What's the best time to post a thread? ( US time )

Interesting question. I’m not sure what the time zone difference is but you probably have that under control. We have four different ones but I’ll respond based on work day.

I’ve certainly noticed more or less activity at different times. Friday afternoon is probably the slowest I’ve seen during the workweek. I guess everyone that sneaks time on the computer at work is thinking more about going home. Weekends can be pretty sporadic but I’ve noticed a correlation to weather on that. The nicer the weather the less the activity.

The highest levels of activity I’ve noticed are normally when people first get to work, then again at lunch break. There is another surge when people get home from work. There is some guessing in this. Nifty (forum owner) has probably done a much more detailed analysis of this. I’d be really surprised if he hasn’t since he has to meet peak demand. You could try pm’ing him. He’s friendly and doesn’t bite.

I don’t know if you want to hit peak demand periods or not though. Things move very quickly on here and your post can get buried. But there are more people here to respond. Tradeoffs.

I suggest you do somewhat like you did here. Give your posts a good title that will attract the attention of the people you want to answer. A generic “Help!” or “Question” is not going to get much attention. “Help with 1588 Incubator” or Question about Electric Fence” will do a lot more to attract the people you want to chat with.

I don’t follow certain forums but some people do, so try to get the question in the right section. Random Ramblings is probably a good choice for this one, but so would BYC Forums, Feedback and Announcements up at the top.

 

I know there are certainly more active times for the site, but I'm not sure if there are better times to post questions, since many people scan their favorite parts of the site for all new questions and will answer ones they feel they can.

I agree with the above poster that good titles make a difference. It also helps to do a quick search to find out if the question has already been answered. Sometimes posts go ignored because people have already answered them several times. Other times there just may not be enough people with enough experience to answer the particular question (Such is the case with really, really specific questions on occasion).

 

Judging by the time stamps of new posts on the longer threads I follow, a lot of activity takes place at the delightful hour of 4 o'clock in the morning Adelaide time. Things start to get busy at around 11 in the evening (when I'm getting ready to go to bed) and the quietest time is about now (mid to late afternoon). So unless you want to pull a couple of all-nighters, I don't think there's any way to physically catch onto the BYC rush hour, however I've known and been part of many long threads (several hundred pages) which were a popular hangout for people from outside the US, or insomniacs within it, who were online at "weird" times (only weird for people living in certain timezones, which I think a lot of Americans seem to forget ) I'm not sure if any of my late night buddies still frequent BYC though...

It's actually pretty hard to start the longer threads in the social section (I talk from experience in GJF because apart from one or two, that is where all the chat threads I've been a part of are located, but I suppose the principles apply to all the other sections as well) if that's what you're going for, unless you either have a group of friends you dedicate the thread to and they'll always go there to post about anything, or it's the first of something very unique on BYC which makes everyone curious and wanting to join in (for example, see Crazy Pullets/Crazy Cockerels). Now these chat threads are so much more prevalent that making another one just doesn't seem to have any effect - if anything there's a reverse effect because newcomers are discouraged from posting there as they think the thread is "reserved" for the few members of that group. A few years ago there were only, like, five 100+ page threads that everyone would go to chat on, because a) there were fewer users and b) there were fewer threads.

That's why I think threads don't get as long these days and it's harder to start one that will last.

Also, posts don't necessarily have to be made during peak activity time to catch on, sometimes it's the posts that are made during long periods of forum silence which attract the most attention from all the "late night" (/mid-afternoon) lurkers who are waiting around for something new to appear.

 

I have often wondered this-- a graph is so visual of the traffic experience. THough I can see even at midnight a few of us are still visiting!!