by cedars 24 Replies latest jw friends
You know what? While risking the danger of putting words in other's mouths, I don't think Simon and the WTS are that interested in each other. Simon has expressed surprise that the domain wasn't snapped up by the WTS years ago.
The WTS is too cheap, and Simon, bless him, is far too tenacious.
Simon does have a day job, folks.
JNAT, thanks for the link. Interesting stats. Seems the average user is a 40-60 year old male college drop out who stays on for an average of 15 minutes. LOL!!! "JW.ORG", "JEHOVAH WITNESS", "JW.NET and Leo Greenlees" are common search phrases used to come here. Weird info...I will have to think about that for a while. BIG jump in activity first 2 weeks of October....
Hummmm we need to start a thread titled: "Did Jehovah tell Leo Greenlees to start JW.ORG ?"- that should boost SEO.
OK my 15 minutes are up ..back to work. Someday I MUST finish my degree........
I am tickled that you dug deeper, baalamsass. That must have really dug in to your fifteen minutes, LOL.
I love the freedom Simon has given to every single member of JWN by not imposing his rules and regulations (Kissing his ass to remain on JWN) and beliefs. I use to be part of different boards whose strict "code of conduct (not following their vision of what Christianity or Witnesses of Jehovah are suppose to follow) began to strangle my personal freedom. In my desire to find as much of the "truth" as possible, I have met many great people and learned so much about the Organization, I am deeply in debt to our Community here. Sites I enjoy are (here) obviously, Cedar's Blog, JW-Facts, Greg Stafford's books, Randy's and I am now discovering a website called "paradise cafe", it's cool but hold's not candle to JWN.
Simon's website has more members and visits because we are able to view JWN's content without signing up to be put on a "spam list" or begged for money non-stop. I don't think many of the Ex-JWs realize how much time people like Simon, Cedars, the Moderators of JWN, and resident experts "Terry, Dogpatch, Blondie" take to provide fresh and relevant content. Randy is still healing from his injury, maybe that's why I don't see him posting much but I appreciate greatly the effort great members like those mentioned spend to help the healing process speed our recovery. Thank you members of JWN, who spend time answering questions and helping other people heal, you are a altrustic bunch.
Balaam get back to work!
ooopps 20 minutes...back to work.......
Ok, some quick stats ...
We're the 21,365th and 26,760th top website in the UK and US respectively. Well, according to Alexa. Ok, that means we rank ~23.5k for the demographic of people who install browser toolbars. Hmmn, it doesn't sound as good when you say it like that.
Ok, never mind, moving on ...
In the last month we've had ~267k visits from ~146k unique visitors who collectively viewed ~1.8m pages. Ah, that explains the log files filling up the HDD! Yeah, that sounds better ... and it's from Google Analytics so more trustworthy. Traffic is defintely trending upwards as are registrations. Also, even though the majority of traffic is from the US, Canada, UK and Australia we actually had visits from 204 countries in that time. Greenland definitely looks like a potential growth area for us because we got no traffic from there. Also, some places in Africa that and one of those 'istan' countries between Russia and Iran.
Re: the credit card donations - actually, in one of the early growing stages of the site we also had a donate button and a few people contributed and it helped keep the site going and I was grateful for the support. That was oooh, nearly 10 years ago though (?) and now the site is mostly self-supporting through ads. I think people should know some things about hosting websites in 2012/13 though:
It's a lot cheaper and easier now than it was a decade ago.
Yes, it takes effort and energy and even money to host a big site with a decent amount of traffic but you can run a new site for peanuts, or at least for pistachio nuts. Any new site that says they need money to keep going before they have a lot of traffic always makes me wish I could raise one eyebrow in a quizical way like Spock because they are either paying more than they should be or imagine that they will make money from people.
What's the secret of our success? Why have we kept running so long?
I don't think it's any great secret really. We just try to keep a balance and keep order and civility. The rules we have are here to help us do this and we don't consider anyone above the rules. No one is considered 'too important' to have the rules apply to them and we try to give new people visiting the site the same consideration as older visitors.
Thankfully, I'm perfect and never make any mistakes. Unfortunately, my wife doesn't agree and blames me for actually contributing to lots of arguments and leaving her to deal with it all and make peace with people. Women, they are crazy aren't they!
Seriously, one thing that is constantly levelled at us is "you're not being fair". This is frequently by both sides in any disagreement so we take that to mean we are actually being fair. Or at least equally mean to both sides which is close enough for me. If anyone is expecting perfection then you're going to be disapponted and we're not trying to please everyone because we know we'll never be able to do that. Yes, it would be easy to offer 'no moderation' but there really is no such thing (or I think it's called anarchy). Anyway, the point is we decided the tone we want for the site and what we would and wouldn't be comfortable with and really the site is there for people who feel likewise. I know some people want something different but as I've always said - don't go into a steakhouse if you're a vegetarian and bitch about what is being served (or vice versa). Find the site that is right for you and if this one isn't it, why are you complaining?!?
It is sad that there is a turnover of people though - especially looking back at old topics as I've been working on migrating the forum software it's amazing to remember all the personalities that we've had on here, the drama, the joys, the sadness and the loss of some. Overall though, I think the turnover is healthy and inevitable. If it was just the same bunch of people whining for the last 11 pr 12 years it would be a pretty sad place.
Wait, how long have I been here now?
I think we still have a few years yet and more things we can accomplish. The WTS is still there. They send the odd legal notice. I pretend I can't read and tell them to "kjshfkjladgfhklasdjfh". I doub't they're going to turn up with a big bag of money but it would be interesting if they did. Ha, I remember the judicial committe where they were basically giving me the ultimatum to take down the site and asked how many visitors it got - even the 16k a week (I think at the time) made them make faces like they had wasps in their mouth which made me feel good so I figured I'd do it some more. "You guys messed with the wrong marine erm, publisher" (Ok, ok, lame I know - just run with it).
Please let me know if I can provide any other info!
Ha, I remember the judicial committe where they were basically giving me the ultimatum to take down the site and asked how many visitors it got - even the 16k a week (I think at the time) made them make faces like they had wasps in their mouth which made me feel good so I figured I'd do it some more. "You guys messed with the wrong marine erm, publisher" (Ok, ok, lame I know - just run with it).
Priceless. Thank you, Simon.
Thanks Simon. I appreciate your take on JWN as it is today, and the challenges with moderating, etc. I particularly agree with your sentiments about websites canvassing for donations. I saw a similar request recently made for the first time on a prominent ex-JW website, and it made my eyebrow do the "Spock" thing! Like you say, websites aren't nearly as expensive to run as they once were.
I appreciate the statistics too, very helpful. I can't wait for the new incarnation of JWN to be launched. Keep up the great work. It IS making a difference.
Cedars
That's fascinating, Simon!
It's also the longest post I've ever seen for you and gives such a brilliant peep into the backgrpound of JWN. So, if you had to go to a JC, then you were still a JW when you created the site. Deep, deep respect!
On one thing, though, I have you beat.
makes me wish I could raise one eyebrow in a quizical way like Spock
I can. (I often do, as well!)
Greenland definitely looks like a potential growth area for us because we got no traffic from there.
I think we should send missionaries
