Subj : LURKERS
To : Randal Putnam
From : Jim Rysyk
Date : Sat Aug 12 2000 11:27 am
> I keep a 30 day message base. It is half what is was a year ago
> which was half of what is was the year before. My patrons have
> dropped from 1000 active users to about 40 in five years.
Well, my rolloff is governed by message number as well as dates. My date
rolloff is only set in the Jobs, and forSale echos. All other areas are rolled
off once the echos reach the Keep number. This is what my last part of my
tolloff log looks like:
part 3 of 3
*** Rolloff report 09:38 08/12/00 **
Msgs Msgs Msgs Del Prot Cubby Purgd Purg
Message board or Topic Name Begin Purgd Left Msgs Msgs Msgs Days Coun
---------------------------- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----
55716 messages were found
44851 messages were considered for rolloff
0 messages were rolled off
44851 undeleted messages remain
0 were rolled off because of age
0 were rolled off because of count
0 deleted messages were found
4 protected messages were not processed
5 cubbyholed messages were not processed
End of Log report
This way, even inactive echos, have some echo related information, even if its
a year old.
> dropped from 1000 active users to about 40 in five years.
I droped from over 2000, about 1800 which bother to register, and recall
within the 45-90 days to keep from getting rolled off during month end caller
maintenance process, to under 40 last year, and to about 20 this year. In June
I droped the BBS down to a single line for the 1st time since 1990 or 1991.
Its had ISDN dual channel 2+2, and more recenty a *SDL mail feed.
I'm using the box that runs the BBS for Lotus 1-2-3 Monday to Friday, and
possible the weekend. Untill last October, this BBS box was also used for *SDL
WEB surfing. The BBS itself used under 1% of the CPU and disk cycles, so other
than sit on and demand a dedicated phone line or two, its not demanded much.
The software cost a $15US upgrade 3 times 12 or 13 years, and if I didn't
upgrade to the 16 line package just before the callers droped off, I could
still be using the origional entry level package and a few dollars richer.
But the 16 line package costs $150 US per 16 line version upgrade. Yes, I
upgraded from a 2 line BBS to 16, then upgraded from that Version 2.2 to 2.3
for another US $150. If I just kept the two line package, it would have been a
$15 US upgrade to a 4 line package, and been all I ever needed.
So, now that its all paid for, it cost a bit of electricity, a phone line, and
some larger capacisty Hard Drives. I bought a Green PC, to cut down on my
electricity cost, and the drives spin down, and the monitor goes to sleep.
If, if, if!
But I've learned a lot, and found a better paying and more interesting
job/career directly due to my use and setting up a BBS. So I can't complain
too loudly.
Using my computers, I'm, still earning income directly due to having and using
them. But I still waist far too much time in the background BBS part of it.
Especially today.
--- FLAME v2.0/b
* Origin: SORRY, Live Y2K Rollover date system test under way @ (1:12/242)
