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Forum stats link?

Started by 20160805, April 24, 2018, 07:53:24 PM

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webny99

#25
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on April 24, 2018, 11:56:25 PM
Shut the post count off while we're at it.  That was a really watered down period of posting when all the talk about forum stats or post counts.
It's been fairly well-established (by the mods and admin) that stats are not to be a talking point. Therefore, it is not a matter of "do stats/post counts cause problems?". It is purely a matter of "should they be available for viewing?".


Quote from: jeffandnicole on April 25, 2018, 09:10:57 AM
Also, this is what I've noticed about you personally webny99:  Since the stats have gone away, you've actually had many worthwhile contributions to the boards relating to roads and highways.
Well, thanks, I guess  :)
I would like to think that has always been the case (even during the period when I posted some stats-related stuff), but it would probably be counter-productive to this discussion to start arguing about that, so I'll accept this, as a compliment of sorts.


Quote from: froggie on April 25, 2018, 07:18:18 AM
some of the conversation in this thread will only reinforce their viewpoint that pulling stats access was the right thing to do.
You'll have to expound on that, as my efforts in this thread have been, primarily, to shift the discussion AWAY from "did discussion about stats cause problems in the past?".


webny99

Quote from: vdeane on April 25, 2018, 12:45:10 PM
Honestly, I didn't even notice the stats page existed until it was mentioned in the very thread that caused it to be disabled.

I'm afraid a lot of users didn't - and that fact - that the stats page itself was a novelty for some users (during the very time period when I was obsessed with it), created a mountain out of a mole hill and blew the whole thing out of proportion.

US71

Here is my feeling on stats:

if you see you need X number of stats to get to the next level, do you start posting utter crap just to boost your post count (it's happened). If you need Y number of stats to have more than someone you feel you are competing against, do you post junk simply to beat your "competition"?  I post when I feel I have something to contribute, not simply to boost my status.

If you're only here to see how many time you can post, you're doing it wrong.
Like Alice I Try To Believe Three Impossible Things Before Breakfast

index

Quote from: adventurernumber1 on April 25, 2018, 12:52:04 PM
Quote from: index on April 25, 2018, 09:13:18 AM
Quote from: webny99 on April 24, 2018, 11:42:31 PM
Quote from: US71 on April 24, 2018, 11:07:01 PM
Quote from: webny99 on April 24, 2018, 10:59:44 PM
Quote from: Rothman on April 24, 2018, 10:58:56 PM
Your post in of itself proves that we're better off without it.
Without flinging old dirt, how so?
Why is it important to you?
What I am particularly interested in (and have been trying to get at) is whether forum user base as a whole believes the stats page should be available. Period.


If you want my honest opinion...


I do prefer the stats page as available, I find statistics on things interesting, and I'd rather that it stayed, but in the end it's not that big of a deal. My personal amusement, no threads or anything. I'm not going to fight it or anything. It's really inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. It happened so it happened, it happened a while ago, and it's not likely to change anytime soon, so it'd be better that those who wanted it to stay accepted that it's gone.

I am exactly the same way. I'm not overly concerned with stats, but I do find them interesting, and I would prefer that the stats page were visible. However, it would never influence any decisions I made - it would just be there for me to learn about the statistical "fun facts" about the forum. Since I love this forum so much, I find it interesting to learn these "fun facts" about it. But of course, I am most concerned with roads (although even when the stats stuff was going on, it did not detract from my contributions to roads).

