Views of threads - what does it count?

[number6]

Question
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Views of the thread (displayed with amount of replies after name of the thread in every forum group page) - what kind of views does it count? Only views of every registered user? Only once per every registered user who visit in the thread-page? Or/and once per IP address or per session?

Displaying statistics hasn't much value if not knowing what does it actually count - I didn't find such data by browsing the manual.

Bug & suggestions
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[1. This forum seems to have quite fundamental bug. To make this thread I had to use IE6. With my normal web browser Mozilla Firefox typing in this text-box wasn't possible at all. I would suggest to make it a bit more browser independent. Hard to believe that it is bug in browser.] PS. seems that it worked now later when I tried to post next time, maybe only momentary incompatibility then.

2. I couldn't write this thread under other forum group but in this one (vBulletin Hosting Options and Chit Chat and some other). I had to go to each forum group and click the "New Thread"-button for just getting the announcement:

"number6, you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:
Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation."

I would have liked to write this into "vBulletin 3 Suggestions and Feedback", but it wasn't possible. It could have been a bit more user friendly if I had been told somehow visually or someway else that I just don't have permission to post threads in there. Searching writable group by clicking every one of them and every time "New Thread"-button in there made me almost to quit with my question. And even now it drop propably into wrong one.

3. Small symbols before forum group name etc.
It would be nice if you could click those small symbols - and there would pop-up the explanation what do they mean. Now they are just symbols without meaning for new user.

PS. Making this question took more than half hour with those problems which I faced, I think most of the people would have quit before getting the thread done.

[orca]

Well, it's nice to have this posted but I think it's in the wrong forum. It should be in the Suggestions forum or similar.

[number6]

Orca wrote:
> Well, it's nice to have this posted but I think it's in the wrong forum. It
> should be in the Suggestions forum or similar.

Yes, you are very right. But as you have noticed if read my post - it wasn't possible for me to write in there... If you can - be welcome to move it somewhere where it could be answered.

[Floris]

This seem to be pre-sales questions, so I moved this thread to the pre-sales forum.

[cirisme]

Views are counted everytime anyone views the thread.

#1... I don't know what that could be. I haven't touched IE for posting in months and always use Firefox and never have had a problem.

#2... Each forum has a "posting rules" box at the bottom which tells you what you can and can not do.

#3... There's a definition for the icons at the bottom of the page.

[andrew johnson]

Views are counted everytime anyone views the thread.

#1... I don't know what that could be. I haven't touched IE for posting in months and always use Firefox and never have had a problem.

#2... Each forum has a "posting rules" box at the bottom which tells you what you can and can not do.

#3... There's a definition for the icons at the bottom of the page.

1: works with IE6 i used that at here

[Freddie Bingham]

If we hid the new post buttons from those that can't use them, we effectively confuse most users who are new to forums. They are going to sit there and see these posts but have no idea how to participate. With the buttons being there, they see them, grasp what they do from the text and press them. Then they learn that they only need to register before being able to participate.

[smokingbevel]

suggestion:

Why not simply supplant the "New Thread" image with a dimmed and disabled "New Thread" image, when a user doesn't have sufficient priviledges to create new threads in a certain forum? I support the suggestion to include icon modifications to items in the forums list, to better indicate which forums support "New Thread" creation by the user. I also believe that the inclusion of mouse-over tooltips which display the meanings, or textual representations, of the icons, is a grand idea.

[number6]

Thanks for replies, but could someone please answer my main question about views.

What does "views" actually count? I think Cirisme is wrong. It doesn't count every visit on thread page - I have tried it from different browsers and IP's (without proxies and with) and no affect on the views (for example this thread). I guess it counts only visits by registered users, one per user? And you can then also track which threads every user have read? Could someone confirm am I right? Or is views just kind of random number?

My main question was:
"Views of the thread (displayed with amount of replies after name of the thread in every forum group page) - what kind of views does it count? Only views of every registered user? Only once per every registered user who visit in the thread-page? Or/and once per IP address or per session?"

[Steve Machol]

It counts every view. You do realize that the thread views here are cached and updated once per hour, right?

[number6]

Steve Machol wrote:
> It counts every view. You do realize that the thread
> views here are cached and updated once per hour, right?

Ah, thanks, no I didn't know - but you enlightened me now.

[Scott MacVicar]

just thought I'd point out why its cached.

Doing an update on the thread table will cause the thread table to lock while its done which means that no data can be fetched from the thread table until its finished. With vB2 it was done in real time which increased load time for larger sites where there was always someone wanting to read / write to the thread table.