100,000+ members

[limarasa9]

Raise a toast on UKP reaching 100,000 members 

[GingerNuts]

It's a good milestone but it highlights how much "dead weight" there is.

[signy]

It's a good milestone but it highlights how much "dead weight" there is.

It would be interesting to know the distribution of "number of posts" and "number of reviews" across those members. I expect there would be a lot of zeroes.

Still, being a member is the first step to making a contribution, so always hopeful that members will feel confident enough to dip their toes into posting.

[Blackpool Rock]

It's a good milestone but it highlights how much "dead weight" there is.

Yeah it would be good to know how many active members there are, there does on the face of it appear to still be a lot of new members joining however many don't complete the registration by paying with bitcoin but still show as a new member

[Tender.french.kiss]

I suspect, like many things, that 80% of the contributions comes from less than 20% of the members

[FLYING BLUE]

I suspect, like many things, that 80% of the contributions comes from less than 20% of the members

This - 100%

[Thephoenix]

It's good for statistical purposes I suppose.

[myothernameis]

Raise a toast on UKP reaching 100,000 members 

I also suppose the actual numbers of members on here might be lower, if you take into sleeper accounts, which some banned members might have set up 

[southcoastpunter]

its bound to be smaller. it would be interesting to know how many members have logged in during say the last month and how many members had posted anything in the last month.

But then, what would we do with such information? we know far too many members don't contribute to the forum. as individuals all we can do (and should do) is ask ourselves - is anything i post putting other guys off? if we all looked at our posting style, words used and tone it portrays, that would be a good start.

Otherwise its down to Head1 to determine things as he sees fit!

[limarasa9]

Yeah it would be good to know how many active members there are, there does on the face of it appear to still be a lot of new members joining however many don't complete the registration by paying with bitcoin but still show as a new member

That’s a good point. After I became a member in April, Bitcoin was my biggest challenge to move to the next step. I had never bought bitcoin before because I was always sceptical about it. Also, if the OH came to know that I bought bitcoin (as she knew that I am against it) then I also had to think of a reason to tell her why I bought it. I then had to research on actually how to safely buy Bitcoin without getting conned or anything. So it took me almost 3 weeks before I finally made my first transaction with bitcoin.

[limarasa9]

I suspect, like many things, that 80% of the contributions comes from less than 20% of the members

20% would be 20,000 which still seems very high … I guess more likely to be 1% who contribute .. if there is a stat of number of unique reviewers (who posted at least 1 review) during the last year, we would know the true picture …

[Malvolio]

its bound to be smaller. it would be interesting to know how many members have logged in during say the last month and how many members had posted anything in the last month.

But then, what would we do with such information? we know far too many members don't contribute to the forum. as individuals all we can do (and should do) is ask ourselves - is anything i post putting other guys off? if we all looked at our posting style, words used and tone it portrays, that would be a good start.

Otherwise its down to Head1 to determine things as he sees fit!

There's not much you can do to encourage members to post reviews - when challenged long-term members with zero reviews always come up with some excuse.

Given what this forum is about, I expect the tone is always going to be blokeish and robust.

[LLPunting]

...

But then, what would we do with such information? we know far too many members don't contribute to the forum. as individuals all we can do (and should do) is ask ourselves - is anything i post putting other guys off? if we all looked at our posting style, words used and tone it portrays, that would be a good start.
...

The community here is no more harsh or coddling than most work environments I've been in or indeed social circles I'm a member of, some where women are the majority.  The issue is not the posters here, we have a tiny minority of objectionable vocals just like the real world, we have a much larger community of people from all walks of Life at different stages in those lives who participate to one degree or another in the spirit of the site and then we have a huge number of others who don't contribute because they perhaps rarely if ever login again or they aren't really punting or they are punting but won't share. 
We can't know how many are truly abusing the goodwill of the givers here by advancing their own punting as a result but given what this site is about, why someone would register here, the number of people paying for sex and the concerns, budgets and behaviours evidenced for punters by our active contributors I find it hard to believe that there aren't thousands of active punters registered and refusing to honour the bargain offered by UKP.  Happy to be proven wrong though and that (most every non-contributor is honest as the day is long.   