Now regarding post counts, I would prefer they stay as well. Unfortunately, some people use post counts the wrong way, and they try to inflate them. However, most people do not do this. One of the most useful aspects of post counts that comes to my mind is regarding when users create threads. If someone with 5 posts creates a thread that is a duplicate of another, or it may accidentally violate forum rules, there will be much more understanding, because this person probably just joined, and they are just now learning and getting used to the rules and how to do things. Post counts don't always indicate how much someone is an established member, but sometimes they are quite competent with that. My post count (and me knowing it) does not affect my posts themselves at all. However, I like it to be there for reference. I am a fan of cumulative things. It is satisfying and fulfilling for me. This includes stuff like post counts and total time logged in. It means that overtime, contributions and time spent on the forum are adding up into a cumulative interesting statistic. I am in no rush to facilitate the speed of acceleration of these statistics - I post solely on what I want to post and contribute - but that is not affected by these statistics. I, for example, will feel very, very satisfied if I happen to create an extremely long post, and then see my cumulative post count increase by 1. This indicates that it isn't the quantity that matters to me, but the satisfaction of contributing to the forum, and also having a cumulative post count that is visible to me, that slowly increases over time. This liking of cumulative things also involves video games as well. I absolutely love it when a video game has statistics like "total miles driven" or "total time played" or an increasing Level that goes up (ex. Level 5, Level 23, Level 101, etc.). I don't do any unusual or unfavorable actions to drastically, deliberately affect these cumulative statistics. I go about my day and do these things (posting, browsing/reading (which increases "total time logged in"), playing video games) just as normal - not thinking about the statistics at all or purposefully trying to do something significant to them while I am actually posting or playing or whatever - but at the end of the day, it is fun for me to be able to look at my cumulative statistics. I like to have the ability to see these interesting statistics, but I don't obsess over them. It is just a neat but useful (for reference) thing on the side, while the main meal is reserved for roads.  :nod:


You must be good at writing essays.  :bigass: 
Maybe fork over a little help with that with my assignments? /sarcasm
I love my 2010 Ford Explorer.



Counties traveled

adventurernumber1

Quote from: index on April 25, 2018, 01:34:04 PM
Quote from: adventurernumber1 on April 25, 2018, 12:52:04 PM
Quote from: index on April 25, 2018, 09:13:18 AM
Quote from: webny99 on April 24, 2018, 11:42:31 PM
Quote from: US71 on April 24, 2018, 11:07:01 PM
Quote from: webny99 on April 24, 2018, 10:59:44 PM
Quote from: Rothman on April 24, 2018, 10:58:56 PM
Your post in of itself proves that we're better off without it.
Without flinging old dirt, how so?
Why is it important to you?
What I am particularly interested in (and have been trying to get at) is whether forum user base as a whole believes the stats page should be available. Period.


If you want my honest opinion...


I do prefer the stats page as available, I find statistics on things interesting, and I'd rather that it stayed, but in the end it's not that big of a deal. My personal amusement, no threads or anything. I'm not going to fight it or anything. It's really inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. It happened so it happened, it happened a while ago, and it's not likely to change anytime soon, so it'd be better that those who wanted it to stay accepted that it's gone.

I am exactly the same way. I'm not overly concerned with stats, but I do find them interesting, and I would prefer that the stats page were visible. However, it would never influence any decisions I made - it would just be there for me to learn about the statistical "fun facts" about the forum. Since I love this forum so much, I find it interesting to learn these "fun facts" about it. But of course, I am most concerned with roads (although even when the stats stuff was going on, it did not detract from my contributions to roads).

