A Little History of VGBoxArt - Graphed!

[stevencho]

A Little History of VGBoxArt

Since: Sept 2008.

Nice try.

This post inspired me to do something. I want to graph the History of VGBoxArt.

I decided to graph the activity of the site since the beginning of 2007 and see when this site was the most active. Using the posts in the convo thread as the representation of the activity on the site, I charted it all on a graph and this is what I got.



By itself it looks like this site's activity has been consistently growing. However, if you look closely you see that the rate by which the site's activity has grown has changed over time. We can graph the rate of growth by finding the derivative of the original graph and this is what we get.



The first peak of rate of growth happened around the beginning of August 2008. It is around this time that many "veterans" call the beginning of the end of the "Golden Age" of VGBoxArt. This makes sense because it was after this time that many members began to leave the site and activity began to slow down. Also, the first moderator E_G retired only a couple months later which didn't help matters.

However, around the beginning of 2009 something happened. Even though many people had left the site, many new people began to join, myself included. This in addition to a new moderator being appointed (Ladykiller) and a few major updates to the site (VGBA 2.5) in April of 2009 led to a new re-invigoration of the site. The new peak of growth in 2009 was actually more than double than that of 2008.

So this raises a question. Why do many people think of 2008 as being a better year for VGBA even though 2009 was actually the most active? My theory is that even though the quantity of active members and the activity of the site was higher in 2009, the quality and maturity of these members was actually lower than those in 2008. So I guess we could call that the silver age of VGBA.

Then around Janurary of 2010 we saw the second exodus of members leave the site. This was around the time that most of the remaining people that had been here in the "Golden Age" began to leave. And by December of 2010 there was the lowest rate of growth the site had seen since 2008. It was around this time that many people began referring to the site as "dead" and when Reed was barely active if not seen at all. And so it had seemed like we had entered the Dark Ages of VGBoxArt. There were countless attempts to reinvigorate the site but all failed. After almost after a year had gone by nearly all hope was lost.

But then just a couple months ago with the return of Reed and the introduction of VGBA 3.0, activity has exploded! New boxes started popping up and new people joined. And the rate of activity has now almost reached what it was in 2009. I believe folks we are finally out of the Dark Ages of VGBA and in a New Age. However, to keep this New Age alive we need to make sure that we continue to participate in the growth of the site. Keep posting boxes, keep helping out your fellow members, and keep discussing in the forums and all shall be fine!

I hope you enjoyed my little research of the history of the site and I have posted a summary in a graph below.

The History of VGBA: I have defined what I believe to be the True Ages of VGBA based on the events in it's history and I have placed the events when they occured. Click to enlarge.



These were all the major events I could remember. If you can think of any others please post them and I will add them in.

[Rex_the_dinosoar]

Whats VGBA 2.5? Also, nice job.

[stevencho]

Whats VGBA 2.5? Also, nice job.

When we got the new profiles on the main site with the rank bars and view counts and stuff. And also when we got tags and the Masterworks section.

[JoeyTheHedgehog]

Well done! This was also very interesting.

[stevanR80]

Damn, very interesting.

[Daemon]

What was the BYTD incident and the Hacking Thread?

[stevencho]

What was the BYTD incident and the Hacking Thread?

The BYTD incident had to do with the invite-only group BeYourTrueDesigns (back when User groups were still somewhat popular) and with the fact that many people believed it to foster elitism and thus an argument broke out. You can read it here: BYTD Debate

And the Hacking Thread was created in response to a few members being hacked and led to the biggest drama freakout storm ever to hit this site. The thread collected over a 1000 posts in a matter of days. You can read it here: The Hacking Thread Side note: There should actually be a spike not a dip where the Hacking Thread incident is, but because this is based off the official convo thread and since most activity left the convo thread for the Hacking Thread there is instead a dip.

[Ronthis the Werewolf]

This is very interesting, thanks Steven!