There's no real reason to suspect that just because we're all supposedly here because we pay for sex that most of us would be paralysingly shy and unable to express ourselves to some extent in writing (thanks to voice to text we don't really have to deal with typing issues or dyslexia).

It would be useful to know per week/month/year:
- how many members log in at least once a week, perhaps plot a chart Count vs Number of logins
- how many of these read at least one review, perhaps plot Count vs No of reviews read
- how many of these review readers have not posted any reviews
- how many of these reader-non-reviewers have been here since before paid membership was implemented
- how many different members wrote at least one review in that week

The same metrics for those members who login at least once a month.

Similarly for guests, if each guest session is tracked for reading reviews, a plot of no of guests who read reviews vs no of reviews each one read.

Having the above on the Site Stats page would expose to the entire community some sense of the utilisation of the site and how many are participating in good faith.
Perhaps more useful than known which threads have the most posts of all time, who has posted the most, who has started most topics (including reviews) or who has been logged in the longest.

Sure there are other metrics that others who think about membership engagement can suggest to us.  Please do pitch in.

[Charliehutton]

Yeah it would be good to know how many active members there are, there does on the face of it appear to still be a lot of new members joining however many don't complete the registration by paying with bitcoin but still show as a new member

Can you only pay by bitcoin? That must put a lot of us old 'uns off, I'd have thought. I wouldn't know where to start.

[FiveKnuckles]

There's not much you can do to encourage members to post reviews - when challenged long-term members with zero reviews always come up with some excuse.

I believe the 'Paid membership' has encouraged a few more people to post.  Why pay a fee and not participate?

All those 'lurking free accounts with less than X amount reviews' (other than guys that have medical exceptions noted), should be put on probation with XX amount of daily read limit. 

Personally if I'm not going to punt once per year, then I don't need to absorb so much info.  Rather visually spank off PH 

[mr.bluesky]

its bound to be smaller. it would be interesting to know how many members have logged in during say the last month and how many members had posted anything in the last month.

But then, what would we do with such information? we know far too many members don't contribute to the forum. as individuals all we can do (and should do) is ask ourselves - is anything i post putting other guys off? if we all looked at our posting style, words used and tone it portrays, that would be a good start.

Otherwise its down to Head1 to determine things as he sees fit!

There is a forum stats at the bottom of the home page that states how many people are logged in daily and the most on a single day

[Blackpool Rock]

Can you only pay by bitcoin? That must put a lot of us old 'uns off, I'd have thought. I wouldn't know where to start.

Yes I believe so and also recall it was covered off in a thread about new membership / payment.

Couple of years ago when Head1 asked for voluntary contributions to get work done on the site we were able to pay with Am@@@@ vouchers but there must be a limit of how many £10; £20; £25 etc vouchers someone wants or can spend, I also wonder if it starts to look a bit suspect 

I agree that Bitcoin or any crypto would also put me off as I don't hold any and wouldn't know where to start so it would have to take a real effort for me to actually pay up, unfortunately i'm sure it also puts a lot of others off too

[FiveKnuckles]

I agree that Bitcoin or any crypto would also put me off as I don't hold any and wouldn't know where to start so it would have to take a real effort for me to actually pay up, unfortunately i'm sure it also puts a lot of others off too

Take not all those leeching free accounts .  You could be one macro away from a reset to paid membership.      .    Better book a £20 tug and write a few paragraphs

[potter92]

Yeah it would be good to know how many active members there are, there does on the face of it appear to still be a lot of new members joining however many don't complete the registration by paying with bitcoin but still show as a new member

Is the paying registration a new thing? If so what are the benefits over no paying membership?

[Tender.french.kiss]

20% would be 20,000 which still seems very high … I guess more likely to be 1% who contribute ..

I agree with you, I think in this case Pareto would be a bit optimistic.
Always the same few dozens names who actively contribute.
Maybe this also shows that quite a bit of these 100 000 must be dead or dormant

[alabama1]

Is the paying registration a new thing? If so what are the benefits over no paying membership?

I believe that new members have to pay a one off joining fee.

[FiveKnuckles]

I believe that new members have to pay a one off joining fee.

It's annual, as confirmed by head1
https://www.ukpunting.com/index.php?topic=363157.0

[Blackpool Rock]

Is the paying registration a new thing? If so what are the benefits over no paying membership?

