member stats - where in the world are you?

[Cees Klumper]

Here is an update on our full membership statistics. We're about to reach the 1,300 basic (= free) member mark, and it may be interesting to you that as of today 319 of those members are full (= paying) members, who receive Pagoda World in the mail.

A full 72% -230- of our full members reside in the United States. As it is looking currently, the board of directors, after the upcoming elections, will be comprised of 6 US members and 4 members residing in Germany, Canada and The Netherlands.
A distant second on the list of countries with the most full members is The Netherlands, with 17 (5%) followed closely by The United Kingdom (13 full members, 4%). In total, 89 full members reside in 28 countries other than the US.

Here is a full list:

The Netherlands
Germany
United States
Uruguay
Thailand
Philippines
United Kingdom
Ireland
Spain
Norway
Switzerland
France
Australia
Canada
Italy
New Zealand
Denmark
Belgium
Sweden
United Arab Emirates
Portugal
Mexico
Dominican Republic
Argentina
Brazil
Malaysia
Japan
South Korea

Cees ("Case") Klumper in Amsterdam
'69 white 280 SL automatic

[Cees Klumper]

More impressive still is the list of countries 'represented' by basic members - 56 in total!

Argentina
Aruba
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Canada
Czech Republic
Denmark
Dominican Republic
Egypt
Estonia
Ethiopia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hong Kong
Iceland
Indonesia
Iran
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Kenya
Lebanon
Malaysia
Malta
Mexico
Monaco
Netherlands
New Zealand
Nigeria
Norway
Pakistan
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Singapore
Slovenia
South Africa
South Korea
Spain
Sri Lanka
Surinam
Sweden
Switzerland
Thailand
Turkey
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
Uruguay
United States of America
Venezuela

Cees ("Case") Klumper in Amsterdam
'69 white 280 SL automatic

[Benz Dr.]

We really are international. My thanks to everyone who's joined and to all of you who made this possible. Fantastic cars but even more fantastic are the people who own them.

Lets never forget that it's really not about the cars, it's all about the owners. The cars only made it possible for us to do this. People made it happen...

Dan Caron's
 SL Barn
benzbarn@ebtech.net
 slbarn.mbz.org
  1 877 661 6061

[J. Huber]

Well said Dan. I guess this is a good place to add my thanks to the group as well. Thank you to all who have helped make this another fun year to own my Pagoda. While nothing quite compares to driving, tinkering, or pampering the old SL, interacting with like-minded folks has been great -- and has taken Pagoda ownership to another level. (one bordering on obsession but what can we do?)

James
63 230SL

[Ed Cave]

Cees:

Here are some other statistics to consider.

Of the 1,360 total "members" who have claimed a 'name' in this group, 560 of them have never posted or responded to a single topic. In fact, fewer than 500 have posted more than twice.

I'm not against people coming in and learning from others without actively participating; there are probably some who just don't care to post their comments.
 
I'm just wondering if it is possible to determine which of those (non-paying) basic members have not even logged on to this site in say, the past 12 months and delete them from the data base? It seems that the longer the organization exists, the less accurate our demographic becomes and,in turn, begins to distort some of the data used in guiding the group.

You know, kind of "clean it up", so to speak. Just an idea, not sure if that is possible.

Ed Cave
Atlanta, GA


1971 280SL
1973 911S
2004 A4 3.0
2006 GS430

[Douglas]

Ed, there are a TON of people who lurk here and rarely, if ever, post. Many of these people are even Full Members.

[Ed Cave]

Douglas:

It's not the lurkers, rather the ones who registered in 2003 or 2004, looked at the site once or twice and haven't been back since.  Can you identify those and purge?

Maybe I'm missing your point and the majority of those people are   still out there lurking. I'm not sure if you can even determine that or not. I just have to think that with 69 pages of members and those on page 25 or higher have posted once, twice or never, there have to be several hundered that don't even remember registering in the first place  :?:   :?:   :?:

Ed Cave
Atlanta, GA


1971 280SL
1973 911S
2004 A4 3.0
2006 GS430

[JPMOSE]

Glad you guys mentioned "full member".  I forgot to join [:0], as I have just been reading the forum.  Now that the car is almost here, I joined immediately.  I need to check and see if there are any gatherings in the Atlanta area.

Best Regards,

J. P. Mose
1968 250SL

[rwmastel]

Ed,
Last October our WebMaster sent all members a direct e-mail regarding several issues, remember?  See this thread for details.
http://index.php?topic=4350

Rodd
Powell, Ohio, USA
1966 230SL, Euro, Auto, Leather, both  tops
1994 E420

[Ed Cave]

Rodd:

Yes, thanks for the reminder of that email.

I guess my point is this.

At that point in October there were 557 people that had not visited since '03 or '04. Should the ones who were not encouraged by that email to "come on back" be purged from the data base? I mean, it seems obvious they no longer have an interest.

Here is one type of example of a deadbeat member. I signed up as "Ed" on February 1, 2004, made 4 postings, the last of which was February 3, 2004. Then in June of that year I woke up [:0] (apparently), registered again as "Ed Cave" and have posted 250+ times since. Apparently I forgot I had registered the first time or forgot my password and simply re-registered or whatever.

Ed Cave
Atlanta, GA


1971 280SL
1973 911S
2004 A4 3.0
2006 GS430

[rwmastel]

Ed,
The topic of this thread is "member stats - where in the world are you?".  Let's take the discussion of inactive members to a new thread.

Rodd
Powell, Ohio, USA
1966 230SL, Euro, Auto, Leather, both  tops
1994 E420

[nirmal]

I sent my cheque in today and hope to get in as a full member soon.
nirmal
1969 white 280 sl

[andre_morcos]

Hi guys,
Just keep in mind one thing.
I know a lot of people who are not full-members, but it was this site that encouraged them to get into the Pagoda spirit, and eventually became Pagoda owners. Let's face it! I bet some even compromised their life style to buy one.
There must be a way to divide the site in two. One for paying members and another for "the people who are inquiring and might eventually buy a Pagoda" (Free-members)
Regards to all

Andre Morcos (UAE)
1964 230 Sl
1960 220 Seb

[andre_morcos]

The proof,
Mr 927 is one of the newest members

Andre Morcos (UAE)
1964 230 Sl
1960 220 Seb

[Peter van Es]

Dear all,

Ed's point on cleaning the system of users is good. However, I looked into this when over 100 e-mails of users bounced. Since these people cannot be contacted, and if they last accessed the system in 2003, I could delete them. However, I found that this forum system is not really designed to delete users. It can be done (and I do it occasionally when someone joins to leave commercial messages) but to take a bounced e-mail address, to find the associated user name, and then to delete the user is a manual process that takes a long time.

I cannot just delete the record from the database, because there is a danger that it leaves the forum databases in an inconsistent state: if such a member has ever posted a message, that message would then dangle.

So I found no straightforward way to:
 

• delete members with bouncing e-mail addresses
• remove duplicate memberships
• or to remove people who have not been on the site for many months

Hence I am just accepting that this is the way it is. The membership list of full -- fee paying -- members is being kept up to date. After all, if membership details there are incorrect, you do not receive the Pagoda World.

Peter