Thread views on Piano World

David B

I've noticed this in the past and I've always wondered about it.

Piano World shows how many views a thread has. Whenever I've started threads with videos in them on Piano World only about 20% ( or less) of the people that open the thread actually watch the video.

E.g., 500 hundred people opened a thread I started with a short imbedded video of me playing something. YouTube only shows that video as having 150 views. Does that really mean 350 people opened the thread on Piano World but did not watch the short imbedded video? That happens all the time and it seems unusual for that many people to not watch the video.

I don't mind if people find me uninteresting, but it just seems like too many to be accurate. Am I setting myself up for a reality check? 😀

God Bless,
David

HZPiano

Hello,

David B, I think it works like this:

Suppose I see your thread with the P125 review. (A thread view is counted).

Then I go watch the video on YouTube.

Then it is coffee time, I go back to Clack and respond with a little post and/or give you a like. (A thread view is counted).

Then at the end of the day, I am bored and tired and come see who else has said something about your review. (A thread view is counted).

And so on, and so on.

Thus the views a thread gets will almost always be an n:1 multiple of your YouTube views. (Theoretically, that is, because people can of course also land on your video without a visit to Clack).

This is my simple understanding of these matters…

Cheers and happy statistics,

Del Vento

CyberGene I might be wrong but I think YouTube doesn't count a view if the viewer didn't watch at least half the video or something like that (1/3? Or 30 seconds?).

You are correct, and I too am not sure what the time is. So it is possible that some people started viewing it and stopped before YT counted it.

CyberGene It's possible that many people expect to see a text review and so they open the thread. Then they see a YouTube video and don't watch it

That is also a possibility, and true for me too, but I think most people prefer video rather than text, so it sounds strange with these numbers

HZPiano Thus the views a thread gets will almost always be an n:1 multiple of your YouTube views.

I think that goes against what @David B is seeing: people might re-watch the video review, e.g. with better headphones, rather than re-reading a thread with no new posts.

David B

I thought about that, but why would people reopen a thread that has no new posts in it? Also, the videos are imbedded so the viewers don't have to go offsite to view it. It's like hundreds of people just decided to not click the play button after they have opened the thread. Weird.

HZPiano

David B

Generally speaking, we're just nutters and fruitcakes. So anything can happen.

(Which is to say: I'm not sure what the answer to that may be).

From managing my own websites, little webshops etc. in the past, I do know that web statistics can drive you nuts indeed and it is either extremely difficult or rocket science to give any practical, sensible meaning to the numbers you see.

Guard your sanity in these areas!

Cheers and happy peacefulness,

HZPiano

David B It's like hundreds of people just decided to not click the play button after they have opened the thread. Weird.

Hello,

This would be plausible of course. Visiting a forum or website, the visitor first needs to open a thread and perhaps find a video there and get a sense of the topic the thread/video is about.

Then, statistically, it is completely logical that a topic does resonate with way fewer people than the number with whom it does not.

Also: Suppose I would go and view each and every video I discover? I wouldn't have a life! So having a YouTube view for every thread visit (even if those were unique visitors) is way outside the realm of possibility.

Cheers and peace of mind,

CyberGene

I might be wrong but I think YouTube doesn't count a view if the viewer didn't watch at least half the video or something like that (1/3? Or 30 seconds?).

MrGr

If I had to guess: there are readers and there are video watchers. Those who are searching on a forum might prefer text or simply prefer to remain within the forum to not lose some sort of coordination in what they are doing.

CyberGene

It's possible that many people expect to see a text review and so they open the thread. Then they see a YouTube video and don't watch it. I often don't watch videos because I'm listening to music for example. Or because I think I should watch it later when I have time for the entire video and then I forget...

Deleted

Bots visit forum threads a lot. They don't watch videos.

Over 50 % of the total traffic is bot (non-human) traffic. That's why everything on the web is secured using CAPTCHA.

David B

Deleted Bots visit forum threads a lot. They don't watch videos.

Over 50 % of the total traffic is bot (non-human) traffic. That's why everything on the web is secured using CAPTCHA.

That's interesting. I wasn't aware. That would make more sense. If half the thread views are bots then that would make the video view count closer to 50% That seems like a more reasonable figure.

God Bless,
David

MacMacMac

Also … over 50% of statistics are made up on the spot. 🙂

Deleted

MacMacMac Here is something to learn about bot traffic: https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/bots/what-is-bot-traffic/ Including a description of typical behavior.

Fun fact: YouTube doesn't count bot traffic as views, while PW's vBB does, because it's just ancient.

MacMacMac

Billions of web users are outnumbered by bots? That doesn't make any sense.

David B

MacMacMac I don't even know what a bot is or it's intended purpose.

Del Vento

MacMacMac Billions of web users

Certainly not billions of users on piano forums.

Deleted

David B A bot is a computer program which emulates behaving like a human. On the web bots read web pages for various purposes and post comments. They accumulate a lot of views, because unlike humans, they are able to read dozens of web pages per second (the speed is where emulating humans stop).

As mentioned, the newest iteration of bots also posts on forums and social networks. They use the material they read on the web to phrase convincing boiler plate almost indistingushiable from humans. Using AI they are also able to reply to posts and reply to replies fooling you into believing that you're interacting online with a humans. Posting bots are mostly used to keep you engaged with an otherwise dead platform. The first years of Reddit were essentially 90+ % "seed traffic" generated by bots, before it fell back to normal levels when humans finally fell for it.

Bot traffic might be the main reasing, why PW's owner has so much cost, because he doesn't have access to the expertise needed to run such a platform, which includes restricting bot traffic to sensible means.

MacMacMac

Bots (internet robots) scan through web sites and index the contents. That's how google gets all the information and makes it available for search.

[deleted]

Sometimes I read posts but can’t listen to any videos at work so I don’t click on the link

MrGr

If it's an active thread, people come back to it to reply and stay updated. Question is whether the forum counts unique visitors or simply page loads. Separation into multiple pages might also lead to double counting.