This forum must be quite a go-to resource

[xrunner]

Just yesterday I received a PM from a user requesting a manual for an older Tektronix DMM. It was a new user with Zero posts. He really made the account to ask for the manual. I guess the manual isn't to be found anymore. I've had other requests from Zero post users too for parts for vintage test equipment and advice. I wish they would post some but perhaps they will eventually.

Anyway, point is it's quite a resource for people out there. Not only for test equipment but for all types of electronics. I just looked and there is 1891 Guests, 315 Users!

[Berni]

I would imagine, i had quite a bit of value out of the forum myself.

[BBBbbb]

I was a "guest" for quite some time, but as I ended spending too much time anonymous, to avoid feeling like a perv I registered.

A lot of questions are already answered if you search the forum hard enough, so I understand why people stay guests.

[Eka]

I've pointed many people here. I also have read tons and gotten lots of electronics related info I needed.

[EEVblog]

This forum seems to turn up with monotonous regularity in Google search results compared to other forums. (totally unscientific test method)
Especially for test gear, I don't think any other forum even comes close?

[EEVblog]

Out of curiosity I checked some other forums.
Allabout circuits has a member count that I suspect is a tad exaggerated 

[rhb]

I'm *not* very "nice".  I have this very annoying habit of saying what I think.  This is the most amazing group I've come across  online since when the superstars in the Unix world still posted to Usenet and if you asked a question you were likely to get an answer from the creator of the program.

Bear in mind, that when google puts up a list, it knows which links you click on.  So they show the links that are most often chosen (along with their paid ads :-(.

[edpalmer42]

I've seen messages that talk about the eevblog 'hive mind'.  That's an excellent name for it.  The total amount of info possessed by the users here is staggering.  There are about 33K users here who have posted at least once.  This board is an incredible resource for information, experience, and out-of-the-box thinking.  For techies like us, the world would be a darker and duller place without eevblog.

Ed

P.S.  Why does the spellchecker complain about eevblog?   

[xrunner]

I'm *not* very "nice".  I have this very annoying habit of saying what I think.  This is the most amazing group I've come across  online since when the superstars in the Unix world still posted to Usenet and if you asked a question you were likely to get an answer from the creator of the program.

Agree. I've been here for something like 5 years and seen it grow. A lot. I can't even keep up with all the topics anymore - 4 -5 pages a day. I constantly come across new things I've never thought about or tried. I don't think there are any electronics questions that could not be answered by someone here. Plus there is the Test Equipment Anonymous Group which helps me understand and deal with my addiction for such things. 

[PointyOintment]

Out of curiosity I checked some other forums.
Allabout circuits has a member count that I suspect is a tad exaggerated 

They also have (or had a while back, anyway) a "feature" where you can't read past the first page of any thread as an unregistered user. Of course, that just drove me away from their site, back to this one. Baiting unregistered users with limited content that still gets into Google results is a good way to get me to not register for a site (because I'd contribute more content that'd be restricted like that). And when I'm on a public/shared computer, I'm probably not going to be logged into every site if I'm just looking stuff up using Google, so I'm glad that even sites where I do have an account (such as this one) allow me to see the content I'm interested in without logging in.

[BBBbbb]

AllAboutCircuits probably has more registered users, but an order (or few) of magnitude less activity from what I've noticed. It seems more oriented to the likes of arduino hobbyists, aiming at a bigger market, but failing to keep/attract people who are deeper in the electronics world. At least that's my impression. haven't spent too much time browsing AAC.

And yup, EEVblog forum is the absolute champ when it comes to test equipment review googling...

[stmdude]

Calling this forum (and Daves videos) a resource is quite the understatement.

3-4 years ago, I was a complete EE rookie. As in, _completely_ clueless. First board I made didn't work, and never had a chance to either.

Queue 3-4 years of first binging Daves videos, and then countless hours reading in the forum, and here I am today. I routinely design boards with the same complexity as a Raspberry Pi, if not more complex, and they pretty much all work as intended (as opposed to my first board.

If anyone knows of a proper way to thank Dave for his videos and setting up the forum, let me know.  As for the people posting on the forum, you all need to settle for a heartfelt "Thanks"!   

[hexreader]

This forum seems to turn up with monotonous regularity in Google search results compared to other forums. (totally unscientific test method)
Especially for test gear, I don't think any other forum even comes close?

@Dave - Whilst I hate to stroke your Ego, this really does seem to be the best forum for Test Equipment - by far.

Many thanks for the hard work that you put into making the forum a huge success.

.... and the other resources / sub-forums are pretty good too....   

[TK]

Out of curiosity I checked some other forums.
Allabout circuits has a member count that I suspect is a tad exaggerated 

I used to get lots of hits on allaboutcircuits on Google when searching for examples and schematics.  I noticed many new eevblog forum users ask questions about circuits, but they don't post schematics until other forum members ask for it.  Maybe the way to attach a picture on this forum is not very friendly and easy, i.e. by default it posts like a thumb sized copy of the image.  I never posted on allaboutcircuits, but all the schematics and images seem to be inline and nicely mixed with the text.

[tautech]

Out of curiosity I checked some other forums.
Allabout circuits has a member count that I suspect is a tad exaggerated 

I used to get lots of hits on allaboutcircuits on Google when searching for examples and schematics.  I noticed many new eevblog forum users ask questions about circuits, but they don't post schematics until other forum members ask for it.  Maybe the way to attach a picture on this forum is not very friendly and easy, i.e. by default it posts like a thumb sized copy of the image.  I never posted on allaboutcircuits, but all the schematics and images seem to be inline and nicely mixed with the text.

