h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I find the stats page quite useful, and would like to see more info on it. If that's not possible, it would be nice to know some things anyway - I'm sure h2g2 is full of little watching programs which know these things!

- Proportion of users who use Alabaster or Goo.
- Number of regular users (difficult to quantify, but could be number of users who have visited more than once in the past month, or something similar)
- Hits per day
- Cool timeline graphs showing the history of these stats...

Oh and some forum sites show beside each conversation how many people have viewed it and how many replies there are to the original posting. These aren't vital but would be interesting - likewise similar counters on articles - I often wonder if people actually read my ramblings.

I use the info page very much. It's not for the stats about prolific posters though. No, really, it's not!!!

What I use it for, is to view the list of the most recently updated conversations. I would like this list to be either on it's own page or at the top of the existing page, so I don't have to scroll all the way down to the bottom. Months ago I also mentioned in a feedback forum, that I think the links should go to the latest post in the conversations instead of to the first. After all, if I want to know about the latest updated conversations, it's probably because I want to see the updates!

A button for the page would be welcomed!

Stats on the number of pageviews for a particular Conversation would be nice, but it would very likely mirror the 5 Busiest Conversations on the Front Page. And I agree that a Stats button would be nice (possibly as part of a customisable set of optional buttons?).

One other possibility I'd like to see explored is a Top 20 (or thereabouts) Conversations with Most Subscribers. Just a thought.

NQAH (just thinking)

Where is the Stats page?

a lost person called Ben

I like using the Stats page to see the most recently updated Conversations ... it gives me new places to wander around in, and even though I may not post there, I like to read what's happening elsewhere ... That's how I found this conversation!

Sorry, simulpost!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/info

Wow - that is great - are there any more places of dead good gen like that? I'd love to know stuff like how many posts a day, when H2G2 is busy, when its quiet.

A fact-freak called Ben

It's supposed to be top-secret for volunteers & staff only !
But it would be useful if it included top ten updated articles as well as conversations.

<BB<

Top secret? I've been using it for ages! Come to think of it, I don't even remember how I stumbled across it ...

As well as the stats on the info page there's the top/bottom five lists on the front page, which are also useful. That's the limit of the stats viewable as far as I know. I think there's webcounters on some/all pages but they're only viewable to the Towers team. (I'm sure there's some cunning way of viewing such things but I don't think they'd appreciate us trying to find out... )

I believe I raised a request to have the ratio of GOO to Alabaster users. The Towers made an interesting point which is that there are a large number of redundant accounts in both skins. As the default skin is now Alabaster the number of forgotten registrations whose preference is Alabaster is increasing. Any stats like this would be meaningless!
I like the idea of having a hit counter, that would be interesting...

The number of page requests in alabaster/goo would give a more accurate view. I know some users would request a lot more pages than others, but it'd give a better overall picture.

What would be really interesting is a comparison of page requests in what skin, and the number of page requests per day per user. I bet we'd find that the users who request more pages use goo, and less alabaster - as the casual user or one time visitor would use alabaster, and established users who spend several hours a day on h2g2 generally use goo. (except me!)

We don't keep historical stats on skin usage, so if people started using Alabaster, then switched to Goo, we'd lose the fact that they used to use Alabaster (it's not recorded in any logs). So in that respect the stats would be skewed.

And let's face it, it doesn't help you, does it? It's interesting once, but I can't see people repeatedly visiting a page to tell them that in the last week Alabaster gained 0.5% over Goo (or whatever). It just wouldn't be dynamic enough.

Yeah, but if those stats were linked to cool animations, where you see Goo obliterate Alabaster, then later in the day Alabaster sneaks up behind Goo and whacks it over the head with a frying pan ... people would come ...

OK stats are ultimately pointless, especially that one, but they're interesting.

More interesting stats could be regarding the actual guide entry content, but I guess it'd be more difficult to set up and run. Things like guide entries per country (written about things in each country, I mean), or per county/city/whatever area, would be more useful as then we'd know what needs writing about.

(and if the stats were projected onto a zoomable map, that'd be really cool )

Oh, and regarding the current stats, how about the same stats but for the viewing researcher? I wouldn't have thought it'd be too difficult to show:

*number of edited guide entries
*number of postings in last 24 hours
*average length of postings in last 24 hours
*twenty most recently updated conve... never mind that one, it's shown on your page anyway

those are all stats shown on the info page regarding the community. It seems that the processing is being done individually for the posting stats anyway, so I don't think it would add a lot of work to the servers.

Reguarding the whole Goo/Alabaster debate (I'm a loyal Gooist... is that even a word? Oh well, it is now!) I think the way to keep track of it is to keep track of the default skin on all the acounts that have been signed in, and used within the last week. That, I think would give the most accurate view on the most popular skin. And I'm sure that would show Goo winning by a towel length!

Saturn Girl

The number of h2g2 researchers as shown on top of the /info page is just plainly pointless. It's quite sure that there aren't 77,412 researchers alive here. This overall count may have been useful in pre-BBC times to attract ad customers, but not anymore now. It would rather be interesting to show the number of /active/ researchers (say, those who logged in during the previous 4 weeks, or showed up after Rupert). Of course this wouldn't take into account researchers with multiple identities, but it would be definitely closer to reality.

er.., and yes, what about the number of double postings (you know, time-out etc.) per day?

If I come to h2g2 I might look for a subject, but more frequently I look for action. Where are the new conversations? But I'm not so desperate to be up to date that I need to look for a top five entry or follow the people who send in the most contributions. I suggested a jump-off page (http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F66250?thread=110513) which then turned into a jump-off concept/option (though I did most of the argument myself). I'd like to come along for my evening enquiry session and say "show me some of the conversations that have seen some action today".