Now regarding post counts, I would prefer they stay as well. Unfortunately, some people use post counts the wrong way, and they try to inflate them. However, most people do not do this. One of the most useful aspects of post counts that comes to my mind is regarding when users create threads. If someone with 5 posts creates a thread that is a duplicate of another, or it may accidentally violate forum rules, there will be much more understanding, because this person probably just joined, and they are just now learning and getting used to the rules and how to do things. Post counts don't always indicate how much someone is an established member, but sometimes they are quite competent with that. My post count (and me knowing it) does not affect my posts themselves at all. However, I like it to be there for reference. I am a fan of cumulative things. It is satisfying and fulfilling for me. This includes stuff like post counts and total time logged in. It means that overtime, contributions and time spent on the forum are adding up into a cumulative interesting statistic. I am in no rush to facilitate the speed of acceleration of these statistics - I post solely on what I want to post and contribute - but that is not affected by these statistics. I, for example, will feel very, very satisfied if I happen to create an extremely long post, and then see my cumulative post count increase by 1. This indicates that it isn't the quantity that matters to me, but the satisfaction of contributing to the forum, and also having a cumulative post count that is visible to me, that slowly increases over time. This liking of cumulative things also involves video games as well. I absolutely love it when a video game has statistics like "total miles driven" or "total time played" or an increasing Level that goes up (ex. Level 5, Level 23, Level 101, etc.). I don't do any unusual or unfavorable actions to drastically, deliberately affect these cumulative statistics. I go about my day and do these things (posting, browsing/reading (which increases "total time logged in"), playing video games) just as normal - not thinking about the statistics at all or purposefully trying to do something significant to them while I am actually posting or playing or whatever - but at the end of the day, it is fun for me to be able to look at my cumulative statistics. I like to have the ability to see these interesting statistics, but I don't obsess over them. It is just a neat but useful (for reference) thing on the side, while the main meal is reserved for roads.  :nod:


You must be good at writing essays.  :bigass: 
Maybe fork over a little help with that with my assignments? /sarcasm

Haha, well thanks! I guess I'm pretty good at writing essays, but I tend to do better when I am freed from the 5 paragraph restrictions and don't have to write a thesis statement.  :-P
Now alternating between different highway shields for my avatar - my previous highway shield avatar for the last few years was US 76.

Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/127322363@N08/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-vJ3qa8R-cc44Cv6ohio1g

webny99

Considering post counts are a major part of some people's beef with stats, I would have thought any admin/mod actions taken would have addressed our ability to view this page. So there's today's dose of irony...

I don't think I've personally had problems with posting excessively to bump my status. I don't even know when most of the status bumps occur (for example, I know "turnpike" is next for me, but I don't know at what point the bump will occur [1500, maybe?]). Once it happens, though, I'll certainly notice, due to my nature of loving statistics, or "fun facts", I can't help noticing that stuff. However, my biggest obsession, in the past, was not even with post counts... it was with daily (and monthly and yearly) post counts for the entire forum. But I don't know of anyone else caring, or even noticing, much less trying to influence, this information. So, basically, since no one is discussing stats anymore, there is no reason for that stuff to remain hidden.

(Also, Roadgeekteen has had trouble with posting to bump status, but he has not been very actively recently, for whatever that's worth...)

J N Winkler

I am in favor of the statistics page returning.  Its applications are much wider than comparative penis length measurement, and taking it away is a very heavy-handed way of discouraging filler posts.  However, I am not going to lobby hard for its restoration because, in the absence of a page dedicated specifically to their display, the statistics can be generated using a wget wrapper script, though at considerably higher cost in bandwidth for page retrieval etc.
"It is necessary to spend a hundred lire now to save a thousand lire later."--Piero Puricelli, explaining the need for a first-class road system to Benito Mussolini

hotdogPi

I would also support the page returning.
Clinched, minus I-93 (I'm missing a few miles and my file is incorrect)

Traveled, plus US 13, 44, and 50, and several state routes

I will be in Burlington VT for the eclipse.

jeffandnicole

If they're returned, there better not be a single thread started regarding anything with the stats.  The first person to do so gets a 30 day ban and 4 points on their license.

webny99

Quote from: jeffandnicole on April 25, 2018, 02:35:16 PM
If they're returned, there better not be a single thread started regarding anything with the stats.  The first person to do so gets a 30 day ban and 4 points on their license.

I won't be discussing stats. Period. That point has been hammered enough (and I get it - extensive discussion of stats became rather obtuse). I just want to be able to see the stats on occasion, and see no reason why this shouldn't be provided for.


Quote from: J N Winkler on April 25, 2018, 02:27:05 PM
...taking it away is a very heavy-handed way of discouraging filler posts.

