Posted by so on June 6, 2005, at 16:28:50
In reply to Re: what others want to know about » so, posted by alexandra_k on June 6, 2005, at 1:28:27
> > Those are strong reasons in support of the feasibility querry and the implicit request for a page-view-count feature.
>
> I guess it depends what one is wanting...Or on how much they care about statistical methods. Asking for voluntarily initiated responses from whomever replies ranks lowest on a scale of accuracy compared to manual counts or specific, methodical polls of randomly selected respondants. That is not so much about one's opinion of what is more informative, but about the science of statistics and polling.
> If one wants to know how many people opened the post then I guess a counter would be informative.
Actually, all the page views tells one is how many unique views, not how many unique people viewed it.
> But sometimes I open posts accidentally by clicking in the wrong place.
That would account for a small percentage of the tally in a page-view count. People would not likely continue using a service in which most of their navigation decisions were errors related to uncoordinated use of a mouse and cursor selection system.
> Sometimes I view one post more than once.
Usually, cookie information or other methods only count unique views, they don't count repeated visits by the same person.
> Sometimes I don't read the whole post.
> Sometimes I open a post solely to babblemail the person.How well read posts might be is a more difficult matter to tease out, but uncertainly about depth of reading doesn't undermine insight gained from viewing information about interests as reported by page views. Again, the question isn't really whether this is useful information -- that is well answered by its wide use elsewhere. The quesiton is whether this admin want's people who want to use it here to have access to that information or not. Apparenlty he does not.
Intra-site click-throughs, such as from a particular post to babble mail, don't appear in the statistical set presented here, but I wouldn't suspect they are the majority of views. The majority of page viewers probably don't use babble mail, as I can deduce from other data that suggests most viewers and posters don't engage in group activities beyond posting, but a count of babblemail users and uses would likely confirm my hypothesis.
> If one wants to know what topics people like to read about then the simplest way would be to ask.
That would be simpler than asking for a page view counter to be activated. Asking for a page view counter might be an absolutely unproductive way to get information about what pages people are viewing if the admin declines to activate such a feature. But if a page view counter were activated, looking at the count would be simpler than typing out a querry, contemplating how to publish the querry then waiting for and anaylzing responses. All one needs to do to understand what is simpler is count the actions required for each step. And even then, simplicity is not a measure of how informative or accurate is the information. Breadth and completeness of data are better measures of accuracy.
> I don't much like the idea of the post counter.
> If there was one there is the temptation to go 'my post was viewed 100 times and I only got 2 responses!!!'That is exactly why I like them. When posing technical questions on other boards, one gets an idea how hard the question might be to answer. If the question only gets four views in a day and no answer, the board is slow and might not be the best way to get an answer. If one gets 50 views and no answer while other questions are answered after 10 or 20 views, I would need to ask if either the question is difficult or maybe written unintelligably. Comparing view/response ratio for various questions is a quick way to formulate an idea how the question is being received. On most boards I visit, asking people what kinds of posts they like to read would be a shot in the dark. The more useful information to me is an understanding of board members' ability to quickly and accurately answer my technical questions by measuring their answers in real-time data, not by informal polls of self-selected respondents.
> It shifts the focus from what you get to what might have been.Not for me, and not for hundreds or thousands of freeware message board users who find them valuable tools. It is a standard feature on most freeware boards. MattsBB -- the Perl script behind this site -- is somewhat unique among message boards in its lack of front-end bells and whistles such as view counters - and smileys if you like those.
> > With fewer people visiting the board now than anytime in the past year and probably in the past four years,
>
> Really?????
> Can you give me a link?
> Are lurkers visits logged?Yes, lurker visits tick the counters. I can't say if it is "really" true -- I can say that is what the data seems to show. Follow the "statistics" links in the page menu. Look for the "Urchin" data then set a datarange to look at everything from late January till June. The most recent weekend was the slowest yet this year, and the previous weekend was second slowest. Comparisons to previous years are flawed because admin changed to a different counting method, but if views in Urchin are the same as views counted under the previous system, the average weekly view count, at the current low mark, is now at its lowest since 2001.
>
> >and with more specific topics for the smaller readership to choose between,
>
> Are the topics more specific than they used to be? I thought we were branching out with all the different boards and all...Well, we know politics is on politics, meds are on PB, whatever is on social, eating is on eating,etc.
> >According to site stats, more than 30 percent of the top 30 referers are sex or dating sites, including some about bestiality and others about couples seeking female partners.
>
> You mean people join up to here by following a link from those sites?????It means they arrive at this site from a link on those sites. It is curious that no other mental health sites appear prominently in the list of referers. Though other people here read other mental health sites, links from those sites, if there are any, don't seem to be generating traffic. I think half of the counted reefers were Googled and direct requests.
> Can you give me a link please?
Again, you can find that by exploring the stats link. Alexis seems to be the only one showing some sort of upward curve -- I think in reach, which is how many people compared to how many hits -- maybe fewer pages are being viewed by a proportionally larger number of people. Sociologically, that would be interesting -- long term members are demonstrating a trend toward face-to-face communication, or direct contact through e-mail whereas those who visit the board for the first time might not stay as long.
>
> I'm not sure where you are getting this info...
>
> There are several factors that influence whether I will respond to a thread or not. One of those is the subject header. But there are other factors for me.
>
> And the factors vary depending on what mood I am in.
>
> When I am down I might go on a 'silly' thread hunt.
> When I am up I might go on a 'who doesn't have many responses' or a 'meet the newbie' hunt.
> It varies...i think something about the dynamic of this site can create the impression that regular members are the majority - maybe because their posts are more recognizable because one remembers them personally. But probably the true majority is short-time visitors -- I think Hsiung noted that in a recent post. And in readership analysis, understanding the needs and interests of those who don't stay long and who don't volunteer responses about why or how they use a publication is as important or more important than the views of vocal readers who spend more time with a publication. Again, that's not based so much personal opinion as it is science about the way one goes about understanding who uses a publication and how.
poster:so
thread:506300
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20050530/msgs/508649.html