End of Month Stats for September, 2012

[scott]

Alright, here's the stats for September, 2012. But before we get to it I want to go through and clarify how dupes affect the stats, since there were some questions about it last month...

When a dupe is added to the site, it still is counted as a tally in the new items column. These numbers are then added together at the end of the month and divided by the number of days in that month. All of these stats are entered into an Excel workbook by me manually. So, if a dupe is added to the database and I have updated the spreadsheet before it is deleted, this dupe gets counted towards the average number of games added to the database. This number is also used to determine how many games in total were added to the database in a given month. So dupes do tend to effect the average and the total items for the month.

But, the Total number of items in the database is the current running tally of items. This counts all legit games and any dupes we haven't found yet. As dupes are removed this number fluctuates a little, so new items do technically cancel out old dupes in this tally. Luckily, the number of legit new items have always out weighed the number of dupes we've deleted, so we've never had a month where the Total Items in Database is less than the previous month's Total.

So with that I can say, that while dupes do have an effect on the average and the total for the month. Dupes added during the month don't have a lasting effect on the Total Items in Database tally, since as we find and remove dupes and replace them with legit items, this number becomes more and more accurate.

In the long run it just means, please watch what you are submitting. Finding and removing dupes is very time consuming and we could be using that time to make the site even better!

With that, let's get on to the stats!

Users

This month saw almost 300 new registered users joining the site. While we hope most of you new folks are real people and not robots, we do realize that we are still combating the spammers and that this number is more than likely skewed because of it.

• Total Registered Users: 5,299
• New Users: 290
• Daily Average: 10

Items

September was a great month for new items, getting double that of August. With 1,605 new items added to the database we were able to break through the 30,000 threshold! That's awesome and six times the number of items we originally started VGCollect's database with!

• Total Items in Database: 30,157
• New Items: 1,605
• Daily Average: 54
• Edits: 2,537
• Daily Average Edits: 85

Collections

This section is always my favorite. Collections grew in September, with over 23,000 items added to user's collections, that's a growth of 774 items added to collections every day! This brought us easily up and over the 250,000 mark! Wishlists also saw a decent jump, with over 1,200 items added to the wishlist. This means over 13,000 items are being tracked down by users for their collections, and that's pretty sweet. The Sell List is still the red headed step-child of the stats list, with only 66 new items added to it this month, it even managed to give us our first average with a decimal point, with 2.2 per day. Sell List is sad, you should be friends with it and cheer it up.

• Total Items in Collections:253,731
• Total Added to Collections: 23,216
• Daily Average: 774
• Total Items in Wishlists: 13,155
• Total Added to Wishlists: 1,278
• Daily Average Added to Wishlists: 43
• Items For Sale/ Trade: 1,169
• Total Added to Sell List: 66
• Daily Average Added to Sell List: 2

All in all another good month for us. We broke a few milestones and each new month is record breaking. I hope I was able to help clarify some questions about how dupes effect the stats too, but if not feel free to ask more questions.

[htimreimer]

30k that's awesome

[jcalder8]

Looks like September was a fantastic month!

Great work everyone.

[disgaeniac]

Yes indeed, that's some nice progress this month

Thanks for the explanation on the 'dupes vs new entries' thing, Scott.

In a nutshell, it seems to me that (if I'm understanding you correctly) - that, while they may "temporarily" affect the totals...eventually...as more new legit entries are added & more dupes are merged into only one entry...at the end of the day, everything will work itself out & be accurate, right?

*My OPINION*
...on the Wishlists & Sell-Lists:

A).  I've just personally *never* used a "Wishlist" feature...anywhere.

B).  Regarding the "Sell-List", though (and, I'm *guessing* that others here may feel the same way that I do),

- Realistically, Practically, and economically - A 'Video-Game-Collectors' Web-site would (again, IMO), be about the absolute *WORST* place in the world to try & sell your games (at least, the games that you bought speculatively and/or as "investmet" games)...

I say & think this for 2 (Main) reasons:

1).  Just about everyone here is pretty damned savvy & up-to-date w/ what the games they're buying & selling are worth (which, I think, means that if a lot of us started regularly selling games amongst ourselves)..we'd probably end up breaking-even since we're not the demographic to pay more for games than we have to or want to...and conversely...we're not the demographic that's likely to be losing money on games we sell and/or selling them for less than we can elsewhere.

2).  Again, personally, I get a good vibe from the 'regulars' of our community that, for the most part, we're pretty close-knit, friendly, and just generally like each other.

- Normally, I do my best to not mix-up things like this w/ buying, selling, and making money.

Not that I'd *Never* do it, mind you (I've sold a game to Scott & sent-out (and received) some "Pay-it-Forward items)...but...for the rare & the ridiculously high-value games...I prefer to just deal w/ buying/selling those in person, and, as a rule, not involving people that I like an/or am part of a core-community/group w/ them...

As always...Just my 2 cents 

[scott]

In a nutshell, it seems to me that (if I'm understanding you correctly) - that, while they may "temporarily" affect the totals...eventually...as more new legit entries are added & more dupes are merged into only one entry...at the end of the day, everything will work itself out & be accurate, right?

Right, though the dupes affect the averages and monthly totals more, since even if they get deleted, I still have them in my numbers at the end of the month. The dupes don't really affect the grand total, because as new games are added and dupes are deleted they offset each other.

I'm not sure the Sell List will ever really explode with activity. We are mainly all here because we are a group of hoarders and why would we want to part with our precious collections? I think Matt mainly added the Sell List as a counterpart to the Wish List.

Personally I have a few things listed on the Sell List, but I don't actively promote selling them off.

As for the Wish List, I use that extensively. Usually I load it up while in a store so see what I want/need, rather than going from memory.

[desocietas]

I think the Sell List is a handy way for some users who want to organize their dupes but don't want them to be viewed as part of their collection.

I know some people may prefer them to be part of their collection, which is fine. 

I personally feel like my dupes clutter up my collection view so will probably move them over to the sell list only to better match what I hope will be my physical collection (will probably box up the dupes (which are usually of poorer quality)).

I understand that the sell lists may not operate as a bustling marketplace, but I think the community actually might make the trust stronger, and knowing that these items are coming and going to collectors makes me feel better about conditions being represented accurately rather than someone trying to clean out their son's closet and trying to make a quick buck.

I also understand that money going back and forth between members here might feel a bit weird, but I think things like trading is always a good alternative to actual money exchange.

[puracz]

Concentrating more to Market may bring here quite a few more members, sadly some of them with an intention to scam. To prevent them rule a system like iTrader would work:


Under total posts of each user there would be an iTrader number and by clicking on it you can see all of user's feedback.


This would allow each user to make his reputation and by using a common sense (don't send your items first to new and 0 repped people etc) such systems would prevent you from getting scammed.

[disgaeniac]

We do have a thread where every one of us who's ever bought, sold, or traded w/ another community member is given feedback and details on how well the transaction did/didn't go...

I don't recall seeing any negative comments about anyone here...*yet*...but, obviously as the size of the community grows the chances of scammers/bad feedback will increase exponentially.

Maybe some kind of simple point-system of +1 point & -1 point w/ the total score in the profile or something wouldn't hurt...