How many posts since when?

Obviously, the number of posts and the starting date are unrelated.

As far as I can see, the number of posts is the number of posts during the last year, more or less, of the fair forums, with the addition of new posts in the present forums, and possibly a number of posts in the old MM forums within a certain, possibly much longer, period. My number of posts corresponds fairly well with the actual number which could be found through a simple name search; some posters have quite large numbers, such as more than 9,000 and 16,000. How is it exactly?

Some of us have a rather late starting date, much later than our fist postings; for a number of us, it is round 1st August 2006. Is that because of some forum restart that somehow only affected some members, or is it a coincidence?

As far as I remember, I only registered online long after starting on the applications and posting in the forums, and I have reregistered a number of times after that in connexion with reinstalling on new hard disks; probably, the same applies to others. Is the starting date actually (one of) the registration date(s), regardless of forum history?