Interestingly, I was never under the impression that the page was hidden to discourage filler posts. It was hidden because that was the preferred alternative, as opposed to banning all discussion of stats (at least that's the way it seemed at the time). I agree that doing so was rather a rather clumsy solution, which pushed my anger level into the "red zone" for several days. I actually considered starting more stats threads to prove that it was ineffective... fortunately, I had the sense not to do this, and instead opted to wait things out.

As I said upthread, I feel personally responsible for the loss of the stats page, but I also feel that hiding the page was an overreaction. That's why I'm not apologizing for anything which has ensued as a result of that decision.
The 30 days of moderated posts (which I also recieved) would have more than sufficed to keep me from posting stats-related content. Killing users' access to the stats page only added insult to injury (for me personally, anyways)...

formulanone

Quote from: jeffandnicole on April 25, 2018, 12:23:08 PM
Quote from: US71 on April 25, 2018, 11:33:22 AM
If you post it in Off-Topic, you can talk about gambling all you want.  Can you cite examples of Parking Lots we have "pulled the trigger" on (besides Marf)?

I was going to mention Alanland, but looking at his stats it was his 6th post, so even that doesn't qualify.

It's not a knock on mod practices.

I would imagine the staff bans spambots / questionable users with some regularity, to the point where there's no sense in making a big deal out it. Humph...maybe it's quite rare.

The most suspicious would be first-time posters.

US71

Quote from: webny99 on April 25, 2018, 03:17:58 PM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on April 25, 2018, 02:35:16 PM
If they're returned, there better not be a single thread started regarding anything with the stats.  The first person to do so gets a 30 day ban and 4 points on their license.

I won't be discussing stats. Period. That point has been hammered enough (and I get it - extensive discussion of stats became rather obtuse). I just want to be able to see the stats on occasion, and see no reason why this shouldn't be provided for.


You've not provided a reason for restoring it, other than you want it.
Like Alice I Try To Believe Three Impossible Things Before Breakfast

hotdogPi

#37
Quote from: formulanone on April 25, 2018, 03:25:51 PM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on April 25, 2018, 12:23:08 PM
Quote from: US71 on April 25, 2018, 11:33:22 AM
If you post it in Off-Topic, you can talk about gambling all you want.  Can you cite examples of Parking Lots we have "pulled the trigger" on (besides Marf)?

I was going to mention Alanland, but looking at his stats it was his 6th post, so even that doesn't qualify.

It's not a knock on mod practices.

I would imagine the staff bans spambots / questionable users with some regularity, to the point where there's no sense in making a big deal out it. Humph...maybe it's quite rare.

The most suspicious would be first-time posters.

There are 3477 members, as shown on the home page, which doesn't count banned members (it's the same number as the members list, which doesn't list them if they're banned).
There are 3512 members using the default theme, and 5 that aren't.

This means that 40 accounts have been banned.

Note that I can find this without using the forum stats page.
Clinched, minus I-93 (I'm missing a few miles and my file is incorrect)

Traveled, plus US 13, 44, and 50, and several state routes

I will be in Burlington VT for the eclipse.

US71

Quote from: 1 on April 25, 2018, 03:48:17 PM

There are 3477 members, as shown on the home page, which doesn't count banned members (it's the same number as the members list, which doesn't list them if they're banned).
There are 3512 members using the default theme, and 5 that aren't.

This means that 40 accounts have been banned.

Note that I can find this without using the forum stats page.

How do you know they are banned? We've had several members go dormant, then come back with a new account. In those cases, we delete the old account upon request. We've had several people simply request their accounts be deleted.


