I’m new to Discourse and I apologise if this question is inappropriate or in the wrong section.
My forum is up and running and our engagement is slowly increasing. However, we only get a new post once a day or so.
I feel like a lot of users may be deterred as the post views are in single digits for a considerable period of time. I was wondering if there’s any admin function to artificially increase the number of thread views to give the impression that more users are reading posts even if they arent posting.
Obviously this would be a temporary measure to encourage engagement, but I believe it might give some credibility and boost user engagement on my forums.
I don’t think inflating the post views is such a good idea. Why not comment on what is posted, maybe replying directly to a poster about what he/she has said. That would be a better way to get people involved in commenting as well as reading posts/replies. It’s better to start a conversation for real than to put up fake numbers.
AFAIK there is no way to inflate the post views as that may/would interfere with the different count routines that run in the background. My forum has been up just shy of 2 years. We have a very active group, but we do have several topics that have views, but no replies. Other topics have to be closed on a monthly or bi-monthly basis because of the number of replies. If your users see some back-and-forth discussions going on, they’ll be more apt to read them and possibly get into the discussion as well. That’s what you really are aiming for in the end… participation.
Your assumption is not wrong. It’s very natural for a good site admin - a good host of sorts - to be very aware of things like that.
The question is… is that really what your current users feel?
The simple truth is, users appreciate honesty more than anything.
You can hide the views column with a few lines of CSS like Richard mentioned above. Discourse makes it easy for admins to make such changes if they wish via themes.
That said, you’re trying to build a community, yes?
So, why not embrace the low view/reply count as an indication that something might need to change?
I don’t know anything about your community, but I do know this… the only type of sustainable growth is organic growth. Arbitrary inflated numbers don’t mean much in the long term. There’s only one thing that attracts new users and keeps current users engaged - Good content.
Focus on good content, and the views and replies will increase on their own. It might be a bit slow at the beginning, but this is excellent advice.
지난 4년 동안 지역의 디스코 기반 웹사이트를 운영해 왔습니다. (컴퓨터에 익숙한 성인 독자의 잠재적 규모는 10만 명 미만일 수 있습니다.)
일일 페이지 뷰는 1,000건에 약간 못 미치는 수준입니다.
너무 깊이 들어가지 않더라도, 제 웹사이트가 부풀려진/인위적인 조회수를 표시했다면 지역 내 재방문 독자는 약 10배 더 많았을 것이라고 단언할 수 있습니다.
주된 이유는 독자들이 현실보다는 겉으로 드러나는 것에 더 끌리기 때문입니다. FB(페이스북)가 어떤 비디오가 10만 번(1 lakh) 조회되었다고 표시하고 제 사이트 기사가 100번 조회되었다고 하면, 그들은 FB가 훨씬 더 큰 도달률을 가진다고 생각합니다. FB는 비디오를 3초만 보아도 '1회/단일 조회’로 집계한다는 사실은 무시합니다.
아마도 제가 여기서 말하고자 했던 것이 충분히 명확하지 않을 수 있지만, 요지는 '반짝이는 것이 곧 판매로 이어진다!'는 것입니다. 그 반짝임이 완전히 사실은 아니더라도요.
만약 Discourse 팀이 사용자들이 그러한 ‘거짓’ 반짝임을 적용할 수 있도록 허용한다면, Discourse 사이트는 훨씬 더 판매하기 쉬워질 것입니다. 신뢰성에 대해서는, 해당 웹사이트/커뮤니티의 소유자가 얼마나 신뢰할 만한 것인지, 그리고 얼마나 판매하기 쉬운 것인지에 대해 스스로 결정하게 하세요. 장기적인 신뢰성과 단기적인 생존성 사이에서 선택할 수 있도록 하세요.
