the spectacular rate of growth of PS membership

[stevebob]

Dozens of new members are joining Piano Street every day in a pattern that seems to have been established since last summer.  Another predictable pattern is that the overwhelming majority of the newcomers don't mask their e-mail addresses and don't post to the forums; in fact, most of their profiles show no activity at all subsequent to registering ("Last Active: Never").

Does anyone know what accounts for such astounding growth?  Where are these people recruited from, and why are they joining?  It seems to me that gold membership would attract those interested in the on-site sheet music library, and the motivation to sign up for silver membership would be to make public posts.  Why else would all these people be joining at all?

[symbolism of l. ron]

There is much that you don't know about this particular forum.

[stevebob]

There is much that you don't know about this particular forum.

I'm new here, so that's manifestly true.  And I was commenting on something that, on its face, seems inexplicably odd.  Instead of coyly affirming that you know things that I do not, why not reveal the mystery instead?   

[pianochick93]

Well, I signed up for the sheet music, even just the silver.

It's likely the new members have googled a piece, found it here, found that it was free if they signed up, signed up, got the piece, and then forgotten this place even exists

[thalbergmad]

Now that the forum has been alive for many years, it is possible that people are able to find what they are looking for without the need to actually post.

The wealth of information available via the search function might actually hinder the participation of new members.

Saying that, other forums that have a small fraction of the membership here, are equally as active. The posts per month that are viewable on the statistics page indicate a considerable fall over the last 4 years, but in the absence of certain spammers, this is to be expected.

Thal

[stevebob]

Lo and behold, now all the new members' e-mail addresses are hidden—except for the nine people who joined within the past five hours.  Even stranger:  they somehow managed to hide their addresses without ever being logged on.  So very confusing!

[go12_3]

Now, would I truly want to have my email address on display here?  Humm...
Members have the option to have their email on display or hidden anyhow.  Each forum
takes a while to get acquainted and that's how it is in the world of forums.

[stevebob]

Errm ... sure.   

Member Index in reverse chronological order

Nothing odd about that, right?   

[birba]

Lo and behold, now all the new members' e-mail addresses are hidden—except for the nine people who joined within the past five hours.  Even stranger:  they somehow managed to hide their addresses without ever being logged on.  So very confusing!

It' like "Big Brother" is watching you...
The thread on the extra c in the first octave of the chopin g-minor ballade was eliminated, too.  Maybe it was my fault.  Someone accused me of being agressive to Aubadre(?) and I told them to lighten up.

[pianowolfi]

Member Index in reverse chronological order

Nothing odd about that, right?   

Rather spooky 

[Bob]

I always thought it was people coming here to get music.

Is there any other advantage for logging in or having lots of people register?  Does the site get bumped up in ratings or something?

[nilsjohan]

The number of new inactive members and the hidden e-mails are two completely unrelated issues.

New members
The blog, composer directory and sheet music database are very popular sections of the website for the 5000+ daily visitors of pianostreet.com. If you browse these sections you will sooner or later see a "sign-up" button and a few hundred of these visitors are taking the step to register for a free Silver membership, in most cases to get access to the free sheet music or as a first step if they are considering a Gold membership.
New Silver members are not automatically added to the forum member list but they have the option to activate forum access. Those who just activate but do not visit the forum when still logged in are ending up in the members lists as "Last active: Never".

Hidden e-mails
After a recent software upgrade the emails of new members were not automatically hidden for other members which is usually our default setting, although in many forums the emails are visible by default.  We did this manually which is the reason for why it looked a bit odd yesterday. (Note that email addresses are never visible for the public no matter the setting in profile, only for members logged in.) The issue is now fixed and all new members have their e-mail addresses hidden automatically.

[stevebob]

nilsjohan, your clarification is much appreciated.  Thanks!

[horowitzian]

Errm ... sure.   

Member Index in reverse chronological order

Nothing odd about that, right?   

Most of the names look suspiciously like those typically associated with forum spambots. But there hasn't been any spam that I've seen, so it must be what nilsjohan said.