Yes it must have been around Dec 20 / Jan 21 when it was introduced so you would have been one of the 1st to pay unless there was a period after allowing new members when it was free 

You need to realise however that new members weren't being accepted before that as there was a problem with the software which needed to be fixed and the owner needed to pay to get a few things sorted hence asking for voluntary contributions then setting a joining fee to help cover ongoing costs, I believe the fee is actually an annual fee rather than a 1 off joining fee.

The benefit of being a member is that you can post rather than just view threads and you can view an unlimited number of pages whereas non members are limited to page views

All of the above is what i believe to be correct from memory, happy to be corrected if any of it is wrong

[alabama1]

It's annual, as confirmed by head1
https://www.ukpunting.com/index.php?topic=363157.0

Yes, but only for new members, not for existing members who were here before the charges were brought in. 

[FiveKnuckles]

Yes, but only for new members, not for existing members who were here before the charges were brought in. 

Reason enough for them 80,000+ free leechers to participate?  Could easily be reset due to lack of activity 

[Hobbit]

It means nothing, so I don't know why you are mentioning it. As people have said, there is probably a vast majority of leechers, SP's, and all sorts as members.

[Doc Holliday]

People lose far too much sleep about zero contributors … who normally comprise the vast majority of all online forum memberships. Fact of life.

It’s the internet. We all use it as a resource. Where would we be without YouTube DIY videos.  Those who post such videos are happy to share with large numbers of people (in fact that is usually the main aim) but when it comes to punting information we tend to become very precious.

There is nothing you can do about it except encourage rather than try to seek out and penalise. The forum can become quite hostile and toxic with calling out leeches, which can be counterproductive getting new members to put their head above the parapet for the first time.

Some older North West punters may remember a long gone forum, where the owner became somewhat obsessed with ‘leeches’ (as did I at one point) He would periodically delete anyone who hadn’t posted anything within a few months of joining. They just rejoined. He gave up in the end. Lesson learned.

Another forum became so elitist over time with an 'old guard' dominating and often attacking anyone new became the norm. This got so bad that a 'be nice to newbies' policy was introduced to try and counteract declining new contributors.

It's all about balance. Life's too short to stress over it 

[Dipper]

I don’t think anyone is stressed at all, we just like up to date information on good sex we can pay for. 

[daviemac]

For the newer members who weren't here at the time and a reminder to those who were here but seem to have forgotten, before he appointed moderators OldAdmin brought a rule in that members had to post a certain amount in order to maintain membership, he also made it so forum helpers could freeze accounts that hadn't contributed so he could look at them later. It was an unmitigated disaster, the boards were full of +1's and other totally pointless posts. There were so many accounts frozen that he had to unfreeze then en mass and do away with the whole thing.

Leeches and lurkers are a fact of life on forums. We are trying to make this a friendlier place to be with the emphasis on guidance, help and encouragement towards new members or even new posters.

[GingerNuts]

People lose far too much sleep about zero contributors … who normally comprise the vast majority of all online forum memberships. Fact of life.

It’s the internet. We all use it as a resource. Where would we be without YouTube DIY videos.  Those who post such videos are happy to share with large numbers of people (in fact that is usually the main aim) but when it comes to punting information we tend to become very precious.

Unlike many online forums this one requires members to contribute or have a good reason for not doing so.

Posters of those YouTube videos don't do it in the expectation viewers will post one of their own. On this this forum those members who contribute do have an expectation of reciprocation from those who benefit from their efforts.

[Doc Holliday]

Unlike many online forums this one requires members to contribute or have a good reason for not doing so.

Posters of those YouTube videos don't do it in the expectation viewers will post one of their own. On this this forum those members who contribute do have an expectation of reciprocation from those who benefit from their efforts.

Yes you are right, there is a difference due to that expectation in the rules and my comparison is flawed in that respect. That said do you think people get worked up because it is the forum ethos/rules or because they simply only want to share to a limited audience. I don't know the answer to that? I personally don't mind who reads what I post.

I would also argue though that such an expectation, whilst admirable, must be tempered by realism. It simply cannot be achieved for the vast majority of members and worrying about it greatly is unproductive.