Sure but you have to be a member there to get images to enlarge whereas here that's no problem.
Embedding links, images or attaching files here is fairly straightforward once you know how.

[xrunner]

Just to see, I gave myself a challenge tonight - to try and keep up with the topics with new posts - but not by simply skimming but carefully reading each one, and if needed giving a reply if I could. I marked the forum "read" at 6 PM my time. But I couldn't even keep up - it's really amazing. 

[metrologist]

Just to see, I gave myself a challenge tonight - to try and keep up with the topics with new posts - but not by simply skimming but carefully reading each one, and if needed giving a reply if I could. I marked the forum "read" at 6 PM my time. But I couldn't even keep up - it's really amazing. 

yes, I posted about this in the forum question area,,,looking for a new topic list rather than new post list.

It seems to have succeeded due to a hard working champion giving the place 'soul' rather than a dig at every possible angle to make a buck. A free and open forum for a free and open society with enthusiasm and professional integrity (I'm not a practicing professional engineer).

[EEVblog]

Just to see, I gave myself a challenge tonight - to try and keep up with the topics with new posts - but not by simply skimming but carefully reading each one, and if needed giving a reply if I could. I marked the forum "read" at 6 PM my time. But I couldn't even keep up - it's really amazing. 

I can remember when I used to read every single post on the forum without fail.
Not humanly possible now.

[EEVblog]

Queue 3-4 years of first binging Daves videos, and then countless hours reading in the forum, and here I am today. I routinely design boards with the same complexity as a Raspberry Pi, if not more complex, and they pretty much all work as intended (as opposed to my first board.
If anyone knows of a proper way to thank Dave for his videos and setting up the forum, let me know. 

You just did 

[EEVblog]

AllAboutCircuits probably has more registered users

I try to keep this forums registered users number real by purging zero poster account periodically. I doubt the others do that.

[BravoV]

Another perspectives since Aug 2010 ...

[EEVblog]

I do wonder what caused the big drop in forum page views around end of 2017? Was that the change to the new server?

[BravoV]

I do wonder what caused the big drop in forum page views around end of 2017? Was that the change to the new server?

I wonder too, but I made few assumptions on the chart here at -> Jan 2018 Chart

[BrianHG]

I do wonder what caused the big drop in forum page views around end of 2017? Was that the change to the new server?

A Trump tweet... 
Might be something related to Google/Youtube new analytical database engine search results being reset at the time, where google was re-scanning all of your forum, or, perhaps new competition...

Since the numbers haven't gone back up, maybe EEVblog became blocked in a country where a whole pile of new users just began to use this forum for the first time over the previous 6 months.

I'm just kidding, it was ME, I began my Christmas holiday a month early.... (Look at my join date, Dec 17,2016, which perfectly co-insides with the almost linear rise in forum reads...)

[tautech]

I do wonder what caused the big drop in forum page views around end of 2017? Was that the change to the new server?

Another way to look at it is what caused the dramatic rise from the start of '17.

[TK]

I do wonder what caused the big drop in forum page views around end of 2017? Was that the change to the new server?

Another way to look at it is what caused the dramatic rise from the start of '17.

I vote for the Keysight 1000X Series DSO announcement and hacking attempt started by Dave

[BBBbbb]

There was a period when the cloudflare/forum access issue was really common, I guess  that is the view drop period.

[Eka]

I'm *not* very "nice".  I have this very annoying habit of saying what I think.  This is the most amazing group I've come across  online since when the superstars in the Unix world still posted to Usenet and if you asked a question you were likely to get an answer from the creator of the program.

I miss the early days of news. Back when a majority of the people who had access were masters level candidates or greater level educated. I could ask a question, and get great answers. I often asked what I should be reading for various things I wanted to do. I lucked out back in '82. I had a computer math teacher in high school who very quickly realized that I already knew everything she was going to teach in her class. So she had me help teach the other students, and do various projects like extending a statistical analysis package, and add triggers to a relational DB core. She introduced me to the news system because I was asking hard computer related questions. I could find the answers to the easier ones myself.

[rhb]

I didn't get Usenet access until 1989 when I worked at the ARCO Plano Research Center.  I got a summer internship which required fixing byte sex related problems with a piece of code they'd gotten from Stanford.  It was 5000 lines of *almost* uncommented C running on a Sun 386i.  It worked on the Motorola systems, but not the Intel. I'd been running a MicroVAX II in a BA123 "worldbox" for 3 years.  By the end of the summer I'd read Bach, Leffler et al and all the related papers by ken. dmr and others.

I attended Usenix '95 in New Orleans, and already by that time people were moving off of Usenet onto private mailing lists because of the deterioration in SNR.  I miss the, "replies by email please, I'll summarize for the list".

Dennis, Evi Nemith and all the luminaries had made up fake name tags with the names of the two lawyers that were doing the greencard spam.  It was pretty funny seeing all these people in line for food at the evening soiree wearing identical name tags. I found myself in line next to Eric Allman and had a nice chat sitting on the floor eating with him and a couple of others. DMR had a funny story about an encounter in an elevator in which someone said something like,"Are you really Dennis Ritchie?"  To which he replied, "I think so."

A world long gone I'm afraid.  Like meals with friends at home rather than in restaurants.