Thanks! Cool to see how steady signups have been outside of those anomalous events!
I think your ???-peak on july 19th 2013 is due nova.gs and online-go users merging into the same database, since the merge happened exactly 3 months later on october 19th (not the october 3rd, i’m not sure what that peak is, but i guess it too has something to do with the merge.)
In general a lot of things about old OGS are broken. registration_date field for pre-merge accounts can be wrong. I only recently discovered that there’re accounts with games played before their registration date.
One idea is to look at old accounts and if they have a game older than registration then count the date of the first game as registration date. In that case big portion of 19 Jul peak disappears.
Quarantine bump?
I imagine there is a similar bump in forums activity?
I wonder how much I personally contributed to it.
Quick, let’s make a thread to welcome newcomers! Something elegant, light-hearted, Go-related, family-friendly, easy to understand and above all useful!
(open challenge)
Come for the Go. Stay for the memes, polls, raptors, and werewolves!
I wonder how many new users end up checking out the forums at all. I think only a small fraction of the site ever wanders over here.
Welcome! Start here.
Welcome to OGS!
Contrary to first impressions, we are not a bunch of lunatics (except when we are).
We are all happy to offer our help (which might or might not end up being useful), but you might want to check here, here and here first.
Some less obvious places to find answers in important questions about Go can also be found here and here. In those two threads you can come across more advanced concepts, which may give you the initiative to explore additional information.
We advise you to play often and lots, but also keep up with the forums, you’ll meet our friendly team of moderators sooner or later. 
If you like what you see, stay and have fun! If you don’t like what you see, the shortest way to change is individual action.
Join us and meet the game that stands between the universe and human stupidity!
P.S. There is no consensus on whether this thread is serious or satire, you will most probably find out yourself sooner or later.
P.P.S. Also, we have an awesome Settings page, look!
I like it, but I’d recommend changing the heres to something more descriptive so people don’t have to click each one just to see what it is.
It’s part of the mystery 
(Also, some might know that mouseover shows the link, they get extra points)
Btw, Alphago documentary could have something to do with it too. 350k views.
But are those just mostly people already into go watching it now, or are there many new players being introduced to go through it?
@Gia, why not just post that welcome message in a new thread. Maybe a moderator, like @BHydden or @Eugene, could pin it on the forums and promote it with a notification and banner on the main site?
I left it as a post intentionally, I don’t want our poor newcomers to think this is really a sanctioned welcome message.
Why not? I think it’s the best welcome message I’ve ever read.
I think the initial surge could be related to people beginning a stay at home. However, I think as time progresses and the situation becomes worse, there will be less time for games as people are worried and troubled by other things.