[Doc Holliday]

For the newer members who weren't here at the time and a reminder to those who were here but seem to have forgotten, before he appointed moderators OldAdmin brought a rule in that members had to post a certain amount in order to maintain membership, he also made it so forum helpers could freeze accounts that hadn't contributed so he could look at them later. It was an unmitigated disaster, the boards were full of +1's and other totally pointless posts. There were so many accounts frozen that he had to unfreeze then en mass and do away with the whole thing.

Leeches and lurkers are a fact of life on forums. We are trying to make this a friendlier place to be with the emphasis on guidance, help and encouragement towards new members or even new posters.

Thanks Davie, I never knew that had been tried before on UKP. I have noticed lately that you are encouraging 'be nice to newbies' 

[simon07]

Can you tell how many are from England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and maybe rest of the world?

The power of UKP is the networking and sharing of information.

[limarasa9]

I don’t think anyone is stressed at all, we just like up to date information on good sex we can pay for. 

+1.

[Blackpool Rock]

What I would say is that anyone who now stumps up the annual membership fee effectively buys the right to view and therefore should perhaps be viewed a little less criticality IMHO

Those who have been members for years and post nothing but just leech are annoying but you won't know who most are, it's the ones who then ask for info that winds most people up but as posted (by Davie I think) only the Mods / Admin can actually tell who has been viewing 100's of pages every week Vs someone who hasn't logged on for 6 months

[GingerNuts]

Yes you are right, there is a difference due to that expectation in the rules and my comparison is flawed in that respect. That said do you think people get worked up because it is the forum ethos/rules or because they simply only want to share to a limited audience. I don't know the answer to that? I personally don't mind who reads what I post.

I would also argue though that such an expectation, whilst admirable, must be tempered by realism. It simply cannot be achieved for the vast majority of members and worrying about it greatly is unproductive.

I don't think anyone is particularly worked up or geatly worried about it but some will find it irksome. They put time and effort into contributing to the site while others just sit back and reap the rewards.

[LLPunting]

Yes you are right, there is a difference due to that expectation in the rules and my comparison is flawed in that respect. That said do you think people get worked up because it is the forum ethos/rules or because they simply only want to share to a limited audience. I don't know the answer to that? I personally don't mind who reads what I post.

I would also argue though that such an expectation, whilst admirable, must be tempered by realism. It simply cannot be achieved for the vast majority of members and worrying about it greatly is unproductive.

If this were a forum exchanging free experiences, sharing life stories then fair 'nuff, chip in or don't.  This is not that, the social compact of this community is we risk our time, money and most importantly our satisfaction and share the outcomes with the intent to help each other improve our future experiences.  Reviews aren't an accidental, fortuitous by-product of some other principal activity here.  So membership does present a "higher" obligation on members to reciprocate the goodwill shown by others.

[LLPunting]

What I would say is that anyone who now stumps up the annual membership fee effectively buys the right to view and therefore should perhaps be viewed a little less criticality IMHO

Those who have been members for years and post nothing but just leech are annoying but you won't know who most are, it's the ones who then ask for info that winds most people up but as posted (by Davie I think) only the Mods / Admin can actually tell who has been viewing 100's of pages every week Vs someone who hasn't logged on for 6 months

How much "right" does 20-odd quid per annum buy you here?  Less that a quickie with a streetwalker or a P&D in a walk-up or an impromptu hand-shandy from an "I'm not a sex-worker" sex worker touting herself on some "agreement" site that's reviewed?
As soon as each of us reviews a 15/30 min encounter we've more than paid our due, perhaps moreso if we TOFTT...

Here's an outrageous proposal: 
Perhaps new membership should come with a "bond" requirement of say 100 quid.  If the mods believe you're not entering into the spirit of the site then that bond is forfeit, goes into a kitty available to reviewers and the offender suspended.  The "offender" must stake a new bond to re-enable his membership.  The mods can continue to forfeit it at ever shortening intervals if his attitude doesn't change or lapses.  If you leave in good standing you get your bond back.
Every quarter the kitty is divvied into £100 prizes randomly awarded to active reviewers for that period (including any offenders who returned and reviewed).

[limarasa9]

Every quarter the kitty is divvied into £100 prizes randomly awarded to active reviewers for that period (including any offenders who returned and reviewed).

