@ Brett .... Give every newcomer a cookie. It's not so easy. Not everyone can become as well known and respected as the top few. Gotta make friends and good threads yourself. Do you know Me Brett? I've almost got 800 posts :p

That sounds like a good idea, and put it on the front page for everyone to see.

One thing this doesn't show is growth outside of forums. There didn't use to be so much of a separate news and comments section... Plus each game having it's own wall, etc...

The idea of a forum being welcoming is too vague and can't be measured.

You also have to take into consideration that the forum is not the only part of this site.

If I am not wrong when people post in news articles and reviews it dosn't count as a post or thread. And those portions of the site have grown greatly over the last few seasons. Also you have people like me who hit this site atleast 4-10 times a day (maybe a little exaggeration but not much) but rarely post in the forum.

That's true. I thought I said that in the OP, but I kinda didn't.

I'm still working with a way to measure the news part. Haven't thought of a way yet.

Being welcome to newbees depends very much on the first activity they show. For instance, from time to time a "Hi, I'm new" thread pops up and in general there will be people welcoming the OP in question.

In the other hand, open with a thread containing old info, misinformed info (the wii is not selling software!!) or just flat out whack info (crazzyman anyone?) will generally result in a lot of backlash. It takes a strong newbee to overcome such backlash.

As for the topic-idea started by Nanaki... awesome idea. I'd post it in the off-topic section as that is a more popular forum.
And if you'd like to make it effective and at least visited a lot you need in my view two things: Call out new members, and humour. Humour speaks for itself but calling out newbees... Nanaki, if you feel like it make it a weekly issue (kinda like real-talk. That at least got Snake a lot of attention). And in that weekly issue, discuss a few key new members, their activity, their situation. It takes some time but A: You get a lot of recognition which can be nice, and B: you retain a lot of new members as they are at least recognised by a more "adult poster".

best way to welcome n00bs, such as me, is by making them non-n00bs. You do this by deleting everyone's accounts. :)

=D

ah well, vgchartz grow!

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/vgchartz.com

(I would embed it but I can't use the < script > tag for obvious reasons.)

The daily reach, daily rank, and daily page views all show a slow but definite increase over the past years. Also of note, vgchartz.com is approaching the likes of joystiq and gamesradar in traffic statistics, and that's not a small accomplishment. During GDC 09 and around March 18, it also touched a rank of 4500 and that's really, really impressive for a gaming website imo.