Dakka can be as many as 5 per day sometimes!
- Some sites require registration to be useable (librarium online) which obviously causes a massive increase relative to traffic/other sites.
- Some times will report the user total as registrations, others will only report it as users who verified their email address after registering, giving quite a wide gulf. For every 10 users who sign up with us, 1-2 will not verify their address for whatever reason and therefore are not valid users.

As such, the above graph is not useful for site to site comparisons, but is useful to see site specific trends. Dakka had a big spam problem in mid 2009, and while spam posts were not too bad, we had a lot of problems with spam registrations. As we cut down on it the registration rate dropped but more normal users were signing up so the community was actually growing faster. The most interesting things on the graph are the big spikes. The first heresy online spike is due to them requiring registration to read forum threads after the first thread has been read, as well as having a very simple (no verification) signup process at the time. It was very interesting to see the data come in for that, especially the relative dip afterwards as the initial readership had all signed up. Librarium online experiment with strange registration options and requirements quite frequently as well, and that is represented in their very volatile graph line. They also have by far the best search engine referrals which means a lot more casual users find their site but dont stick around long for whatever reason.

One of the other big benchmarks we hit recently was this:

Dakka became the biggest wargaming gallery on this planet. Dont let the graph confuse you, it is still pretty much neck and neck, but we are getting loads of wargaming images at a faster rate than coolmini. The absolute number of images is the only thing we can compare as coolmini and dakka could not be more different. They are a great site with a fantastic gallery and a much higher grade of painting community than our more general community (not to say we dont have some great painters too), but most importantly they are doing their part for the community very well, and that is why we are hosting one of their banners on our home page at the moment fwiw. Our gallery is about getting as many wargaming images as possible so you can see something as a WIP, a completed model, on the tabletop, etc. whereas theirs is just showing the best things people have done so we both fill different niches and are complementary rather than competitive. Still I'm pleased we are so large now and the site has not fallen over and died yet!

Finally with a confidential axis hidden, here is our traffic graph since well before Yak and I took over:


We dont want to share absolute figures with the world, but you can see how we are doing month on month and this month so far is the best ever, with traffic continuing to grow. This is unique visitors per day average per month which is the only vaguely reliable stat you can use for traffic (as opposed to hits, page views, visits, etc) which are all flawed in various ways. As you can see, everyone is doing their part well and things grow nicely. The recent dip was due to a slowing server due to server load (since then it has been upgraded) and a lack of anything new in 40k for a while which caused a bit of an impact until Dark Eldar came out.

An interesting thing to do is to compare our traffic graph above to alexa, google trends or compete.com so you can see just how inaccurate those services are (actually google trends is ok if you feed it data but we do not).

Anyway that is all for now. I'll do some more specific site vs site breakdowns in this thread in the future if people are interested but for now I'm all typed out. I'm not proofreading this either so hope there are no mistakes Thanks for enjoying Dakka so far!

Really interesting it's always nice to see what goes on behind the scenes of the internet.You should do this kind of thing more often.

nice one

'claw

Really good work. Could this be some sort of bi-anual Dakka report that allows us to see how we're doing?

the site traffic one is really interesting, its interesting how much warseer has deopped in the last in the last few months, I wonde why that is

Cool... not sure what to say other than that.

"Good Job!"

Also to quote an idiot that my dad once worked for.

"How am I supposed to run a company useing all these graphs!?!"

Could this set a precedent for an Annual "State of the Forum" announcement?

It's cuz 'o me. Crowd always follows me

Excellent info Legoburner, very interesting read and fair play to dakka

Yes, agreed with everyone. a "State of the DakkaDakka address" is needed at least annually.

I blame the ''you find them attractive...but why?'' thread.

Good work Legoburner, intriguing stuff.

Looking forward to crushing Warseer in 2011 (evil laugh)

So many colors

But, alas alot of the post on Dakka is dribble...kinda like my reply!

like its better elsewhere.

Tigerone wrote:But, alas alot of the post on Dakka is dribble...kinda like my reply!

If you like dribble, and especially drool, check out the Off-Topic Forum!

Triple your post count in one day!

Since I know most people are too lazy to search for it, here is a link:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/forums/show/54.page

WHOO DAKKA DAKKA!

Lego's posts of random stats and graphs are always cool and interesting.

I always said that the way you guys do things on Dakka are the way that they ought to be done.