I think the problem with this is fake reviews. Another “proposal” that I was thinking was the members who have paid the annual fee get 250 page views per month (resets every month). If they add a review then they get an additional 250 page views and so on.. Same goes for members who are on lifetime free membership. But similar to your proposal anything that is connected to reviews might be open to abuse. Also, I am assuming those who don’t punt actively need not worry about 250 page views as I am guessing that “should be enough” as their main interest would be discussion boards. Needless to say Forum helpers should not be restricted by this page view criteria.

[LLPunting]

I think the problem with this is fake reviews. Another “proposal” that I was thinking was the members who have paid the annual fee get 250 page views per month (resets every month). If they add a review then they get an additional 250 page views and so on.. Same goes for members who are on lifetime free membership. But similar to your proposal anything that is connected to reviews might be open to abuse. Also, I am assuming those who don’t punt actively need not worry about 250 page views as I am guessing that “should be enough” as their main interest would be discussion boards. Needless to say Forum helpers should not be restricted by this page view criteria.

Fake reviews could become more of a problem with the lottery "incentive", perhaps even collusion to write corroborating reviews to try to hide fakes that might even misrepresent the SPs.   
We have and can only rely on accumulated reviews and perhaps the weighing in of trusted veterans with their visits to get to the truth.  Culprits will get found out and lose their bonds, collectively we might gain more than the few of them that win. 
All depends on how big the kitty regularly gets, if people aren't losing their bonds then there'd be no kitty so no incentive in that respect.

Fake reviews to avoid loss of bond?  Perhaps, we've always had the threat of banning for non-contribution and we've yet to identify any proliferation of fake reviews motivated by it.  Why risk losing the bond when you could just write a genuine review with no fear of recrimination and perhaps win a lottery funded by real offenders?

Cunts will always connive but if we're all collectively sampling the same population the harmful fibbing will out, even if some girls who would be deserving of whatever some fakes might say simply acquired more of a reputation that they maintained with their unaware efforts anyway.   
Of course some girls might even pipe up and challenge events taking place.  Some veterans here might be regulars or very familiar with the reviewed SPs and spot a lie, as happened recently.  Fortunately we seem to have a slowly growing corps that provide a collective BS meter.

[Doc Holliday]

I don't think anyone is particularly worked up or geatly worried about it but some will find it irksome.

I think we will just have to agree to disagree on that 

[Doc Holliday]

Here's an outrageous proposal: 
Perhaps new membership should come with a "bond" requirement of say 100 quid.  If the mods believe you're not entering into the spirit of the site then that bond is forfeit, goes into a kitty available to reviewers and the offender suspended.  The "offender" must stake a new bond to re-enable his membership.  The mods can continue to forfeit it at ever shortening intervals if his attitude doesn't change or lapses.  If you leave in good standing you get your bond back.
Every quarter the kitty is divvied into £100 prizes randomly awarded to active reviewers for that period (including any offenders who returned and reviewed).

Yes it's outrageous 

Firstly there is enough work to do for those running the site as it is without schemes such as this (which in my opinion would be unworkable anyway) but more importantly new members are the lifeblood of a forum and putting yet more obstacles in the way is not only unfair but hugely counterproductive.

What do the stats tell us? You can see how as membership grew, so did the forum. New topics and new posts peaked in 2018. Then came the double whammy of new membership being 'broken' and Covid in 2020

There was a  bounce back in 2021 as we came out of Covid and new membership was opened again, but 2022 saw a circa 25% fall in new topics and new posts together with new members.

This is not a time to stifle further growth.



Hidden Image/Members Only

[Billy no mates]

Speaking for myself, and only myself.

Personally when I review, and I am by no means a regular punter/reviewer 5/6 a year perhaps tops, but when I review I don’t mind who reads/comments/enjoys/learns something from. I don’t mind if they have 100’s reviews or zero.

My thing that annoys me a little, is when some idiot thread ‘best tug off this morning in Swindon’ or similar, and the author has been here like 5 years, with a few posts and all of them kinda doing the same thing, asking for information and not following up.

Don’t get me wrong I don’t loose sleep over it, but it does irk me.

I think it is beneficial to the site to ensure we are new poster friendly, and also think any ‘criteria’ or number of posts, reviews,  page views anything that means extra work for someone is unworkable.

