Wondered if anyone else had noticed how the thread view count that shows on forum seems a bit strange?

Being the nerdy type obsessive that I am, a while ago I did a few experiments and worked out that the number of views per thread doesn’t match 1 person viewing 1 count, but more like each time a person views it ups the count by something like SEVEN! But it’s not consistent – so it’s hard to work out just how many actual people have viewed a thread at any given time.

I *think* that the view count varies depending on who is doing the viewing, if it’s the OP then the count seems to be about 3 each time. This might account for odd multiples.

There’s also the issue of the forum taking time to update itself, so that for instance a thread could stand at zero views for quite a while, even though it has been viewed by several people. Then suddenly it has masses of views. Lol in fact this is what set me off doing my experiments, when I posted a thread only to have it stand at zero views for AGES while above and below my thread other threads were being posted on at the same time.

I hope everyone knows what I’m talking about here, it just occurred to me that maybe I’m the only one who is obsessive enough to even think about this

But thought I’d post anyway as it might have occurred to others to wonder about the seemingly huge numbers of people who view (for instance, the Say Anything thread in this forum now stands at 31,251, while that might be gratifying, I seriously doubt that that many people have viewed it since it first started.)

It also might set people’s minds at rest thinking that our posts are being viewed by millions of anonymous non members. Or maybe I’ve just dashed everyone’s ideas that we have this fantastically huge audience hanging off our every word. Sorry

LL

Well I've just viewed this thread and refreshed and it still says 0 so you must be on to something LL.

I'm relieved actually. I'm embarrassed by how many views my thread has had, when it's just my anxious waffling. I'm glad that the number of views is inflated.

Thanks for this LL.

I have wondered about that too LL, you are certainly not alone in that... I have viewed my own thread before and yet it has still showed 0 views before for a couple of hours. I bet there are some forum software/browser litches that come into play. For one thread it stayed at 0 for me for a day, and then it will like suddenly showed 24 views... and then sometimes I have to ignore the view count or have an attack of P.A.D. (bb's posting anxiety disorder.) I wonder how many people actually read stuff here.

quote:

I have to ignore the view count or have an attack of P.A.D. (bb's posting anxiety disorder.)

Haha, this is so me! Yeah, I've totally wondered before about the accuracy of the view count. I can see how views might only be updated at certain time intervals, but it doesn't make sense why one thread would be updated and another one not be updated at the same time. And when it says zero views, that gets triggering! Or worse, if it says 50 views but with zero comments!

Yeah, 50+ views with no comments is the worst. I try to imagine that there is just some forum gnome who views the same post over and over again to harass me or something.

Between my ridiculously large post count and thread-count views, it's a wonder that I am not in a constant state of PAD myself...only NEAR constant.