This is a reference guide explaining how topic views, posts read, and reading time are tracked on Discourse.
Required user level: All users
Discourse provides insightful statistics on user activities such as read time, topics viewed, and posts read. This information can be accessed on the user’s profile page:
Topic views
Topic views represent the number of topics a user has clicked on. When a user clicks on a topic, it loads in their browser, and this is counted as a view. It’s important to note:
- Unread topics will have a blue dot next to them:
- Topic views are tracked once per user.
- Viewing a topic doesn’t necessarily indicate that all posts within the topic have been read by the user.
Posts read
Posts read indicate the number of posts a user has fully read. Here’s how it works:
- Unread posts will have a blue dot next to the timestamp they were created at.
- Once the blue dot disappears, Discourse counts the post as “read”.
Reading time
Discourse also tracks reading time for each post a user views. Here are some key points about how Discourse tracks this:
-
6 minutes: Maximum logged reading time per post each time a user views it before navigating away.
- No upper limit: A post can be read for days if the user keeps returning to the topic.
- 3 minutes: If no scrolling occurs in this duration, then reading time tracking is paused until scrolling resumes.
- 5 topics: Reading time is logged for up to five topics for anonymous users.
FAQs
If I open one topic with a lot of replies and scroll down quickly, will I have read all the posts in the topic?
No, Discourse requires a post to be on the screen for at least a few seconds before counting it as read. The exact time varies depending on the length of the post.
Additional resources:
Last edited by @hugh 2024-06-20T01:39:50Z
Last checked by @hugh 2024-06-19T06:51:42Z
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