The popularity of this site comes as no surprise to me, as I've made the rounds of most of the fansites and this is by far the greatest, in my opinion. I always wondered what happened to Tau Online. I rather enjoyed that forum until it just went completely into the toilet.

We are Dakka.

I find the community here much more welcoming and less restrictive. For example, I find the mods over at Warseer, especially in the News & rumors section... I'll be polite and say 'overly zelous' in the pursuit of their mod duties. The mods here tend to leave things alone unless things get really out of hand, and I apprecaite that.

The Dakka Gallery really is a standout feature of the site. The ease of posting images, and the fact that it circumvents many work filters makes it easier to give feedback

So the Data supports my claim that Dakka is da best and those other gits be squishy liek dem fish eads lol

Great to see such growth in recent years

Jon Touchdown wrote:So the Data supports my claim that Dakka is da best and those other gits be squishy then dem fish eads lol

Dem ovva websites is for weedy gits!

Now, as long as the mods here on dakka don't turn into the monomaniacal egotistical tightasses that have popped up on the other forums over the years... dakka is good to go!

chaos0xomega wrote:Now, as long as the mods here on dakka don't turn into the monomaniacal egotistical tightasses that have popped up on the other forums over the years... dakka is good to go!

Hey now buddy. We aren't supposed to speak ill of other websites, and I don't appreciate you casting aspersions on ... like that.

Monster Rain wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:Now, as long as the mods here on dakka don't turn into the monomaniacal egotistical tightasses that have popped up on the other forums over the years... dakka is good to go!

Hey now buddy. We aren't supposed to speak ill of other websites, and I don't appreciate you casting aspersions on ... like that.

Is aspersions an instrument?

Imperial Dakka will never die!

Just a minor rebuttal to certain potential parties re: these stats:

Many other sites and I'll mention them openly - Warseer/BoLs, are still great sites and we often get some great rumours/legitimate info from them, so lets not turn it into an us vs them thing, we all wargame, we all love the hobby, we all spend our £/$/€ on the games.

Its great kudos for dakka especially imho the image stats but less hate more tree hugging

Agreed, I am a big fan and regular reader of a number of the sites listed that we track. We are a bunch of sites with a common community, not a bunch of rivals. Just because dakka is the top of a pile by a number of metrics, does not mean we are the best - quality is entirely in the eye of the beholder.

Agreed x2, the last thing that a hobby/interest needs is a divided community that sticks to their guns no matter what, each sub community has its strenghts/weaknesses.

Cross community interaction/debate/sharing can only steneghten the hobby/ said websites.

I'm not saying the members of other sites are bad, quite the contrary, I have been a memeber of 40konline, librarium online and warseer over the years, as well as heresy-online, tau-online, WIP, and bolter and chainsword.... all what I am saying is that the proprieters of some of those sites are responsible for destroying the communities that they created, and I don't want to see dakka suffer the same fate.

chaos0xomega wrote:Now, as long as the mods here on dakka don't turn into the monomaniacal egotistical tightasses that have popped up on the other forums over the years... dakka is good to go!

True, but I would enjoy seeing a few of the mods here putting in more of an effort when it comes to policing forum rules, and the worst mods (possibly mod) need(s) to start setting an example and follow all of the rules personally.

Aside from that, good to see DakkaDakka prospering. I've always found it to be the best wargaming site online, and I still agree with that.

We's got a buncha dakka, but ya NEVER HAVE 'NUFF DAKKA!

I would just like to say that our crusade against thewarp.net continue to be successful.

Thanks Lego!

Poor TauTactica. As forgotten as the codex.

legoburner wrote:Dakka became the biggest wargaming gallery on this planet. Dont let the graph confuse you, it is still pretty much neck and neck, but we are getting loads of wargaming images at a faster rate than coolmini. The absolute number of images is the only thing we can compare as coolmini and dakka could not be more different. They are a great site with a fantastic gallery and a much higher grade of painting community than our more general community (not to say we dont have some great painters too), but most importantly they are doing their part for the community very well, and that is why we are hosting one of their banners on our home page at the moment fwiw. Our gallery is about getting as many wargaming images as possible so you can see something as a WIP, a completed model, on the tabletop, etc. whereas theirs is just showing the best things people have done so we both fill different niches and are complementary rather than competitive. Still I'm pleased we are so large now and the site has not fallen over and died yet!

congrats dakka! w00t!! this does help explain the sudden appearance of a showcase painting and modelling forum recently... apparently we're going to give CMON a run for their money on the high end of the painting scale too!

