View counts on Chesstalk

[Hugh Brodie]

How accurate are the view counts on each post on Chesstalk? One item I posted on the French Chesstalk about a blitz tournament six weeks ago has over 1100 views, and that increases by about 100 a day - even though the tournament is long over. Hans' US Championsip thread has only 996 views as I write this, and there are 3 members and 150 guests online. Are some/all of those "guests" robots?

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

I consider 50-100 views per post more realistic.

[Kerry Liles]

the forum software (vBulletin) has numerous known problems and I am not at all sure the version in use is up to date. Most likely bots are running amok.

[Hans Jung]

Good question Hugh. I would like to add that there are a lot of silent readers. I, for one, get a lot of emails or comments from those silent readers at different times adding sometimes input or their own viewpoints and often just to encourage me to keep posting.

[Bob Armstrong]

Views per Post Daily on CT

In the Non-chess Forum (NWO/GR), Fred Harvey and I are having a debate about how many "silent CT'ers" are coming to view posts.

I have been keeping a running average per day for a while. We have almost 40 views per day per post.

We have only about 6 active posters.

But for them to account for all the views, they'd have to be coming about 6 times per day, when there are often no new posts??? Most unlikely.

I believe there are likely about 30 other CT accounts that are showing up per post. But because they never post, we don't know who they are, or whether they multiply view in one day.........also unlikely when there are no new posts. The number is quite consistent over months, which tends to show a core group of interest. When there are no new posts for a day or to, the number always drops to about 3 or 4, and sometimes zero.

We are not aware of whether any of these views are by bot accounts.

Bob A

[Fred Henderson]

So far as I can tell, views include those who are not even logged in. They may not even be members. Which makes them pretty useless in my eye. It would be nice to know who has read it, and something to click on, say "thumbs up", thumbs down, and one for no comment, like they have on Facebook. Should be easy.

I actually have a full - featured and modern web services contract with a web hosting company, with all the bells and whistles, including discussion forums. I'll set one up myself, early in November, to show you. Perhaps I'll call it chesstalk.ca