Like Alice I Try To Believe Three Impossible Things Before Breakfast

webny99

Quote from: US71 on April 25, 2018, 03:27:37 PM
Quote from: webny99 on April 25, 2018, 03:17:58 PM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on April 25, 2018, 02:35:16 PM
If they're returned, there better not be a single thread started regarding anything with the stats.  The first person to do so gets a 30 day ban and 4 points on their license.
I won't be discussing stats. Period. That point has been hammered enough (and I get it - extensive discussion of stats became rather obtuse). I just want to be able to see the stats on occasion, and see no reason why this shouldn't be provided for.
You've not provided a reason for restoring it, other than you want it.

Perhaps a more fundamental question is why the stats page has been visible by default since the forum's foundation. It provides interesting "fun facts" and occasionally useful information which can be absorbed by the user base. At least five other users, besides myself, have expressed support for restoring the page; not as a conversation piece, but as a dataset for times when a stat piques our interest.

I'm sure there are counter-arguments; but so far, my personal promise not to discuss stats in public forum space sufficiently negates those arguments.
The exception being the issue with users posting solely for status bumps - but that is a (non-current) issue outside my control and irrelevant to anything regarding the stats page.

20160805

Gosh; didn't think I'd attract over a page of arguing in just 25 hours!  :-o

Quote from: adventurernumber1 on April 25, 2018, 12:52:04 PM-quotes snipped-
I am exactly the same way. I'm not overly concerned with stats, but I do find them interesting, and I would prefer that the stats page were visible. However, it would never influence any decisions I made - it would just be there for me to learn about the statistical "fun facts" about the forum. Since I butt this forum so much, I find it interesting to learn these "fun facts" about it. But of course, I am most concerned with roads (although even when the stats stuff was going on, it did not detract from my contributions to roads).

Now regarding post counts, I would prefer they stay as well. Unfortunately, some people use post counts the wrong way, and they try to inflate them. However, most people do not do this. One of the most useful aspects of post counts that comes to my mind is regarding when users create threads. If someone with 5 posts creates a thread that is a duplicate of another, or it may accidentally violate forum rules, there will be much more understanding, because this person probably just joined, and they are just now learning and getting used to the rules and how to do things. Post counts don't always indicate how much someone is an established member, but sometimes they are quite competent with that. My post count (and me knowing it) does not affect my posts themselves at all. However, I like it to be there for reference. I am a fan of cumulative things. It is satisfying and fulfilling for me. This includes stuff like post counts and total time logged in. It means that overtime, contributions and time spent on the forum are adding up into a cumulative interesting statistic. I am in no rush to facilitate the speed of acceleration of these statistics - I post solely on what I want to post and contribute - but that is not affected by these statistics. I, for example, will feel very, very satisfied if I happen to create an extremely long post, and then see my cumulative post count increase by 1. This indicates that it isn't the quantity that matters to me, but the satisfaction of contributing to the forum, and also having a cumulative post count that is visible to me, that slowly increases over time. This liking of cumulative things also involves video games as well. I absolutely butt it when a video game has statistics like "total miles driven" or "total time played" or an increasing Level that goes up (ex. Level 5, Level 23, Level 101, etc.). I don't do any unusual or unfavorable actions to drastically, deliberately affect these cumulative statistics. I go about my day and do these things (posting, browsing/reading (which increases "total time logged in"), playing video games) just as normal - not thinking about the statistics at all or purposefully trying to do something significant to them while I am actually posting or playing or whatever - but at the end of the day, it is fun for me to be able to look at my cumulative statistics. I like to have the ability to see these interesting statistics, but I don't obsess over them. It is just a neat but useful (for reference) thing on the side, while the main meal is reserved for roads.  :nod:

Personally I butt this post; this is pretty much exactly my own mindset, and I find it cool that someone else is like me in that regard.

Quote from: adventurernumber1 on April 25, 2018, 01:43:34 PM-other quotes snipped-
Quote from: index on April 25, 2018, 01:34:04 PM
You must be good at writing essays.  :bigass: 
Maybe fork over a little help with that with my assignments? /sarcasm

Haha, well thanks! I guess I'm pretty good at writing essays, but I tend to do better when I am freed from the 5 paragraph restrictions and don't have to write a thesis statement.  :-P

Eeyup.
Left for 5 months Oct 2018-Mar 2019 due to arguing in the DST thread.
Tried coming back Mar 2019.
Left again Jul 2019 due to more arguing.