Dakka is king!

I have had growing pains with the site in the past few years as membership has skyrocketed, but no matter what, Dakka is and always will be my home on the net for my favorite hobby. Plus just about all my gaming buddies hang out here, too, so no matter where I'm at I can talk nerd with friends.

Haha, I am actually wearing my Dakka shirt right now! I am so totally hardcore.

Thanks to Legoburner and Yakface for running such a great internet community, you guys kick ass!

Thank you for this information BigMek.
I do believe our wonderful admins need some thanks.


Now everyone, one three: For they are jolly good fellows, for they are jolly good fellows, for they are jolly good fellows, which nobody can deny."

I claim all the credit for this, as you can see, my join date was a MERE three days after LB started his logging. Good to see that the one GW related forum I read regularly is still steadily growing. Sigh, must get around to re-upping my DCM soon (no, those are not signs of withdrawals you are see, really!).

Well done.

It's amazing that this is the biggest gallery now.
I'm not surprised you're stil growing as Warseer is losing as they can be a right bunch of , I've been flamed mercilessly for rumours I knew to be true...
People have been much more welcoming here...Mostly....

Wow, Tauonline crashed and burned.. I hadn't even noticed.

In other news, popularity will bring its own challenges and problems but I'm sure this place can handle it.

I'd also note I've always been one for more interaction between the community, its just a shame so many have a 'us and them' attiutude sometimes.

Regardless, I'm just glad of the staff that moderate here as it has made Dakka a very relaxed and fun place to post. Probably the main reason for all this growth.

I got a PM asking the following:

What kind of Servers/ Server OS's does dakka use?
What kind of storage solution does it use, and how much room does it take?
What amounts of bandwidth does it take to keep this running so smooth?

so might as well share as I had meant to mention some of it but forgot

Dakka has 1 active server (quad core, 8GB RAM, 3 hard drives (1TB, 250GB, 250GB)) and dakka has 1 backup server that is ready to go at any moment if the main server dies, with a 2 second latency database backup and a 24 hour latency file backup on it (so if the main server died, worse case we would lose up to 24 hours worth of gallery images, avatars and attachments). The backup server is 750GB, one disk, and has dual quad core processors and 8GB RAM. The host is cheaper but I am concerned about stability there which is why we have a bigger server for backup than the main server. Both servers are on different continents so space meteors or thermonuclear war will not be enough take out dakka hopefully.

Dakka's database is about 8GB if you dont include indexes or the search engines. The gallery is about 175GB and counting

Bandwidth fluctuates based on what tweaks I've been doing but excluding backups it runs at about 1.2TB / month. Despite traffic going up, bandwidth per user has been dropping the whole year thanks to speedups and compression techniques.

legoburner wrote:Both servers are on different continents so space meteors or thermonuclear war will not be enough take out dakka hopefully.

Well that's something to look forward to in the apocalypse, then.

Cool stuff.

Very cool. Congrats to Dakka and its community!

Reecius wrote:

Thanks to Legoburner and Yakface for running such a great internet community, you guys kick ass!

ABSOLUTELY this.

Dakka Dakka wouldn't be the great place that it is today if they hadn't stepped up a few years back...

So, I'll repeat that sentiment - thank you Legoburner and Yakface!

AND, a big thank you to the Dakka Dakka community as a whole as well - congrats everyone, really!

micahaphone wrote:Thank you for this information BigMek.
I do believe our wonderful admins need some thanks.


Now everyone, one three: For they are jolly good fellows, for they are jolly good fellows, for they are jolly good fellows, which nobody can deny."

Agree. Yak and Lego!

The guys who stepped up to the plate to not only make sure Dakka survived the loss of its Primarch ( ), but grew and flourished. Two guys more dedicated or more suited or with better skills for such a project I can hardly imagine.

Huh.

I guess we DO know what happened to the two Lost Primarchs after all!

Don't forget Russ, our founder!

(He's living comfortably in NH, raising two kids and kicking butt on a general gaming podcast.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/332344.page ; wouldn't the Space Wolves like to know!)

So no wonder Dakka's so blessed. With three Primarchs involved, how could we not be?

