Site Activity

[LCHIEN]

This is a general post about activity on Sawdustzone. We have been going on many years and we recently pulled the site statistics showing activity. We changed the name from BT3Central in Oct 2015 to Sawdustzone to make it appeal to more people. Declining usage has its good and bad sides. but this was once a very active site. For woodworking in general, but also because of the BT3000 saw and clone models.


My Comments:

Registrations per month were robust 150-200 per month 2006-2010, peaked at over 1500-2000 per month from 6/2010 to 12/2012 dropped to 50/ month and then then with the name change from BT3Central to Sawdustzone to 10 a month. Anyone know/guess why registrations were so high 2010-2012?

Users per day has fallen steadily as the BT3 saws left production and pretty much leveled off after the name change. Interestingly there is a solid 10-15% bump every year around February that is very pronounced. Any idea why this would be?
we're at 25-30 users per day but there is a trend declining from 34 per day last year February to 25 this year for February.

Posts per month this was once very lively with 200-300 per day 6000 per month falling off to a handful per day (like 3-12 per day recently.)

I invite you to make any comments or suggestions. We are sort of just barely keeping a core critical mass group going.

Loring

[Carlos]

I run a fairly busy forum that was built around a specific motorcycle that kind of had a cult following, very much like the BT saws. Mine is now 19 years old, and they were last made in 2005. As you can imagine, that limits the fresh blood coming in, though it's not zero. People have fallen off over the years. But because we had a very loose content policy, the forum has also turned into a place where friendships are built, and everything is discussed from how to deal with childraising issues to politics to whatever. So we're still busy, and we've even had some amazing friendships come from it that endure time. Here we are pretty focused on a few things, so the participation is going to be necessarily limited. One thing I absolutely love here is getting thoughtful, sometimes long replies with a ton of useful info. I rarely visit Sawmill Creek because it's like Facebook; you will get 300 replies, and 3/4 of them will be trash. Half telling you why you're a moron to even ask, a quarter telling you the one and only way that this must always be done or you will die, and a few sorta useful answers.

[Carlos]

Oh, the February question...maybe people starting to try to make use of tools and stuff they got for Christmas? In January, my business gets busy with catch-up from the holidays. Our customers slacked during December. I basically can take most of December off, then in January everyone wants me to catch up on the stuff they put off.

[Black walnut]

Woodworking generally speaking requires big ticket tool purchases. February is the beginning of tax return season. JMHO.

I would have to do some digging but my guess is that when we had huge increases in registrations it was due to scammers and bots and offered little or no posts. For a time back then I nuked accounts that were clearly spammers, scammers, or otherwise disruptive.

In years past, the good years, we had a number of brilliant craftsmen post often their projects. Some of which have passed, some moved on to other hobbies, some others left in disagreements.My interest has lessened some. My activity in the shop is mostly other hobbies and when it is wood it is not fine wooodworking and not super fun stuff either like puzzles.

Does PBS still have great woodworking shows on weekend mornings? I found great inspiration in Norm Abrams, Roy Underhill, and the router workshop guys.

[woodturner]

I suspect a lot is due to some of the more active posters passing on.

Around here PBS does still have some shows, but they seem to broadcast them at less convenient times. I wonder if interest in woodworking in general is declining?

[Jim Frye]

I recently did a check of my woodworking bookmarks and discovered many have disappeared over the years. My shop is rather fully stocked with tools, so I don't do all of the tool research I used to do. As a long time BT3K user and advocate, I've been through the life span of the saws, even though mine will likely outlast me. I visit woodworking websites mostly to see what others are doing as I blunder along with my own woodworking projects. My woodworking efforts are somewhat limited in volume, so I don’t post as much as I used to. I’d guess the Feb. spike was due to after Christmas spending and dead of winter hobby time. Way back when I had the Ryobi tool forum website to run, there was a winter increase in postings and a big decrease in summer postings. Websites have a lifespan, and I really don’t know what to suggest to improve things here. I think the articles section here has a great value (and not because I wrote a few of them), perhaps we could explore something to encourage members to contribute articles. I wonder how many members actually know ofor have read any of them?

[LCHIEN]

My thoughts are there are a number of factors that raise and lower activity.
lowering:

• that we are losing members due to a variety of factors - old age, changing hobbies/interests, retirement of the personal BT3s, personal conflicts

raising (as evidenced by new registrations per month (ignoring the spamming period we had as suggested by Black Walnut)

• word of mouth reference (but if you have few members then this is naught)
• referenced on other woodworking sites - we were often outside the busy sites which was a good thing
• google search for Ryobi references and BT3000, BT3100
• Google search for general things woodworking

At this time we are suffering a overall loss of members and activity. Are there any reasonable (i.e. without paying Google) ways to increase Google visibility and rise in ranking?

Clearly the stopping of production of the BT3 in what 2006, led to lowering the overall activity and changing the name coincided with a lowering of registration activity. Still its clear from 2006 to 2010 even busy registrations could not sustain the activity level.