Hurricane Rex

#41
Quote from: Alps on April 25, 2018, 12:30:23 AM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on April 24, 2018, 11:56:25 PM
Quote from: webny99 on April 24, 2018, 11:42:31 PM
Quote from: US71 on April 24, 2018, 11:07:01 PM
Quote from: webny99 on April 24, 2018, 10:59:44 PM
Quote from: Rothman on April 24, 2018, 10:58:56 PM
Your post in of itself proves that we're better off without it.
Without flinging old dirt, how so?
Why is it important to you?

The answer to the question isn't of any particular importance. What irks me, I guess, and what Rothman capitalized on, is my that my inherent involvement in this issue is proving to be a major obstruction as I try to look at it from an unbiased point of view.

What I am particularly interested in (and have been trying to get at) is whether forum user base as a whole believes the stats page should be available. Period.
Leave me (and all my stats threads and whatever else) completely out of the picture, long enough to form an answer to a very basic question: Should the stats page be something that is available to forum users? Two years ago, before I joined, what would your answer have been?

That's the only important question at play in this thread right now, so I'll just shut up for a while and see what everyone has to say.

Shut the post count off while we're at it.  That was a really watered down period of posting when all the talk about forum stats or post counts.  That's just my two-cents. 
I wholeheartedly agree with this. Post count serves nothing except an alternate dick-waving contest.
Agree with everything. The only thing I use the post count for is to time when I release certain fictional plans so I don't burn out too fast.

Edit:
Quote from: webny99 on April 25, 2018, 01:57:02 PM
I don't think I've personally had problems with posting excessively to bump my status. I don't even know when most of the status bumps occur (for example, I know "turnpike" is next for me, but I don't know at what point the bump will occur [1500, maybe?]).

Ranks (correct me if I'm wrong) by post count:
0-2: Parking lot
2-24: dirt road
25-49: frontage road
50-99: artiel (don't know how to spell it)
100-249: county road
249-499: state route
500-999: US highway
1000-1499: expressway
1500-2999: turnpike
3000-4999: freeway
5000-9999: interstate
10,000+: likes the forum way, way too much
ODOT, raise the speed limit and fix our traffic problems.

Road and weather geek for life.

Running till I die.

US71

Like Alice I Try To Believe Three Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Rothman

I sense an onslaught of webny posts.  Get rid of the post count if it happens.
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position(s) of NYSDOT.

US71

Quote from: webny99 on April 25, 2018, 10:13:48 PM
When I've been smugly and high-handedly exploited and provoked and mistreated, I'm not a coward. I'm persistent and I have guts.

With that said, finishing with my beating-a-dead-horse would also be finishing with democracy as we know it today. And, sorry, but that just isn't happening. This is no way to treat a user (or a user base). Any unbiased spectator could easily pinpoint that at a first glance.

This list is a democracy? I thought Alex owned it?   :hmmm:

Quote
Perhaps a more fundamental question is why the stats page has been visible by default since the forum's foundation.

Maybe we never expected anyone to exploit the data? Congratulations! You proved us wrong.
Like Alice I Try To Believe Three Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Alps

Quote from: webny99 on April 25, 2018, 10:13:48 PM
When I've been smugly and high-handedly exploited and provoked and mistreated, I'm not a coward. I'm persistent and I have guts.

With that said, finishing with my beating-a-dead-horse would also be finishing with democracy as we know it today. And, sorry, but that just isn't happening. This is no way to treat a user (or a user base). Any unbiased spectator could easily pinpoint that at a first glance.
I have no idea what you're talking about. Take a couple of days away as a breather. You're getting wound up.

webny99

Quote from: US71 on April 25, 2018, 10:33:51 PM
Maybe we never expected anyone to exploit the data? Congratulations! You proved us wrong.
Quote... without flinging old dirt...

