View counter : I can take a hint - eventually
The view counter gives me a disturbing and unpleasant realization. I don't need the few bucks and I haven't taken any out, I was really hoping for readership. Perhaps my fiction writing is not as good as others have led me to think. Backing away now, embarrassed and unhappy.
Thanks to those who did read, I will continue to use the archive so if you enjoyed it there will be follow up. Maybe there's more interest in other things I might write.
It doesn't show you the views of non-Steemit users. I know that some of my articles are showing up on Google when people search the topic, and a few have been shared by others on Facebook, etc. but I will never know how many outside views that I am getting as they are not logged in to Steemit.
Plus I know the counter is glitchy, at least for old posts. My first post 4 months ago got 24 votes and 7 unique people left comments ... but it only shows 1 view. Plus some of those people came back to the post to reply to comments. That is obviously a glitch.
Here's one of my old articles registering outside views. It was published before the view counter was put in place. It most likely said 1 view. This number of views keeps rising. It's not steemit members. How would they know to only go to this article and leave the others. I have a few more old articles that also seeing daily increases in views. I know they are outside views because I helped make this happen.
If a steemit member has already viewed the article and comes back for another look, it won't register as a second view.
The number of views in this screenshot should actually be higher. Since the view counter has been broken lately, it did not register every view this article received.
hmm... I asked someone before about this and he looked at the code for views and said it only registered Steemit members. So I wonder ...
Well, I've been trying to figure this out on my own. I told a few people one of my tricks and asked for feedback. I wrote articles about it for all to see. Offered proof. Maybe they are steemit members....skipping over all the same articles in my blog, always selecting the same ones? Doesn't that seem a bit fishy? Notice, I didn't offer a link to lure you to the article in the screenshot? I'm not tricking people. I'm using another platform. I can show you a screenshot much like this one next week once it hits 200-300 views.
It is unfortunate that people here are not reading as much as they should be. There's some good information out there.
Well, I hope you are right that outside views are counting.
I just went back and looked at some of my old posts, and see usually only 1 view, but there is another one with 5 views that I know someone posted a link to on their website, (so that is probably counting outside views since the view counter was installed) and I found another old one with 18 views (so maybe someone shared it on Facebook or Twitter and it got quite a few outside clicks.
So, you do appear to be right since most of my old ones have shown only 1 view but a few show more.
It would be nice if the Steemit counter showed Steem views & outside views separately.
I treat my stuff like a youtube video and assume it works the same way. If someone on facebook sees my work, that's a hit. If someone googles it, that's a hit. If it's linked somewhere, another hit. I'm not using facebook though. I tried at first, wasn't getting anywhere. I have two articles with over 120 views, both published before the view counter was put in place, both keep seeing about 20 more views per day. Whether I'm right or wrong, it doesn't matter. I wanted some of my stuff to be read and that is happening.
I don't know if it's intended to show any views previous to the release of the counter.
I don't think so. I think it starts on the day the view counter was released.
First, I agree there are not enough "readers". However, 2ndly, I would say I think that little eye, is buggy as heck. I get different numbers higher and lower though-out the day!
It can't be that buggy. I work on a post for five days, present it to over a hundred "followers", and get two views that aren't me but 81 votes? To me that means my fiction is not marketable for some reason. I mean, I've already got four view of this post.
I'll still write, because I enjoy doing it, I just can't pretend I'm getting readers anymore.
FWIW, I've never paid attention to it, but I just checked an article that my son wrote recently - after the view counter was implemented. I'm absolutely certain that at least 6 people read it (through steemit's web site) from 5 unique IP addresses, but the view counter shows 1.
Perhaps much of the reason that views are registering on this post may relate to the fact that you're getting comments. I first read it on steemdb.com, so it would not have counted me if I hadn't come here to comment. Also, maybe they have fixed some bugs that prevented earlier views from registering.
Anyway, in summary, I do agree that there is still a general problem with low readership, but I also think the view counter might be making it look worse than it actually is. And lastly, I wouldn't take it as a reflection on your own abilities. There aren't enough readers here yet to really draw those sorts of conclusions. I only recently started following you, but I did so because I was impressed by some of the comments you left on my son's Art of War review articles. Based on what I've seen, I'm fairly sure that your contributions will help to attract the readers that steemit needs.