Thank you for sharing this info with us. It's always interesting for me to see this kind of stuff. The graphs tend to back up my personal habits and observations over the last year or so. At the begining of the year I was mostly checking/posting with warseer and a few others, but as the year progressed, I found more posts (and often better quality posts) on dakka. It's pretty much to the point where I pop up dakka to flip through the posts once every couple hours, where I MIGHT check other sites once a day. Great job so far, and keep it up

Wow! This is great news. It's also not especially surprising. I love Dakka and suggest it to other people all the time. I was a long time user over at the Warseer (I was there back during the Portent.net days) and while I won't speak badly about that community, there was a reason I left and came over here.
Let the age of Dakka begin!

I'd attribute the success of Dakka to the core of quality posters surrounding the gribble of commoners like myself, but also due to the great Mods here. Warseer and 40k online are much tighter, and it's quite a negative experience.

Here however, it's much more lax, but not so lax that it is detrimental.

Cryonicleech wrote:I'd attribute the success of Dakka to the core of quality posters surrounding the gribble of commoners like myself, but also due to the great Mods here. Warseer and 40k online are much tighter, and it's quite a negative experience.

Here however, it's much more lax, but not so lax that it is detrimental.

Mhm, pretty much this.

The way in which this forum is moderated makes it for me. Good moderation can make or break an online community. Letting discussion happen, even with moderately heated disagreement is a good thing. Killing discussion kills the community.

As someone who moderates a clan forum, albeit, witha significantly smaller, but pretty active user base, I understadn the challenges in being a good moderator. So kudos to the admins and mods on Dakka for knowing how to toe a very fine line. You guys do an excellent job on the moderation part.

Its interesting to see that Dakka has about 3.5 more posts per day than the bulk of other sites.

wolfshadow wrote:

Cryonicleech wrote:I'd attribute the success of Dakka to the core of quality posters surrounding the gribble of commoners like myself, but also due to the great Mods here. Warseer and 40k online are much tighter, and it's quite a negative experience.

Here however, it's much more lax, but not so lax that it is detrimental.

Mhm, pretty much this.

The way in which this forum is moderated makes it for me. Good moderation can make or break an online community. Letting discussion happen, even with moderately heated disagreement is a good thing. Killing discussion kills the community.

As someone who moderates a clan forum, albeit, witha significantly smaller, but pretty active user base, I understadn the challenges in being a good moderator. So kudos to the admins and mods on Dakka for knowing how to toe a very fine line. You guys do an excellent job on the moderation part.

Indeed, despite what I said previously, some of the mods do their jobs quite well. As any community though, it is the few outliers that give the entire group a negative image. No qualms about it being difficult and fairly unrewarding work as well.

Anyway, as I post again I'd also like to say thanks to Yak and Lego. If you two didn't keep this place up and running, I wouldn't know what to do with myself some days.

Judging from those charts I think we can gather that we are winning the war.

Great, now I have to be a DCM to see all this "naughty thread"

So we are undisputed rulers of the internet. Also, 10k people registering at one time is almost impossible. I liked these graphs, and chuckled when we saw dakka rise above all others.

BrookM wrote:Judging from those charts I think we can gather that we are winning the war.

YEEARRGG!! we will crush our enemies, see them driven before us, and hear the lamentation of their women! assuming they have women... eh, one can hope.

Either way, i googled dakka and found this super secret image of lego and yak in dakka's secret server farm planning their future conquests!

I know I personally switched full time to Dakka from Warseer mainly cause of that buffoon .... Also a few other members and mods on that site.

cgage00 wrote:I know I personally switched full time to Dakka from Warseer mainly cause of that buffoon .... Also a few other members and mods on that site.

Which buffoon? There seem to be many nowadays.

The name of whatever buffoon he referred to appears to have been edited out by a moderator.

Best to let it alone, friend.

Whops, carry on then.

And beacuse it needs to be said again, thank you Lego and Yakface. Without you this would be nothing. And to all the mods, we love you guys! And to the community of dakkadakka, WAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

Interesting stuff.

Looking at the graph I see Heresey online appears to be catching up with warseer. It looks like its also on the rise at the same rate as dakka.

I've always liked heresy as its got some of the most interesting posters.

I feel bad for Second Sphere. For being a branch of a forum of an ill loved faction, they never really had a chance to begin with.



My little brother and I would like to know. How/Why are there are negative posts?

legoburner -- definitely really interesting analytics -- thank you for posting them.

be really interesting to see if there is any correlation to traffic for GW sites (likely unavailable) and/or GW quarterly revenue (likely available via annual financial statements and quarterly reporting).