I never did anything with the intent of disrupting or harming the forum - I had no idea that commenting on some stats I found intriguing would explode into this. Anyways, I have extensively acknowledged my mistake and committed not to do anything similar in the future. There is nothing more I can do to compensate for the above concern.

To make me pay for misbehavior is one thing... to make everyone pay for a simple misunderstanding on my part is another thing altogether; absolute folly in the highest degree. I can only hope that's understandable, because that's exactly how I see it - crystal clear.


ETA: @Alps - *sigh*. You're right, of course. I need a vacation. But I'm still standing by everything I said.

TheArkansasRoadgeek

The moment webny99 needs a vacation, but is still dodging shade:



I think Gone with the Wind says it best:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PjRsfPCo98
Well, that's just like your opinion man...

DaBigE

The presence (or lack thereof) of the stats doesn't bother me one bit, but I'll offer this suggestion: Bring them back for those who so desperately want them, but make a forum rule banning starting threads based on forum stats. Make breaking the rule a punishable offence. I would think those posts should be easy enough to moderate.
"We gotta find this road, it's like Bob's road!" - Rabbit, Twister

Scott5114

#49
I will make the following statistic available: 618,817. Too bad I didn't catch it when it was a palindrome.

Quote from: formulanone on April 25, 2018, 03:25:51 PM
I would imagine the staff bans spambots / questionable users with some regularity, to the point where there's no sense in making a big deal out it. Humph...maybe it's quite rare.

The most suspicious would be first-time posters.

Generally, they don't even get so far as to get a ban. We screen users at time of account creation in two ways. Firstly, the account creation form asks a question that they user is free to answer however they wish. One of the moderators reads the response to this question and, if it is overly generic or incoherent, can flag the account as suspicious or never enable it. We also check email addresses and IP addresses against lists of known spammers. This catches the vast majority of spamming attempts, especially automated ones.

Quote from: webny99 on April 25, 2018, 07:33:41 PM
Perhaps a more fundamental question is why the stats page has been visible by default since the forum's foundation.

The stats page was visible because the box on the configuration page was set to be checked by default by the SMF developers. It remained checked for ten years because, until then, none of the five users with access to it (seven if you count the two that had access and gave it up) had any reason to  consider the implications of the stats page being visible, over the years.

Quote from: J N Winkler on April 25, 2018, 02:27:05 PM
I am in favor of the statistics page returning.  Its applications are much wider than comparative penis length measurement, and taking it away is a very heavy-handed way of discouraging filler posts.

I'd be legitimately interested in knowing what some of the potential applications (from a user standpoint) are. I'll be honest–I can't think of any myself. They could be useful for estimating projected traffic flows and thus server resource usage, but I don't see why anyone other than Alex would need that.

There may have been other ways of resolving the situation, but it was seen as a simple solution with little of real value being lost to the majority of the members. Indeed, the sun rose the next day.

QuoteHowever, I am not going to lobby hard for its restoration because, in the absence of a page dedicated specifically to their display, the statistics can be generated using a wget wrapper script, though at considerably higher cost in bandwidth for page retrieval etc.

Subversive! I like it.

Uh, don't do that, though.

Quote from: DaBigE on April 26, 2018, 01:54:49 AM
The presence (or lack thereof) of the stats doesn't bother me one bit, but I'll offer this suggestion: Bring them back for those who so desperately want them, but make a forum rule banning starting threads based on forum stats. Make breaking the rule a punishable offence. I would think those posts should be easy enough to moderate.

It is a bit more complex than that, as the rationale for disabling the stats page is both to prevent threads based on statistics as well as preventing posting behavior modification to shape the trends in the statistics, e.g. by making large numbers of low-quality posts.

There have been a few posters in this thread that have expressed an opinion that post quality has gone up since the page was disabled.
uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef



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