At the bottom of the home page it states that the most visitors ever on the forum was 9,543 on 12-23-2015. I’ve always wondered what might have been happening on that date to attract so many people. Does anyone know?
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At the bottom of the home page it states that the most visitors ever on the forum was 9,543 on 12-23-2015. I’ve always wondered what might have been happening on that date to attract so many people. Does anyone know?
Move toward mainstream Social Media and mobile apps.
Hikers posting xmas wish lists. BTW Santa, this year I'd like some new hiking shoes.
Import of users, conversion by a software upgrade. Stuff like that. If you also will note the number of bots and such online, mining data.
My wife's 55th Birthday.
Florida man shoots self while demonstrating how to clean a firearm.
https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/lo...un/67-45910499
Florida man crashes car trying to time travel.
https://news3lv.com/archive/police-m...ida-businesses
…and he was stupidly trying to taking the two sure things in life.
"Social Media" has taken more and more of the share of conversations regarding topics of all types, including hiking. Several of the forums I have participated on in the past, related to hiking and other topics, have declined relative to "social media". Personally, I prefer the older style forums but I'm nearly a half century old.
What would be interesting to see are the stats the day before and the day after. If there was a significant increase from the day before and significant decrease the day after, then that would lead me to believe something unique happened. However, there is the possibility that of all the days this site has been in existence, that December 23 2015 just happened to be the day of most visitors. There has to be a high point somewhere. You did bring up something interesting to talk about though.
I’ve been a member since 2011, and I’ve never seen such large number of people online before or after that date.
rhjanes, in post #5, may have the best theory (“Import of users, conversion by a software upgrade. Stuff like that. If you also will note the number of bots and such online, mining data”).
Using the Wayback Machine:
Dec 22 2015 home page: https://web.archive.org/web/20151222...um/content.php
Dec 25 2015 home page: https://web.archive.org/web/20151225...um/content.php
The previous high appears to be in Sept of 2015 and before that late April of 2015 with more than 3000. Of five dates checked in 2015, found one in 900s.
All whiteblaze.net wayback machine dates for your reminiscing pleasure: https://web.archive.org/web/20150501...um/content.php
Wild was released December 3, 2014 in the US. This movie introduced a lot of people to the idea of long distance hiking. Both the PCT and the AT saw a lot of extra visitation the following year. I imagine this played into the larger number of visitors on whiteblaze.
My first thought was a legendary Baltimore Jack vs. Warren Doyle debate. Or maybe a Q&A by Minnesota Smith? Or perhaps Wingfoot dropped by? :)