Views counter misleading?

Hello,

It appears that every time I look at the same thread the views counter increases by one. I think once you've looked at a thread and come back to it for another read it shouldn't increase the counter unless there is a new reply. I guess a cookie could make this possible.
What do you think?

Thanks,
Charlie H

Hi again,

I should also add viewing other pages of the same topic increases the views counter. So if one person read all posts in a topic that spanned 3 pages the views counter would increase by 3. That doesn't seem right to me.

Charlie

It is a "common" problem with forum software.
Most forum developers leave it like this, because even if it is a skewed counter, it is a decent measurement.
Making the counter accurate would require so much data to be stored in order to prevent those double views.. take the amount of users, feel free to half it or quarter it to drop the inactive users. Now multiply this number by the amount of active topics.. (seen a post in the past 2 days).
Thats a gargantuan number, you need at least that many records in order to make the counter accurate.

That is the reason why most forum developers leave it like this.

Plus I know a lot of people who "hate" cookies.

They just can't stand websites that drop cookies, and many people choose to block any cookies at all.

Just looking at the page information, I see that arduino.cc is currently storing 9 cookies on my computer (which I hadn't noticed). A few of them are for remember passwords, etc. but I'm all for not adding more :P.

That is the reason why most forum developers leave it like this.

Ok then.

Plus I know a lot of people who "hate" cookies.

Yes, and let's not forget about Flash cookies (.sol files) and single-pixel tracking.

Charlie

Plus I know a lot of people who "hate" cookies.

Not Mrs. Fields cookies, I bet.

Not Mrs. Fields cookies, I bet.

Goodness I hope not :P.