Too many "guests"?
 

If you look at the site statistics you'll see that the ratio member:guest hovers around 1:2.

I have nothing against lurkers, but perhaps it would be an idea to work on recruiting some of these people to signup? Some of the boards I've seen have used a "signup now" popup, others simply blocked certain parts of the board for unregistred users (not a wise idea for FT...).

Any thoughts?

Scott... well most of the airlines and hotels reps are basically all Lurkers... so we can't really know who are "lurkers" and who are frequent "viewers"

I agree, but surely there are not 500-1000 industry workers every day lurking here?

A simple way to remind people to signup can't be too far away?

Is it possible that many of the "Lurkers" are just members like me who have a few minutes so they "lurk" but don't log in unless they post?

I have seen that there is now an "inactivity timer" that will bump a member that has logged in to guest status. Is there any way to increase the allowable idle time as to not bump us out or to remove this feature entirely?

I wouldnt be surprised at all if there were 500 "industry" employees a day checking out the site. There are several in my department who read FT, but haven't ever posted.

I know there are also a great number of FTers who don't log in until they are ready to actually post.

Or perhaps they are members who are using a public computer in a cafe or a library or borrowing someone's computer and don't want to have their login info recorded on that computer.

I am not sure why one would care if the "lurker" is a registered member or not. Since the site is open to anyone to view and read the posts then I assume that everyone who signs up to post understands that.

And I am not sure why anyone would want a "membership drive". Is there any benefit to the site or to the members to have large numbers registered?

Am I missing something here? I am relatively new with relatively few posts so I am learning as I go.

Why is that?

not sure really....

Not all FTers are as prolific in their posting habits as we are, or view as many forums. If you're only posting every 10th or 20th time you check FT, then there's not a lot of need to log in I 'spose. I log in almost every time because I have subscriptions in MyFT and PM's to check.

Agree the number of official lurkers might really surprise us.

I recently posted about an issue I was having with an airline plan in a Forum I seldom post in or visit. I was in the right and they were prety clearly in the wrong on it. But I was getting nowhere.

I got an email from a supervisor followed up by a phone call before I could reply to the email. Going to great lengths to solve the issue that day. Amazing, and most appreciated. But showed to me they read EVERY thread on FT re their airline.

Also with the increasing use of google, I guess 10,000s of hits to FT a day are from folks who just google for "upgrade" or "bonus miles" or "flights to Atlanta" or "Sheraton Reston review" or whatever. Simple phrases, that a FT thread will be first or early match for in many cases.

Guilty as charged!
 

You just described me to a "T". I read FT almost daily, but obviously, I don't post very much. So, unless I am going to post something (or I have something going on Coupon Connection), I never log in because I don't have any PM's to worry about, nor do I subscribe to anything. Why log in if I am just lurking? I would imagine there are a lot others that have the same habits.

I personally don't see anything wrong with not logging in nor the number of guests. Is there something I am missing here?

Nothing wrong with it at all, it's just something I noticed, and thought FT might be able to make use of it. More members is a good thing IMHO.

I'm a new member. I rarely post, too much to learn by just reading, and a lot of faqs to digest. I was a lurker for a long time before i joined, joined mainly so i could use search function. Now i still rarely sign in just to read threads, unless i want to search for something or post which is rarely. I almost always assume that someone else here will have thought of or said what i was thinking before or better, i just need to look or wait for it to be said, and it usually is. However, now i'm in the hunt for 100 posts so i can see coupon connection again, it went missing for me after i joined. Maybe a forum for people trying to post to get coupon connection status would be good.

Tele,

Understand, that if you are caught just posting to meet a post count for access to a forum, you will probably find yourself with a suspension... or at a minimum... your post count reset.

That "posting frenzy mentality" is frowned upon by the moderators and Randy.

William

William isn't CC now a time on FT thing, not a post count level?