Thanks for your time and comments. It means a lot to me.
Your post inspired me to write something...thank you!
This is something I've been thinking about recently. steemit offers incentives for authors and for curators, but what incentive is there for plain old-fashioned readers?
As of now, this leads to a site that's "top-heavy." Lots of people writing and ranking content, but few people actually viewing it (although personally, I do view a lot of content, trying to curate well.) Eventually, if the content is good, it should bring the readers, but as with many things in steemit-land, we have to be patient.
I think you are right.
And I have been guilty of scanning the last half of some of the really long posts. Because I read on my desktop my attention span is lower. If I read on my tablet I might be more inclined to read longer posts.
But that's why I try to keep most of my posts under a three minute read. Maybe that's too short for people to really become involved in the story. Hard to tell.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the view counter only counts things that are read through the steemit.com web site. Much of what I read is through steemdb.com, as I'm monitoring bot votes, or through an RSS reader. None of that would show up in the view counter.
I had not considered that, and I do often read through a third party app.
Right. I have no idea what the percentage is, but with all this content on the blockchain, there are innumerable ways to get to it. steemit can only count the ones that go through their web site. I guess the view counter is probably a good number to use for relative comparisons between posts, but as I think about it, I doubt if it's a very accurate measure of total views.
Nesting limit. Replying to this:
Possible, but I don't think so. I'm not sure how they'd differentiate between people viewing articles and miners/witnesses/apps synchronizing the blockchain data. Even if it does, many of the sites out there copy the blockchain into their own local database and what we view is just a copy. Those sites could keep their own view counts, but I don't think they'd be able to pass it back to the blockchain.
Unless the blockchain contains access data?
But, looking at this post itself, 18 voted, 19 viewed.
I haven't gotten near that in my fiction posts. That's a positive ratio. I believe most of my posts get a fractional ratio. more like 10 votes to one view.
I had heard that when posts were viewed through the eSteem app it didn't register the page views, which could add additional 'skewing' down. One other thing to remember is that there are many users to 'auto follow' votes through streemian/voting guild (like curie/steemguild.) Not saying these are good/bad, just another aspect of the vote to view ratio since one 'curator' can end up having dozens of autovotes follow.
Right, and I certainly appreciate and enjoy having those votes. I use a voter for when I can't be online too, and read the posts it voted for if I can.
There's really too much to read it all, and I can understand everyone not reading everything. That would be impossible. I'm just a little disappointed, I'm usually more upbeat than this.
Hey, my friend, I was dead serious when I told you that Spaceship of Theseus is the best Sci-Fi short I've read in years. It is one of the very few things I've ever re-steemed.😄😇😄
I seriously appreciated your comments too. I really don't have any doubts about my technical skills, I'm just starting to think my audience is not really here.
Well, that's the rub, isn't it?
Our "potential audience" is likely huge beyond our wildest dreams... The trick has always been finding and reaching them. If we could crack that nut, we'd be set for life. My observation has been that it's a matter of some combination of luck, timing, and dogged persistence.
I really wish you the best in finding your audience; I just hope you'll also keep publishing here on Steemit so I can continue to enjoy your work, and so that your work will continue to help Steemit grow. 😄
Well I started here just to store my work on the blockchain. I hateHateHATE having my work deleted. Fucking FaceBook....
Deep breath... So yeah, still going to publish, just not going to expect much of a response. No expectations, no disappointment.
Of course, now that I think about it, I've never written a fan letter to any of my favorite Sci-fi traditional authors. They don't know if I've read their work either, since I almost always read used paperbacks.
...what he said... (plus, library copies...)
Oh, and the Kindle freebies and 99-cent specials! ;)
might be a slow burner. i haven't had chance yet...
I might have had more info if the view counter had started sooner. I have gotten really good reception IRL, but real life can be dishonest kindness. Page views are the truth.
