A suggestion for Troy

[bookfan]

You run comparative statistics on posters from time to time. I just noticed the "profile views" count. How about ranking the top posters by profile views? Or better yet, by views per post. I checked a few of those ratios: Cynique gets an average of 15 profile views every time she posts; Thumper gets 50 to 1; and ABM gets 100. I have no idea what that means (in absolute numbers, Cynique has five times as many views as ABM), but I find that intriguing.

[Cynique]

Huh??? You seem to be fixated on numbers, bookfan. I find it puzzling that every time I post, 15 readers view my profile. I always assumed that it was the same small core of regulars who read my posts and that they were familiar with my history. Can I deduce that once readers get a taste of my style, they stop checking out my musings and that my "hit quota" is actually dependent on curious newbies?? Good thing I strive to be controversial rather than popular. LOL

I do notice that once Troy enters a thread, his entourage of facebook followers bump things up.

Many are wishing that Thumper and ABM would reappear on the board. Maybe they hope they can magically influence their return by clicking on to their profiles.

Whatever. This board seems to have become a way-station for transient lurkers. What was once one big dysfunctional family circle has now become a highway where strangers pass in the night. Like everything else, the cyber world is in a state of flux. And so it goes...

[Troy]

Bookfan I see our brains work simmiliarly. I'll look into to see what the numbers actually mean and if it makes sense to (or even if it is possible to) change the the rankings as you suggest.

Initially, I tried to carry over the rankings over from the previous board. Those ranking were based upon the number of posts. However, ABM or Cynique would blow Thumper out of the water in every quantitative measure that I have access to.

Cynique your comment especially the last line was cyniquelly on point.

[bookfan]

I find it puzzling that every time I post, 15 readers view my profile.

The profile-view numbers show that even though only a handful of people are posting, thousands of people are reading the forum. Over 6,000 people have looked at your profile! That's astonishing. What's even more astonishing is that none of those people join in the discussions.

Well, virtually none of those people. During the Erzulie debacle, all kinds of nasty strangers dropped in. I quit that thread long before it ended because it was so out of hand. They were gunning for you, Cynique, and I imagine your profiled-view count got a bit of a boost that week.

[bookfan]

Bookfan I see our brains work simmiliarly. I'll look into to see what the numbers actually mean and if it makes sense to (or even if it is possible to) change the the rankings as you suggest.

I'm not saying change the rankings. I suspect you can download the profile-view numbers and the post counts (separately, with names attached), slap them in a spreadsheet, calculate the views-per-post averages, and post the results in this thread.

People probably look at Thumper's profile hoping for clues to his identity (I did). I'm amazed that almost 1,300 people have clicked on ABM's profile when he's only posted a dozen times on the new board. What did he say in those few posts that got people so interested?

The view counts are weird. There are people who have never posted (e.g., all4you33) who have almost a thousand views, and others like Author Chris Hicks, who also has zero posts but just one view. Asar Imhotep only posted 14 times before dropping out, but he's got 3,831 profile views! That's an average of 274 per post.

What's going on here? Are people doing some sort of off-board linking that factors into this?

[Cynique]

bookfan, are you talking about the numbers lister under "Members"? I never thought those figures referred to "Profile" visitors. I always thought that "views" referred to the number of people who have viewed your posts. I have posted 437 times, since January so having all of these posts read by 6039 people in a year's time doesn't seem that unusual. Troy, can you straighten us out?

The only off-board connection I have is with FaceBook which I don't frequent that often, and I never hook up my posts with facebook friends because I don't want them to read all of the outrageous things I write on this board under the name of Cynique. My children and grandchildren would be embarassed. That's why I took my picture down.

[Troy]

" My children and grandchildren would be embarassed. That's why I took my picture down."

My children are sufficently embarassed by me in the flesh!

[bookfan]

I always thought that "views" referred to the number of people who have viewed your posts.

On the profile pages of members, there are numbers for their "profile views." It doesn't seem like that can be a count of the people who've viewed someone's posts, for two reasons: 1) there are people who've never posted who have hundreds of profile views, and 2) while the software can track which posts get clicked on from "view new content" and a few other places, but it can't track which posts you read as you scroll through a thread.

It all implies that many thousands of people are lurking here all the time, but that's so out of whack with actual participation (count 'em on one hand) that it seems unlikely. The software probably has a feature that counts site visits. Troy?