Things have been picking up more a bit it seems lately

Ive found myself actually posting again sporadically. Ets hope the upward trend can continue

Then I thank you profusely.

Keep doing your job because they are currently accounting for over 10% of all posts between them.

I just worked out that if it wasn't for pezus, ninpie and spurge the PPD would be 157 lower for every day in 2012! :0

11k posts each = 33k posts.
~210 days in the year so far (7 months)
33k/210 = 157 less posts per day if those three didn't post

Well there are a number of reasons... The very sudden drop off in mid 2010 was caused by the site re-design dubbed VGC 3.0 (which is when the site split up into different sub-domains you may have seen if you were a lurker for a few months before joining like gamrconnect, gamrreview, gamrtv and gamrfeed) The earlier drop-off in early 2010 I'm not sure about, I suspect it was caused by the earlier VGC 2.0 introduction (which happened in mid 2009 and was when all the graphing tools were taken down) but that residual interest through the Christmas period, and the expectation that we were going to get the graph tools back at some point kept the post count high until early 2010.

So:
The sharp drop in late 2008: I think there were a number of site problems in late 2008, including a  2 week long bit which started out with about 2 days of most people struggling to get on the website at all (as if it was really busy.. maybe some kind of DDoS attack) then about 10 days where a lot of people visting were getting virus warnings about the site.

The drop in early 2010: Probably a delayed drop due to the loss of graph tools and such from VGC 2.0 introduction, people were still holding out hope we would get them back so general discussion was still high.

The drop in mid 2010: VGC 3.0... I don't think it was neccessarily that it was a 'site-split' as such but more a few of the decisions made about features, and also not many people liked this bright green on white gamrconnect scheme (in fact someone made a user-script that changes the green sections of the site to red or blue) I actually quite liked the colour scheme, but there were plenty of other things that were dissapointing compared to VGC 2.0.

The slight rise after it stopped dropping: Perhaps because a few missing features came back within the first month or two of VGC 3.0, then people started to slowly lose interest until the recent reasonable 2012 rise. (Though the 3 users I mentioned in my previous posts account for a good chunk of that rise, about a 3rd of it I think)

------

I think after the graph tools dissapeared as well as changes with 2.0 and 3.0 were the major factors, but a contributing factor (as well as a reason those who left stayed away) is that the sales race wasn't as interesting any more. the Wii had won and the PS3 and 360 were clearly going to be essential twins till the end of gen. The Wii's fall from grace could also be contributing to the slight rise in late 2010, though it was still clear the Wii was too far ahead to lose it's place, and without any graph tools no one who came back could do any serious analysis anyway.

With the next gen upon us, and with the final return of at least some graph tools I believe the forum discussion should have a slow climb from now on.

As a long time VGchartzer (I don't post a lot but I'm here everday) I can say that that graph is pretty accurate in accordance with my personal experience with the site. There was obvioulsy a huge drop in use in 2010, but I also noticed a recent upswing. I think that what happened with that huge drop was multifold.
At that time the wii started dropping a lot in sales, but this generations console placement in the race was pretty much already set, so interest in sales dropped accordingly. Also around this time was when this website and forum format was changed, which a lot of people didn't like, and many respected long time posters left. Add in the introduction of "vgchartzpro" with the reduction of available tools and chartz, and then a few questionable "articles" which alienated quite a few users (including myself), you get greatly reduced forum usage.
I hope that the upswing continues, and that the website bosses get their shit together before the start of the new generation (when sales interest are at their highest), so that vgchartz can be as great as it used to be.

This year people have posted 10k times in threads I have created. So if I hadn't joined, there would be 48 less posts per day. Plus I have made 3,700 posts. 3700/210= 18 less posts per day.

Therefore, if it wasn't for me there would be 64 less posts per day throughout 2012, and that's not taking into account that spurge, ninpie and pezus would've posted a lot less too.

You can thank me later, ioi!

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/profile/38025/pezus/posts/all/553/#content

You and NinPie are battling it out for what I presume is 2nd place for posts in 2012 (am I forgetting a prolific user)

Spurge: 12,832*
NinPie: 11,066
pezus: 11,045

*Damn... in 7 months he has almost made as many posts as I have in over 5 years.

You should pretend you are actually two people using the same account, that way you would probably only be about 9th and 10th in the 2012 post count race.

11,000 posts in 7 months? That's doesn't even seem possible...

To me that's totally insane.