[daviemac]

How much "right" does 20-odd quid per annum buy you here?  Less that a quickie with a streetwalker or a P&D in a walk-up or an impromptu hand-shandy from an "I'm not a sex-worker" sex worker touting herself on some "agreement" site that's reviewed?
As soon as each of us reviews a 15/30 min encounter we've more than paid our due, perhaps moreso if we TOFTT...

Here's an outrageous proposal: 
Perhaps new membership should come with a "bond" requirement of say 100 quid.  If the mods believe you're not entering into the spirit of the site then that bond is forfeit, goes into a kitty available to reviewers and the offender suspended.  The "offender" must stake a new bond to re-enable his membership.  The mods can continue to forfeit it at ever shortening intervals if his attitude doesn't change or lapses.  If you leave in good standing you get your bond back.
Every quarter the kitty is divvied into £100 prizes randomly awarded to active reviewers for that period (including any offenders who returned and reviewed).

Every member on the site is equal regardless of paid or unpaid membership, every member is bound by the same rules. Those who are seen to be leeching will be asked why and if no satisfactory answer is forthcoming they get banned.

I don't know how many times this has to be said, forcing people to post has been tried and it does not work. For the site to work as it should members need to want to post and the best way of achieving that is by encouragement not by them being questioned when they do post.

Only mods and admin can see how often the site has been used plus now there is the added matter of joining date and the date the account is verified so they are able to post which are two entirely different things.

[Thephoenix]

Based on some of the comments I'm thankful I'm not a new member with suggestions of bonds and penalties relating to reviews etc.

Of course the main objective of the site is for members to provide reviews for the benefit of others, but there may be reasons such as poor health, change of circumstances etc, where they're unable to do that.
Does that necessarily mean those members don't add any value to the site?

If the recent 'likes' numbers are anything to go by, I'd suggest that the numbers of reviews isn't the only factor determining if members are an asset to the site.

[Dipper]

  For the site to work as it should members need to want to post

This is nail on head for me.

[Tender.french.kiss]

Yes it's outrageous 

Firstly there is enough work to do for those running the site as it is without schemes such as this (which in my opinion would be unworkable anyway) but more importantly new members are the lifeblood of a forum and putting yet more obstacles in the way is not only unfair but hugely counterproductive.

What do the stats tell us? You can see how as membership grew, so did the forum. New topics and new posts peaked in 2018. Then came the double whammy of new membership being 'broken' and Covid in 2020

There was a  bounce back in 2021 as we came out of Covid and new membership was opened again, but 2022 saw a circa 25% fall in new topics and new posts together with new members.

This is not a time to stifle further growth.

Hidden Image/Members Only

+1
Good analysis

[LLPunting]

...

If the recent 'likes' numbers are anything to go by, I'd suggest that the numbers of reviews isn't the only factor determining if members are an asset to the site.

Likes can be cast by people who have no intention of reviewing despite being active punters as well as by any other contributory member of the site (whether active, retired or temporarily out of action)...  they can like all kinds of posts that don't commit them to participating more productively, that's part of the reason "Likes" is being questioned for it's value.

[Thephoenix]

Likes can be cast by people who have no intention of reviewing despite being active punters as well as by any other contributory member of the site (whether active, retired or temporarily out of action)...  they can like all kinds of posts that don't commit them to participating more productively, that's part of the reason "Likes" is being questioned for it's value.

I'm not talking about the 'likers'.
I'm talking about the 'liked'.
Why do you think they're being 'liked?'
Is it all to do with the number and regularity of their reviews?
It doesn't seem so does it?

I'm not convinced about the value of the 'like' button either, but if a member gets lots of 'likes', doesn't that indicate that member is......well!......'LIKED!', and would therefore be missed if they were banned or penalised through lack of reviews?

[Dipper]

I'm not talking about the 'likers'.
I'm talking about the 'liked'.
Why do you think they're being 'liked?'
Is it all to do with the number and regularity of their reviews?
It doesn't seem so does it?

I'm not convinced about the value of the 'like' button either, but if a member gets lots of 'likes', doesn't that indicate that member is......well!......'LIKED!', and would therefore be missed if they were banned or penalised through lack of reviews?

An interesting thought.