Some other correlations which would be interesting would be to UK/US GDP and/or toy sector spending (probably available, at least in the US from the Department of Labor website) just to see if your growth patterns are in line with what's going on in the market and how the recent economic news has affected people's spending and interest in gaming --

also it'd be interesting to see what the average time is that people are spending on dakka vs other gaming sites --

though you are probably already pursuing this, you might consider showing those traffic numbers to advertisers as that kind of traffic growth (irrespective of the Y axis numbers) could garner you and the site some solid revenue.

In any event, it's no mean feat to have had a forum grow successfully -- so congratulations to you and the dakka mods/admins on fostering and cultivating such a large community.

ChiliPowderKeg wrote:I feel bad for Second Sphere. For being a branch of a forum of an ill loved faction, they never really had a chance to begin with.



My little brother and I would like to know. How/Why are there are negative posts?

As I understand it some forums archive or delete posts past a certain point, so those would be times when the number being deleted exceeded the number posted.

Its not a shock to me to see DAKKA doing so well. Back when I started the petition to make GW make a ruling on the Deffrolla rules, I signed up at probably 10 different 40k sites. I have to say, most were just horrible, and hard to navigate, the rest was just full of Aholes and people that didnt like the idea that GW wasnt actually perfect. I got canned from most of those sites just because of what I asked, here it was pretty much embraced with open arms.

I love you DAKKA

I congratulate those people who keep this site going as well as the people who come to this site and make it enjoyable for the rest. This may be my first posting but I have been reading articles at this site for years.

Some cool data.

Although it's a bit morbid, I was interested to see how much of an impact prolific posters had on traffic. The obvious example is Jon Wilson passing so tragically last year (Brimstone), as I always considered Warseer BrimSeer for all intents and purposes. There seems to be a steady decline in their traffic since his passing, which of course could mean nothing (Or something). I wondered if everyone viewed Seer as a rumors only site as I do...and when Brim passed they lost a great deal of information (Although tip of the hat to Scryer, Harry, Stingray and others for continuing to feed the community information).


Good to see Dakka doing well, I consider this my internet toy soldier home and wish you guys continued success (and thanks for the features you've implemented).

I would say it would be better decorum to not only refrain from attacking other forums....but especially deceased individuals that contributed on those forums.

Unnamed poster wrote:Negative comments about a deceased party and another forum redacted.

Heck, not just Legoburner & Yakface, all of our dear mods are great. Thank you!

Please remember that this thread is NOT an appropriate venue for speaking ill of any other site or person there, especially those unable to respond.

I am still waiting for the days of the Dakka dominance! We will host the rumors, and our names will become legend!

ihs wrote:be really interesting to see if there is any correlation to traffic for GW sites (likely unavailable) and/or GW quarterly revenue (likely available via annual financial statements and quarterly reporting)

Nothing too significant that I've seen from casual looks

ihs wrote:Some other correlations which would be interesting would be to UK/US GDP and/or toy sector spending (probably available, at least in the US from the Department of Labor website) just to see if your growth patterns are in line with what's going on in the market and how the recent economic news has affected people's spending and interest in gaming --

Traffic actually seems inverted, people seem to spend more time on wargaming sites when the economy is doing poorly, but I dont really have enough data to say that with any authority.

ihs wrote:also it'd be interesting to see what the average time is that people are spending on dakka vs other gaming sites --

I cannot get that data for other sites without exchanging stats which is usually done in private.

ihs wrote:though you are probably already pursuing this, you might consider showing those traffic numbers to advertisers as that kind of traffic growth (irrespective of the Y axis numbers) could garner you and the site some solid revenue.

Dakka makes enough to cover costs and that is all we are after. Traffic is certainly high enough that we could make a living out of it if we plastered ads everywhere but that would take away from this being a fun hobby project for us and would kill our interest so it wont happen.

/returns to the DCM penthouse...

What happened to warseer in January 09?

Unsuprising about tauonline numbers falling and flatlining. The falling out from owner and moderators, posters saw a mass exodus from that place that wont ever recover.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ChiliPowderKeg wrote:I feel bad for Second Sphere. For being a branch of a forum of an ill loved faction, they never really had a chance to begin with.

And now we see the results of data, viewed in a vacumn. With no regards to WHAT the data is, only the numbers themselves.

For example, Second Sphere is doing just find. What you DO NOT get from the data is the fact the huge spike start and drop off would most likely be the results of the fallout from tau site, where as posters/moderates took their archives with them when they left, and set up Second sphere and data dumped it all there in a short amout of time, which is why it starts so high(you had years of data being set up in archives) then the steep drop off followed by the climb up as you see on their trend upward afterwards.

