the forum experimentpicture of forum site using SMF

What started as a mis-guided attempt on my part, ended up being a social experiment. This is the result of that experiment. In fact, you are now part of that experiment.

introduction

I started a forum soon after I set up my original web site in 2007. I didn't really think it through very well. For years, the only response I received was from my buddy, Dick. Thanks, Dick! That's what tech bros do, they support each others web sites. Open to the world, the forum just sat there, a void in the information super highway.

The loud ads that follow are part of the experiment, so please bear with me. It will all make sense in the end.

after long period of inactivity, I had to shut it down

So the forum sat there, stagnate, for years. Hello? Somewhere along the way, somebody started posting porn. How they found me, I have no idea.

These weren't porn links, these were porn pictures. Not good porn pics, but grainy pictures of unattractive people in unimaginative poses. I soon closed the site to any an all activity, and cleaned up the mess.

The forum sat frozen in time, for an extended period. Timing is fuzzy in the early days because I didn't realize it was an experiment back then. Around the beginning of 2012, I turned the forum back on, in a limited fashion. Anyone wishing to post must be a member, and members required my approval before they could post. Nobody got past me.

don't these people have anything better to do with their time?

Almost immediately, people started to register. Lots and lots of people. I could look at this data cummulatively, by IP address, and see some patterns. The forum software allowed me to create a ban list of IP addresses, and I tried to set up a barricade. Anyone trying to register from a banned IP address, received the following message:

You have been determined to be a loser

15,343 people got that message. I had to set up 400 rules to do it. Plus I deleted the 4,200 applicants I used to identify the IP address blocks. All this activity going on during January and February of 2012.

go big, or go home

This was going nowhere. Bored with the whole thing, I was ready to shut the forum down for good. Then, in a brain fart moment, I decide to go in a completely different direction. I opened the forum up to everybody. I disconnected it from my website. The innocent are protected. Go for it spammers, show me what you got. No approval needed to post. It's all yours.

I find it interesting that people insist on registering. They must be on some kind of commission system.

So here's the first concrete milestone. The first person registered on February 21, 2012. Coincidentially (or not?), the first person to register was Genesis_Ohio.

Keep in mind, these people have been denied entrance for years. But as soon as I opened the door, they were lined up, waiting to come in. I find this strange. Money must be involved.

the build out

People are joining, and people are posting. It's mostly fashion and perscription drugs being hawked. Louis Vuitton, Jimmy Choo. Doxycycline, Temovate, and of course, Viagra. A lot of Polish, at least that's what Google thinks it is. Translated, it still doesn't make much sense. And there are links. Do. Not. Touch. The. Links.

A corollary to don't touch the links, is don't give them your email address.

Many of the forum functions involve communicating with members. It was imperative that I do no such thing, else my email address is toast.

I'm beginning to notice something. I'm noticing that none of these posts are being read, by anybody. If they're not being read, they're certainly not being clicked on. These posts live in the same vacuous space my forum has existed in for years. Nobody is reading this stuff.

On March 5th, 2012, I removed the IP address blocks. Now the whole world has access to the forum. The build out continues, but nobody is reading this stuff. I went so far as to point it out:

Hey Spammers, you're as dumb as a box of rocks

They are unaware of my existence.

the ball's in my court Cha Ching!

I'm trying to figure out how to turn this pile of lemons into lemonade. That's where the ads come in. In almost 5 years, I've earned $13.65 with my Google AdSense account. Well that's about to increase.

I'm about to close down the forum, and replace it with this page. I've got 30,000 people going to check into the forum and see this page. I've got the Google maximum three ads set up and I'm ready to go. That's money!

Here's a record of forum activity, going back to Genesis_Ohio on February 21, 2012. Once the numbers started to grow, I started to write them down with more consistency. Artistic license was used to fill in missing data points. At the end of the day, I was able to construct this chart:

This is an interactive chart from a Google spreadheet. If you click on the colored lines, you will see the actual data value at that point. Go ahead, play with it.

to be continued...

I'm hoping to report back with an interesting story. I promise to report back something.