forum data

[bikkuri bahn]

One of the features I miss from the previous version of this forum was the statistical analysis, such as popularity of categories, as well as personal data of the categories most often posted etc..  Is there any way to add such a feature to the current version?

[Martijn Meerts]

That's a good question really... There are some fairly basic stats in the admin panel, but they're hardly worth anything to be honest ;)  I'd have to check if there are plugins available.

 

We do have Google analytics as well, but that's not entirely user-friendly data ..

[cteno4]

with web stuff the stats have rarely lead to good information to really do something solid or really figure out what is going on, the only way to do that is to do some experiments to test hypothesizes and also comparable data to get a baseline to measure against. Ive had some clients pour over their stats and come up with conclusions which were pretty ridiculous and them wanting to evolve their site away from their business.

 

outside curiosity i dont see what having this data displays gets ups except take up martijn's time. also leads to popularity contests, which never really mean much and usually lead to trouble in subtle ways.

 

plugins like this also need to get tested to make sure they dont muck up something else, i fall into the school add carefully unless really necessary or you run the risk of making more work for yourself than needed.

 

sorry i just think that martijn has enough on his plate maintaining the forum as a volunteer, i would rather see him spending his time playing with trains and posting interesting stuff he does here.

 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

Well, most popular category/forum is "Prototypes, pictures and videos", followed by "N Gauge"with about 10k less views. On 3rd place with another 6k less views is "Japan Rail, news and announcement".

 

There you go ;)

[the_weird_one]

WIth IPB the user management is thankfully fairly easy to deal with though better when kept up on top of rather than retrospectively. I've spent more years of my life doing forum admin for UK anime conventions than I care to think about and swore everytime someone mentioned phpBB to me.

 

Plugin's are a pain though they tend to be all or nothing, so I really wouldn't recommend them for user maintenance.

 

And this post belongs in the User clean up thread (should teach me to not read a different thread while composing a reply to one)

Edited November 26, 2013 by the_weird_one

[bill937ca]

The only stats I have seen on this version is a very simple post count in the Member List.

[Densha]

The only stats I have seen on this version is a very simple post count in the Member List.

Lol. Now that you mention it, didn't we want to have that counter removed? I thought it was long gone. :P

[bikkuri bahn]

I agree about counters leading to popularity contests.  I was more interested in the overall data broken down by category.  Not a biggie though, just was fun to see how topics were trending, what members interests were, etc.