You should note TauOnline's status at roughly the short time before(the fallout I refer to earlier) and see how they nosedive and then flatline....

Numbers are numbers, they dont tell you the WHY.

WE ARE DAKKA FOR WE ARE MANY

Seems like my absense from dakka and recommended your forum to /tg/ gave you guys a large boost.

You are welcome... i guess?

Off i go again , byeeeeee~

So that's how the internet works?

Very nice. Half of those posts are from Alpharius though He's a madman lately.

LunaHound wrote:Seems like my absense from dakka and recommended your forum to /tg/ gave you guys a large boost.

You are welcome... i guess?

Off i go again , byeeeeee~

/tg/.... /tg/! what have you done, we're doomed DOOMED I TELL YOU

We're fine.

We can hold the line.

Rapid Fire and Relentless from the Moderator Team works wonders!

It's nice to see Dakka doing well. I signed up somewhere around spring 2000 and back then this was mostly an American 40K forum and felt a lot smaller than Portent and a few others. A lot has changed and a lot of good posters have left the scene but life goes on.

Thanks much for the post. Forum dynamics are not a subject I think about much (or at all) but found it to be a very interesting and enlightening read.

I'll add my voice to the chorus of thanks to the mods specifically and the community in general for a good place to chat about the games we enjoy.

RZ

Cool graphs and statistics... nice to see Dakka doing so well! Thanks for sharing these, Lego

LunaHound wrote:Seems like my absense from dakka and recommended your forum to /tg/ gave you guys a large boost.

You are welcome... i guess?

Off i go again , byeeeeee~

You recommended us on a Trans Gender forum?

Kid_Kyoto wrote:

LunaHound wrote:Seems like my absense from dakka and recommended your forum to /tg/ gave you guys a large boost.

You are welcome... i guess?

Off i go again , byeeeeee~

You recommended us on a Trans Gender forum?

Traditional Games :3

LunaHound wrote:

Kid_Kyoto wrote:

LunaHound wrote:Seems like my absense from dakka and recommended your forum to /tg/ gave you guys a large boost.

You are welcome... i guess?

Off i go again , byeeeeee~

You recommended us on a Trans Gender forum?

Tabletop Games :3

Same thing

Still preferable to furries, if I should be so bold to say so.

Aww you 2 just jelly -_- cant we just all be happy with having more dakkites?

Monster Rain wrote:Still preferable to furries, if I should be so bold to say so.

Anything but the furries...

And /tg/ isnt that bad. Some good things come from /tg/. They are just another 40k forum really, with a different format.

/tg/ is..... Meh. Lots of boring threads full of stubborn people arguing worthless points under the veil of anonymity. It's a cross section of the gaming community. Unfortunately, it's the ugly, ignorant and often dumb side of it

I visit both /b/ and /tg/ on a semi-weekly basis, and the only difference between the two is that /tg/ isn't as random. Same old fourchin.

I think out of all the boards on 4chan /tg/ is the most sane, you can even get a good discussion out of them if you go about it the right way.

LunaHound wrote:Aww you 2 just jelly -_- cant we just all be happy with having more dakkites?

As long as they assimilate! muahah. >.< More dakkites and more dakka is generally a good thing. If not, theres the modquisition. ^_^

-Joins in chorus singing praises of lego, yak, and the mods- Thanks much guys/gals!

I started on a different forum, but theres just so much more on here to talk about and see pics of and such that its kinda hard to leave.

FM Ninja 048 wrote:I think out of all the boards on 4chan /tg/ is the most sane, you can even get a good discussion out of them if you go about it the right way.

Well really when you get down to it, most boards there are sane in their own way (oh god why did I spend a year there)

I think we're getting a bit off topic though talking about our experiences on 4chan though.

Ah... 4Chan, well any board that send Justin Beiber to North Korea is fine by me.

On topic. I can't understand why warseer is still around. I try my hardest to frequent on there...But everything is so....Dry and stagnant. The same boring threads pop up everytime I go on there:
"____ tactics discussion mk VII"
"what would you like to see in the next _______ codex?"
"Making _____ work?"

Ugh, it's so boring I could cry. The OT board is trash too. it's the same serious people chatting about non-serious things...It just sucks

I know warseer has a certain charm to some people (beginners, tactics guys, people who find us too elistist and cocky ), but I just can't understand it.

