# Last seen date updates with no other obvious activity (eg. posts read)
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/last-seen-date-updates-with-no-other-obvious-activity-eg-posts-read/39854
**Category:** Community Building
**Created:** [19 Febrero, 2016 15:21 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/last-seen-date-updates-with-no-other-obvious-activity-eg-posts-read/39854 "2016-02-19T15:21:08Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@mcwumbly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mcwumbly)
#### Post date: [19 Febrero, 2016 15:21 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/last-seen-date-updates-with-no-other-obvious-activity-eg-posts-read/39854/1 "2016-02-19T15:21:08Z")
I’ve been trying to get a glimpse into engagement of users by peeking at the admin/users page every now and then. (I may post a larger topic on this sometime soon).
One thing I’ve noticed is that the `last_seen_date` for a number of users updates occasionally without any other change in activity.
It bumps them to the top of that list, and then I have to kind of mentally filter them out as I’m looking for trends in behavior for people who have engaged recently…
What should I make of this?
Do they just have a tab open somewhere on the home page somewhere?
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### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [20 Febrero, 2016 17:15 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/last-seen-date-updates-with-no-other-obvious-activity-eg-posts-read/39854/2 "2016-02-20T17:15:09Z")
I guess they are just browsing the latest page and didn’t found anything interesting to jump in.
I have a **lot** of this in [my community](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-works/32891/2) (enterprise) and it’s tricky, but [normal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule_(Internet_culture)).
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### Author:  [@mcwumbly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mcwumbly)
#### Post date: [20 Febrero, 2016 17:17 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/last-seen-date-updates-with-no-other-obvious-activity-eg-posts-read/39854/3 "2016-02-20T17:17:12Z")
In that case, I feel like a missing metric might be something like `last_activity_date` or `last_post_date` which would only update when a post was read…
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### Author:  [@jomaxro](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jomaxro)
#### Post date: [21 Febrero, 2016 03:04 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/last-seen-date-updates-with-no-other-obvious-activity-eg-posts-read/39854/4 "2016-02-21T03:04:15Z")
I may very well be misunderstanding, but doesn’t `last_post_date` already exist?
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### Author:  [@mcwumbly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mcwumbly)
#### Post date: [21 Febrero, 2016 03:05 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/last-seen-date-updates-with-no-other-obvious-activity-eg-posts-read/39854/5 "2016-02-21T03:05:11Z")
That’s the time the user last _created_ a post.
I want to know when the user last _read_ any post on the site.
“Reading is Fundamental.”
And while reading time and number of posts read are reported the time the user last read a post is not reported.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [21 Febrero, 2016 03:12 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/last-seen-date-updates-with-no-other-obvious-activity-eg-posts-read/39854/6 "2016-02-21T03:12:29Z")
Read a post via email notification or on the site? And how do you tell the difference!
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### Author:  [@mcwumbly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mcwumbly)
#### Post date: [21 Febrero, 2016 03:14 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/last-seen-date-updates-with-no-other-obvious-activity-eg-posts-read/39854/7 "2016-02-21T03:14:56Z")
Don’t the number of posts read or reading time metrics suffer from the same issue? I think they still add value… no?
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [21 Febrero, 2016 03:59 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/last-seen-date-updates-with-no-other-obvious-activity-eg-posts-read/39854/8 "2016-02-21T03:59:29Z")
Posts read in last hour may be interesting, may be doable via [data explorer](https://meta.discourse.org/t/32566?silent=true)
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### Author:  [@mcwumbly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mcwumbly)
#### Post date: [21 Febrero, 2016 05:24 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/last-seen-date-updates-with-no-other-obvious-activity-eg-posts-read/39854/9 "2016-02-21T05:24:55Z")
OK, well regardless of the feature request hidden in here for another timestamp to be updated when a user reads a new post, I’m still curious - what currently triggers `last_seen_date` to be updated?
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### Author:  [@DeanMarkTaylor](https://meta.discourse.org/u/DeanMarkTaylor)
#### Post date: [4 Marzo, 2016 02:52 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/last-seen-date-updates-with-no-other-obvious-activity-eg-posts-read/39854/10 "2016-03-04T02:52:08Z")
> [@mcwumbly](#):
>
> I’m still curious - what currently triggers last\_seen\_date to be updated?
As far as I can tell…
Any request that requires user authentication (so pretty much all requests) has the ability to [update the `last_seen_at` value](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/0f7aaf5ab19f593416a0012f223e2f91e6cb0329/lib/auth/default_current_user_provider.rb#L46). There are some notes:
- Message bus polling requests are explicitly excluded.
- The users last known IP address is updated at the same time.
- Not updated if the user is suspended
- Not updated if the user is not “active” (i.e. not activated via email confirmation)
- Not updated more than once per minute.
- The actual update occurs via a background thread, so might not be immediate - but quickly done.
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### Author:  [@mcwumbly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mcwumbly)
#### Post date: [1 Mayo, 2016 06:53 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/last-seen-date-updates-with-no-other-obvious-activity-eg-posts-read/39854/11 "2016-05-01T06:53:41Z")
> [@sam](#):
>
> may be doable via [data explorer](https://meta.discourse.org/t/32566?silent=true)
Thanks!
I finally installed the [data explorer](https://meta.discourse.org/t/32566?silent=true) plugin and have been able to start getting better visibility into some of these engagement metrics I was looking for that have more to do with [reading activity](https://meta.discourse.org/t/active-readers-since-n-days-ago/275136).