While I am logged in and I view a thread that I started with a posting, whether it still has just that post or includes replies, does that add to my post's view count? Or do only other members or viewers add to the view count? (I would think this latter to be universally preferred.)
what's the point? Not to sound too critical, but that strikes me as rather primitive. So an author goes back now and again, editing and re-editing, a process we know can take days or, for that matter, forever. Or maybe the author likes to go back sometimes and just look at his writing up there on the public page. But if the author wants to know how many views came from other members or surfing interlopers, he or she will have to keep a tally of their own views, then subtract. Which raises the question: What's the point of the view-count anyway? I know there are other similar writers' sites that will not count views from the post's own author, as long as the author is logged in.
I take it back. I just tried visiting a number of threads, both my own and those of others. I don't think the visit count is updated if you have been to the thread before and there are no unread posts, as far as I can tell. But I don't think it distinguishes between the thread starter and any other member. Personally, I don't think the visit count is all that useful. But some people keep a hawk-like eye on it, and get very upset if the visit count rises with no one posting a comment.
I think this is a fuss over nothing, to be completely honest. I don't really see what the importance of the visit count is at all.
utility I think it's a useful metric. What writer doen't want to know whether his or her work is even being looked at? Why post anything if there is no activity? Might as well staple your pages to the bottom of your chair. Does the view-count not also indicate activity to the site's moderators and owners? Also, a work that garners many views but elicits no critiques is telling the author something: it's either too long a read and/or is so awful no one wants to tackle it, or the site's membership is packed with navel-gazing slackers and it's time to pull up stakes and go somewhere else.
In my opinion, you're reading far too much into it. Many accounts are created only for perusing writing, and others are only bot engines. The Review Room is a critiquing workshop. If you're looking at it as a display board, you;re missing the point of it. It's only a statistic, and not a very profound one at that. Hell, it's not even clearly defined.
No, you’re missing the point, Cog. No one has said anything about display. Every day, there are pieces I look at and decide not to read or critique. There are a variety of reasons for this. Maybe it’s too long. Maybe I think it’s too much of an effort. Maybe I think it’s good enough not to comment on. All of these reasons create a difference between thread views and thread responses. It’s not an exact science, obviously, since you can’t know which reason exactly a viewer has not responded. Perhaps as you said, the viewer was a bot or doesn’t participate in critique (though that latter suggest maybe there is some “display” aspect—which is irrelevant to me, since that’s not what I’m here for). But there’s still something to be gained if you understand the large margin for error.
Seems like a silly thing to be worrying about considering you can't necessarily determine if the view counts are members, bots, mods checking threads for content, lurkers, etc.