Hey kid kyoto. I love your siggy more than anything in the universe right now

And that's different from Dakka Dakka how?

I think there's some creative stuff in /tg/, especially regarding RPGing, and (although I know that isn't our focus) I would like to see more of that creativity expressed here. (Although we do have some good stuff between the Lagre Scale and Survivor Game sub-fora; check them out!) It's becoming more pertinent to us because of FFG's DH/RT/DW lines. The 40k stuff from /tg/ is pretty underwhelming, both in terms of the crunch and the fluff. "Love Can Bloom" is not the sort of thing I'd be proud to see originating out of Dakka.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Nurglitch wrote:And that's different from Dakka Dakka how?

I appreciate your input in these "tried and true" topics. From my individual viewpoint, users will always be our greatest asset.

Neconilis wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:Now, as long as the mods here on dakka don't turn into the monomaniacal egotistical tightasses that have popped up on the other forums over the years... dakka is good to go!

True, but I would enjoy seeing a few of the mods here putting in more of an effort when it comes to policing forum rules, and the worst mods (possibly mod) need(s) to start setting an example and follow all of the rules personally.

Aside from that, good to see DakkaDakka prospering. I've always found it to be the best wargaming site online, and I still agree with that.

I find your lack of faith disturbing Frazzled was voted worst mod evah! already and retains the title. Say it with pride!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Alpharius wrote:

Reecius wrote:

Thanks to Legoburner and Yakface for running such a great internet community, you guys kick ass!

ABSOLUTELY this.

Dakka Dakka wouldn't be the great place that it is today if they hadn't stepped up a few years back...

So, I'll repeat that sentiment - thank you Legoburner and Yakface!

AND, a big thank you to the Dakka Dakka community as a whole as well - congrats everyone, really!

What he said!

Manchu wrote:I think there's some creative stuff in /tg/, especially regarding RPGing, and (although I know that isn't our focus) I would like to see more of that creativity expressed here. (Although we do have some good stuff between the Lagre Scale and Survivor Game sub-fora; check them out!) It's becoming more pertinent to us because of FFG's DH/RT/DW lines. The 40k stuff from /tg/ is pretty underwhelming, both in terms of the crunch and the fluff. "Love Can Bloom" is not the sort of thing I'd be proud to see originating out of Dakka.

Heh now that you mentioned it, it is usually the non 40k stuff that I loved from /tg/. Whether it was Dwarf Fortress to Wakfu

Although I did like the "Ultramarine Movie" Battle Standard competition thing one guy started.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Ah... 4Chan, well any board that send Justin Beiber to North Korea is fine by me.

I agree, but they Jessy Slater thing, that ended badly for everyone involved. So they are 1-1 now.

Manchu wrote:I think there's some creative stuff in /tg/, especially regarding RPGing, and (although I know that isn't our focus) I would like to see more of that creativity expressed here. (Although we do have some good stuff between the Lagre Scale and Survivor Game sub-fora; check them out!) It's becoming more pertinent to us because of FFG's DH/RT/DW lines. The 40k stuff from /tg/ is pretty underwhelming, both in terms of the crunch and the fluff. "Love Can Bloom" is not the sort of thing I'd be proud to see originating out of Dakka.

I remind you that Love Can Bloom is now canon. And actually not a bad bit of fanfic. Better than half the BL stuff I've read.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:I remind you that Love Can Bloom is now canon.

I myself announced it.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/277395.page

And actually not a bad bit of fanfic.

By /tg/ standards, agreed -- shudder.

Better than half the BL stuff I've read.

Read the more recent stuff.

What the hell are you people talking about?

Follow the link in my post, KC.

*sigh* my god. I'm sorry I asked.

Exactly.

Okay I'm really confused.

Is there something wrong with that pic that I'm missing?

Did you not follow the link in my post earlier? It's all explained there.

I did. I thought it was just that pic at the top you were referring to. Now I get it.

Still, I don't think it was all that bad.

...You don't think a story between a Vindicare and a Farseer that involves love at first sight through a sniper scope is "all that bad"?

I guess I'm not as emotionally invested in this as some people.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And its not impossible, is it?

or perhaps too much...

