The discussion centers on tracking how often users share posts and topics, and in which mediums. nikdavis suggests storing sharing frequency per user and per post, as well as tracking the medium (e.g., Twitter, Google+). codinghorror notes that a badge already tracks sharing counts, but not mediums. nikdavis acknowledges the badge but still sees value in tracking mediums, proposing appending URL parameters for known platforms. riking counters that tracking mediums is technically difficult since users often copy-paste links directly, bypassing share buttons. nikdavis suggests storing referral data via UTM-like parameters for known mediums, while acknowledging limitations. lisajill adds that tracking clicks on share buttons would help gauge engagement, though some users share via direct links. riking recalls past analytics showing that link copying significantly outpaces button usage — by factors of 2x, 3x, or 4x — making button click data less representative of actual sharing behavior. The consensus leans toward the technical challenges of medium tracking, with button click metrics offering partial but imperfect insight.
I think it would be valuable to store how often posts are shared, as well as how often users share overall. It would also be interesting to see through what medium they shared (e.g. twitter, etc). So far as I could tell no metrics are currently stored.
Any thoughts?
Well, there is a badge for sharing that tracks how many times things were shared and to how many different IPs.. as well as stats on the dashboard. So I’m not entirely clear what you’re referring to?
Ahh thanks! I did manage to miss that. 
I think it would be useful to also track in which medium the link was shared.
That’s a little bit impossible, as the easiest (and in my experience, the most common) way to share is to give someone else a URL. And IRC/emails/text messages don’t usually rewrite the URLs to say what they were transported over…
I figured it would be limited to appending a small variable to the URL if they shared in one of the defined mediums (twitter, g+, etc). Beyond that, I can look at the referrer.
For those looking, I think the meat of the info is stored in the incoming_link model. I could stitch together some of this from looking at the referring URL too.
Adding on to what @nikdavis said - the ability to track the number of clicks on each sharing button would be be a value-add for our community as a gauge of interest and engagement. Yes, some people will share direct links without using those buttons; however, we’d like to gauge how many are using the sharing buttons.
I think some analytics were actually run, and the answer was that link copying beat out all of the buttons by some integer factor. (2x, 3x, 4x, something like that)