Are Stats Important

Yes, of course. How many members and posts have already been contributed is irrelevant. But it does help to have at least 1,000 threads, and members, because it's attractive to the user. Just because a forum has somewhere around 100 users, does not mean the forum is actually dead, often times it's either a brand new forum, or the niche has just left the building.

 

Yes, I think so.
I wouldn't join a forum when there are only 2 users.

 

My stats are important to me, it helps me set goals for my forum. I like to create at least a few posts and threads each day on my forum to keep building fresh content, and I follow the post counts the most, but I also check the total members. I rather see a few members that return everyday, and make posts over a ton of members with just a few posts each.

 

So, let's ask this question - if there are a low number of users online, would you be more welcomed to join? Or if there's a lot of users online, would you join up faster?

 

Yep, I think they're definitely something to pay attention. I don't panic if there's a drop, but if there's a consistent decline instead of obvious progress, then of course I should watch out and try to fix it. It's a good way to see when there might be problems coming.

 

It depends what I was interested in the site for. Obviously if I'm *at* the site to see "low stats", I'm already interested in it for some reason.

And personally, I've never *not* signed up for a site because of any sort of stats it had (or didn't have).

 

If you're activity dips, it could be because your users are busy, school is in session, users are lurking and you need to dive in and post more more threads. or run a contest.