I heard Rynn's world was really bad here on the Dakka actually but Mechanicum is bad too? oh man, that's next in my book pile :(

This made me lol first time I saw it;




My fav assassin by far.
WRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Kid_Kyoto wrote:

Manchu wrote:I think there's some creative stuff in /tg/, especially regarding RPGing, and (although I know that isn't our focus) I would like to see more of that creativity expressed here. (Although we do have some good stuff between the Lagre Scale and Survivor Game sub-fora; check them out!) It's becoming more pertinent to us because of FFG's DH/RT/DW lines. The 40k stuff from /tg/ is pretty underwhelming, both in terms of the crunch and the fluff. "Love Can Bloom" is not the sort of thing I'd be proud to see originating out of Dakka.

I remind you that Love Can Bloom is now canon. And actually not a bad bit of fanfic. Better than half the BL stuff I've read.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:I heard Rynn's world was really bad here on the Dakka actually but Mechanicum is bad too? oh man, that's next in my book pile :(

Titanicus (by Dan 'the mark of quality' Abnett) is quite good. Mechanicum was like poking iron needles into my brain.

My review here...

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/253685.page

Erm ... what again was the topic?

I was so full of awe and hope when I read the words "Machine, heal thyself" . . .

But Love Can Bloom is gak. It's the parody of a plot, whether intentionally so or not. We have so much better to offer here in the oft-neglected Dakka Fiction section.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:or perhaps too much...

Nope.

Not at all.

Off Topic - KK and Manchu's hatred of "Mechanicum" borders on the insane. It isn't that bad at all, actually.

On Topic: Dakka - ain't it great?

Alpharius wrote:
On Topic: Dakka - ain't it great?

Yup

Dakka?

'snot bad.

How about changing Dakka's official title to:

"Dakka. We're gonna make ya smile."

Kid_Kyoto wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:I heard Rynn's world was really bad here on the Dakka actually but Mechanicum is bad too? oh man, that's next in my book pile :(

Titanicus (by Dan 'the mark of quality' Abnett) is quite good. Mechanicum was like poking iron needles into my brain.

My review here...

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/253685.page

Titanicus was excellent one of BL and Abnett's best imo. I guess Mechanicum won't live up to that. Oh well, hopefully its better than 1 star!

Alpharius wrote:Off Topic - KK and Manchu's hatred of "Mechanicum" borders on the insane. It isn't that bad at all, actually.

On Topic: Dakka - ain't it great?

HERE HERE! Dakka sure is grand mister. Would you like to buy a paper so I can pay for the doctor for me mum?

Monster Rain wrote:How about changing Dakka's official title to:

"Dakka. We're gonna make ya smile."

"Dakka-Quite a bit better than reading Mechanicum"
"Dakka-The place where love can bloom"

I feel like there's some other shadowy community somewhere with ursarker CREEEEED! and love blooming and so forth.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:"Dakka-The place where love can bloom"

"Dakka -- No, not like that. Take that back to /tg/."

"Dakka -- SRS BZNS"

I think we already have that last one, or a variation on it.

Dakka - we're gonna need a bigger gun

Funny page headers can be submitted (for real!) here:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/205004.page

legoburner wrote:Dakka makes enough to cover costs and that is all we are after. Traffic is certainly high enough that we could make a living out of it if we plastered ads everywhere but that would take away from this being a fun hobby project for us and would kill our interest so it wont happen.

Totally understood -- wasn't suggesting at all an ad barrage so much as using the traffic numbers to create a good marketing opportunity for a captive audience that's self selected and ready for targetted merchandising/ads (all subject to opting in) -- and perhaps a way to leverage the traffic numbers in a way that would create a better experience or increase interest in the hobby and Dakka. One idea would be to coordinate with the manufacturers to produce a special Dakka mini -- or special member's only discount or special tournament or special minutatures case -- all of that stuff becomes more appealing to manufactures (and to members as far as pricing) if there's significant interest and numbers.

I think there's a big difference between spamming your members with crap and constant ads and sending out a newletter or something similar every now and then with highlighted content from the forums and member's only specials offered by e.g., the war store or something along those lines only open to Dakka members. I'm sure something could be coordinated with UK/EU/Oz retailers too --

In any event, wasn't suggesting that the site turn into a slick money hustling place at all, just a couple ideas to continue to foster, cultivate and develop the community further.

Separately, one technological addition which could be helpful is using a SEO software to convert the URLs in threads from being numbers to the title/subject of the thread. I've seen that used to great positive effect (and not just from a traffic standpoint but from a membership experience standpoint) on other forums.

Anyway, just a couple thoughts, not trying to stir the pot at all!