bloated user count

When that number on the front page was 30,000 (I created the 30,000th account for kicks), I had over 55,000 name/key pairs in my database, and this was BEFORE free accounts existed ($10 basic accounts were the norm).

So, clearly, there is some kind of activity monitoring and purging going on.

Regards,

-Flip

Where on the SL website does it explain the "Residents: 146,982" (current as of this post) statistic? It's clear what a "resident" is, and people new to SL won't think anything of it and believe there are actually 146,982 UNIQUE users. However, that's just not the case, as explained above about alternate accounts. This is what's misleading to me about that figure. I went through this with Active Worlds (as you can read about on my AW History page so I tend to be weary of user counts. I just want an accurate UNIQUE resident count.

While we're discussing this, it would be good to have the facts handy, and put them in perspective. This data is gathered automatically from the front page and since I am linking, not attaching the images, it will remain up-to-date during the course of this discussion.
Thanks to Chromal Brodsky for his excellent website at http://planet0.planet-zero.org/~chromal/slpop/

But where is that timeframe stated on the page with the total residents statistic? It's not; hence the misleading.



Any advertiser...or business/company/corporation interested in doing business with LL regarding SL.

I'm not sure "Active" is the right word.

Users in-game: 5,281

Users in game not using camping chairs or dance pads: 6

Lewis

This data wasn't even available for most of SL history...


I don't get it. Advertising RL stuff in SL is supposedly forbidden. Advertising your SL avatar/project/business is permitted, but I still don't know why you should care about how many users there are for that.
From my extensive experience doing professional work here... corporations and universities interested in using SL as a platform usually supply their own audience. Sometimes their projects are visible to the rest of the world, but I've never worked with anyone who wanted to specifically target existing SL users. My current project is probably going to cater to SLers, but we had to actually talk the client into making the island visible, he was also thinking of supplying his own audience for some reason.

The main forum page says at the bottom, "Members: 221,417"

*humour scan*

O.O positive? couldnt be!!!

While those "facts" are interesting, there's no actual dates/years on them (or even an explanation of how they are created, on the webpage) making them easily forgeable and questionable. While it's most likely they ARE legitimate, I have to be skeptical of them until proven otherwise.

Regardless, if taken as true, I question the extreme population decrease in "week 5" of, presumably, 2006. I also question why "users_online" starts near week 3.

But even with these issues resolved, the underlying data is still a total user count. I see no other decreases in population aside from the one mentioned above--and the graph's resolution doesn't show more subtle population decreases (although there might be one in week 3 but it's hard to tell).

Active Worlds' universe stats were much more detailed and offered an explanation as to what the numbers meant:



I would like to see something similar for SL's resident count--some statistical accountability.

While I'd also like to see stats, I think you're severely overblowing this issue. I would wager dollars to donuts that less than one in five hundred (0.2% or less) users has even a single alternate account. Cases of extreme SL addicts like me, who have a household with seven accounts, are much rarer. But consider:

FlipperPA Peregrine = main account
Commerce Leader = SLBoutique bank account & customer service; company property.
Jennyfur Peregrine = also registered at my address, but my wife
Crompco Mechanique = also registered at my address, but used by the special projects manager of my RL company

Then there are a few others which are used for fun, privacy, or so on. I think I'm about as big an exception to the alt rule as there is, yet there are four legit separate users at my address. I'm fairly sure that alternate accounts are statistically insignificant; only really hard core Second Lifers use them, and often there will be several accounts at a single address.

Eggy's post above also shows clearly that the number on the front page is being massaged to be legitimate by looking at activity and purging inactive accounts.

Regards,

-Flip

For someone so interested in SL population it surprises me that you don't know, let alone trust these charts.
LL explicitly supplies this data on the website for syndication. Anyone is welcome to poll it, put it up on their website, or in this case collect, store and chart it.
See for yourself: http://secondlife.com/xmlhttp/secondlife.php
The population drop was caused by a temporary glitch on the website, and as previously stated, the total number of accounts is actually over 221,000. The numbers do decrease sometimes but the decrease doesn't last long enough to register on the charts, quickly overwhelmed by growth. You would need a much smaller polling interval to catch those tiny fluctuations, which would cause undue load on the website.

Why should I trust this information when it's not verified by an independent entity? Just because LL provides those stats doesn't mean they're correct/accurate. Yes, I might be making a bigger deal out of this than necessary, but my past experience with AW's universe stats has left be skeptical about such counts, as I've already mentioned and, hopefully, illustrated--if not, refer to my AW history page linked to above.

Here's a fairly interesting list I've linked to before:

http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:OuG9QiT3BIwJ:68.144.33.148/citizens.html+flipperpa+active+worlds&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=13

With regards to LL, if anything, I think their number is low, not high.

#248985 reporting for duty!

Regards,

-Flip

Fine. I'll take my 247,990 alts and go home.

Seriously, whats the big deal Eep? You can see the number of people online. You know where the major camping grounds are and can figure out how many they support. Using those numbers you can get a pretty good idea of the number of people somewhat active.

The real concern you should have is: Is SL entertaining enough for me to want to stay?

All else is a waste of time. When Im having fun in SL I dont care where the rest of the population is.

Again, the casual website visitor won't have access to any of this information when seeing that "residents" figure...

People can share credit for one thing. They don't have to be living at the same address either. But I am not sure on the tech data on that. I'd have to look it up and I don't feel like it.
At least not right now.
But just my input from what little I might know.

'Average' 4000 residents online = 1000 'real' people + 1000 alts going about their various business' + 2000 zombies in camping chairs...

So? Sign up is free. Sign up. Go in world. Having fun? Yes/No? Stay? Yes/No?

You're missing the point. As such, I will no longer be replying to you.

Oh and where's my free account? Users who paid $10 for a lifetime account should get a free one free now, I think... Oops...more alts...

I'll get my alt and post some comments then.

The casual website visitor realy couldn't give a s*&%. Anyone with the slightest bit of interest can easily find this thread (and the many others on the same subject).

And just for the record, thats not my alt.

No, you're missing the point. SL is supposed to be consumer-oriented entertainment software.
A set of three numbers, real or forged, should not have an impact on your SL experience.
We've repeatedly asked you why on earth they would matter to you. You vaguely mentioned "advertisers". I told you RL ads are forbidden in SL, you have not responded to that.

I like this idea, and only because it just makes a lot of sense. The thing is it only benefits those of us who care about such a thing.

I would venture to say that it benefits LL to display these beefed up numbers, and as such, they would prefer to leave things as they are.

In regard to adverstisers and/or investors et al, I'm certain that prior to any advertisement contracts/agreements, LL provides all of the factual numbers and is transparent with all of these issues.

To do otherwise, would then be fraudulent and deceiving.

The concurrent user number rose dramatically at the same time that camping chairs became popular - prior to that we could barely get 3,000 people in world at once. I definitely thing the number is inflated by afk zombies. While there has been real growth over the past few months, it is not as dramatic as it appears. SL still feels as empty as ever most of the time - where are all the people? Why do so few people use SL simultaneously?