Skip to main content
Meta Stack Exchange

You are not logged in. Your edit will be placed in a queue until it is peer reviewed.

We welcome edits that make the post easier to understand and more valuable for readers. Because community members review edits, please try to make the post substantially better than how you found it, for example, by fixing grammar or adding additional resources and hyperlinks.

7
  • 9
    I'm a big fan of "helpful post views". It's a pretty succinct description of a pretty complicated number.
    – Laura StaffMod
    Commented Dec 2, 2014 at 19:13
  • 2
    @Laura I still don't see why my clicks on Qs and As are instantly considered as helpful.
    – yo'
    Commented Dec 2, 2014 at 20:01
  • 2
    @tohecz Because the large large majority of users come to SE to find solutions to their problems rather than just browsing for their own learning like we probably do.
    – David Mulder
    Commented Dec 3, 2014 at 13:30
  • @tohecz - If you browse to a question, and view the top few answers, and do not down vote, then you have at the very least indicated that the content you viewed was not "not useful". Many views do not even have the chance to vote, and often users will make new accounts with the sole purpose of being able to upvote because they feel they need to give back in some way.
    – Travis J
    Commented Dec 3, 2014 at 16:03
  • Travis - I'm not so sure that is valid. Many folks who come from outside SE may find the answer that sorts their particular need and then not upvote. You can't assume a lack of vote means a downvote (or upvote). It is just a null.
    – Rory Alsop
    Commented Dec 3, 2014 at 23:06
  • @Rory - I was specifically responding to tohecz "why my clicks on Qs and As". The downvote tooltip reads "not useful", and by not downvoting, it is at least obvious that it was somewhat useful. It is not just null, because users here are encouraged to downvote useless content. In your example of outside users, please see the latter point I make about those users subscribing to the network in an attempt to vote in the future.
    – Travis J
    Commented Dec 4, 2014 at 4:18
  • It would help accuracy if views were tracked separately for answers, so that a late answer to a once-popular question wouldn't "inherit" all the views the question had already collected in the past. (In fact, that would help with other things too, like with the algorithm used to turn off rel=nofollow for links in reputable answers.) Of course, the initial view count for old answers would have to be guesstimated somehow, but then, that's what we're already doing anyway.
    – Ilmari Karonen
    Commented Dec 5, 2014 at 0:54