Data map of the RPG Community

[Morrus]

One thing I saw happen when I did the original map. Some forum owners quickly started changing counting criteria or numbers and stuff. I'm not sure whether they felt the original figures they had there were innacurate, and I don't know whether they kept the new ones or went back to the originals. Active Users in particular jumped by several times on some forums, which is partly why I just didn't use that value at all.

I'd say that member count these days is a bit of an iffy figure. We get so many spam accounts created here at EN World, and I'm sure that's true elsewhere, though we zap 'em as fast as we can and have some reasonable automated anti-spam measures.

 

[Thondor]

One thing I saw happen when I did the original map. Some forum owners quickly started changing counting criteria or numbers and stuff. I'm not sure whether they felt the original figures they had there were innacurate, and I don't know whether they kept the new ones or went back to the originals. Active Users in particular jumped by several times on some forums, which is partly why I just didn't use that value at all.

I'd say that member count these days is a bit of an iffy figure. We get so many spam accounts created here at EN World, and I'm sure that's true elsewhere, though we zap 'em as fast as we can and have some reasonable automated anti-spam measures.

Hmm, interesting. I haven't gone back and checked any of the sites that I populate again yet. Active members is definitely a iffy figure as criteria can be different for different sites.
I hadn't really considered spam members.

Update:
I've added Citizens of the Imperium, and SF RPG boards.
I have also added RPGgeek—posts and thread count.

Here's a convenient link to the workbook.

I'll try to check in on this thread now and then, but I am a little preoccupied with the my Simple Superheroes RPG kickstarter which launched last week.

 

[Maffo]

I wonder if someone will make a proper rpg map out of this, like there is one of a great amount of rpgs.

 

[Thondor]

I wonder if someone will make a proper rpg map out of this, like there is one of a great amount of rpgs.

There'll welcome to do so. The data is all on Tableau Public, so it should be relatively easy to export and work off of.

Update
I've added The Tangled Web which seems to be a play-by-post and VTT focused forum.

Easy link to the data map.

 

[Thondor]

Update
Added Fear The Boot podcast's forum

 

[Cristian Andreu]

It's going along excellently. Well done!

Still amazed with how big of a chunk goes through Myth Weavers + EN World.

 

[Talmek]

I didn't even know Myth-Weavers existed until this forum. As the community over at P&PG has become (relatively) inactive I know that a lot of members have moved on to other communities in an attempt to continue discussions, etc. My activity (as a snapshot):

Myth-Weavers
EnWorld
P&PG
D&D Community
RPG.net

Granted, my activity level on any of those are fluid as members respond and create new threads, as I'm sure everyone's does.

 

[aramis erak]

One thing I saw happen when I did the original map. Some forum owners quickly started changing counting criteria or numbers and stuff. I'm not sure whether they felt the original figures they had there were innacurate, and I don't know whether they kept the new ones or went back to the originals. Active Users in particular jumped by several times on some forums, which is partly why I just didn't use that value at all.

I'd say that member count these days is a bit of an iffy figure. We get so many spam accounts created here at EN World, and I'm sure that's true elsewhere, though we zap 'em as fast as we can and have some reasonable automated anti-spam measures.

At http://TravellerRPG.com (Citizens of the Imperium), our active readership is about 700-1000 discrete log-ins per month, and about 3000 per year. our userbase is over 16,000, but many of those are non-participatory. May 2015 is 759 accounts with activity, 145 of whom posted. 16,295 accounts, not counting known spammers, awaiting confirmation, under-age, or banned for misbehavior. For May 2014- May 2015, Activity is 3238 in the last year, 466 of whom posted. The numbers are bigger than I would have guessed, but, being the admin over there, I don't have to guess - I can use the mailing list tools to find out in a handful of keystrokes. (Generate mailing list, copy into text editor, count the @'s with the find tool.)
Spam accounts banned: since may 30 2014 = about 3000. Since Apr 30 2015: about 343... but note that I deleted 1500 or more back in february.

I'm going to cross-post these numbers over on COTI - because I do so about quarterly anyway.

Gives you some numbers for comparison.

Oh, and [MENTION=31955]Thondor[/MENTION] - COTI is possibly in the wrong color - it's actually the official boards of Far Future Enterprises.

 

[Thondor]

Oh, and [MENTION=31955]Thondor[/MENTION] - COTI is possibly in the wrong color - it's actually the official boards of Far Future Enterprises.

Thanks I have fixed this.

Update:
I've dropped the "thread count" for rpol.net since what they were really counting was "games" which includes multiple threads.

I've also added
Atlas Games forum
and Diatribe the New Zealand LARP community.

Here's a handy link to the visualization.

 

[aramis erak]

Thanks I have fixed this.

Update:
I've dropped the "thread count" for rpol.net since what they were really counting was "games" which includes multiple threads.

I've also added
Atlas Games forum
and Diatribe the New Zealand LARP community.

Here's a handy link to the visualization.

You might want to be careful about using highest user number as number of users - they're not, in fact, the same. (Off by several thousand). In part, because of spammer deletions, and in part because Vbulletin doesn't recycle user ID numbers, even those of no-posts users.