Well (false modesty aside) I regard myself as a solid critic of the creative written word. I've been trying to organise some Steemit literary prizes. Give me a few days and I'll give you my honest opinion.
And remember all those authors who died before their work received any notoriety. Immediate attention is not necessary for work to be of high quality....
I would appreciate your input.
Please link me to what I should read first!
Here's two very short reads (under 3 minutes each)
https://steemit.com/fiction/@baerdric/a-scattershot-future-history-as-a-collection-of-many-very-short-stories-emily
https://steemit.com/fiction/@baerdric/enmity-a-scattershot-future-history-as-a-collection-of-many-very-short-stories-they-were-the-enemy
There are posts of mine, the view count keeps increasing. I did mention one of my methods to you. You were told within this comment section that outside views don't register. It can't be a coincidence that only a few of my articles keep receiving views while the others float face down in the water. How would the steemit members know to only go to those articles and leave the rest?
I actually hope to get most of my reads from your proposal at this point.
Yeah, I don't see how/why a counter would bother to check where a read came from, it would take much more work to programs that in and then it would be a fault, not a feature.
The other platform I mentioned is slow going at first. Not everything I add there takes off. The few that are were liked by other members, so their followers now see. If one of those followers sees it and likes it, I'll start seeing 30-50 more views added to the counter per day rather than my usual 20.
Remember, I didn't even have any followers on that platform when I started using it. If I would have had followers, these view counts would be in the thousands. It's unfortunate that I won't get paid for this, but I'm like you in the sense that I want some of my stuff to be seen by a wider audience, not just die after one day. I don't put everything I write into that database, just the gold. Not everyone there likes it, oh well, at least people are finding it.
I'm completely onboard with building readership taking time. But seeing things voted on sight-unseen is disappointing. Like you point out, Steemit voters are unlikely to go back and read something more than a day old. It's both more exciting and more profitable to read things in the first 30 minutes.
I see the same problem with Patreon in a way, people want what you've just posted more than the body of work.
I have a theory. Certain elements have to be present in order for something to go viral. Look around social media. What goes viral? We have news stories, those have a good chance (and a massive corporation behind it pushing it along), we have memes (a current event, piece of pop culture and someones quick wit), we have videos (comedy, news again, certain forms of abuse with graphic scene warnings). We do not see short stories, informative articles, poems, etc by unknown authors going viral. If I'm able to pull this off by writing a ridiculous story with a strange twist and a punchline at the end combined with digital art, I'd be achieving the impossible. Stories in general are not the typical media that gets passed around. It's the quick and easy stuff people consume. It doesn't require effort to watch a video of a cop shooting a dog and people feel like they are not doing their part if they don't share it. A meme is a quick laugh and a quick share. The stuff we're all providing to the world on steemit is "new". Even if someone hit that "share to facebook" button for us, there's a strong chance it will stall because someone has to go through the "effort" of opening a link and reading. Many mobile devices won't even open our stuff if the person doesn't have a proper data package set up. There are million things working against us. Getting these hits is hard.
Well, I hold out hopes. I would like to think that some noticeable percentage of people still have an attention span beyond 3 minutes. But even movies only hold their attention by having millions of dollars in the budget and a team of 300 creators.
Well, I'm doing my thing. It seems to be working (but not every time, I need to do a better job of tagging and using categories on that site). Everyone else can keep scratching their heads. I tried my best and can't keep repeating it until people actually read my stuff. I'll speak when spoken to sort of thing, and offer help when I can. I've looked around. I have not seen anyone with more than 100 views on something published before the view counter came into play. I'm not 100% sure my tricks are woking or which tricks are doing the most or what's really going on, but when I take steps to do something and notice change and know others are not doing the same thing, I think that's enough to have confidence in my approach and know it's working.
The one thing I haven't done is record the current counts of posts I am highlighting for exterior views. I should go do that now. I think you are on to something, but I leave it for you to decide when and how to spread the word. Unless you want resteems... I got the feeling that you didn't.
I think steemdb.com shows the resteems and no, I've not received very many. I can pull up the likes page on my other blog, I can see which ones received a few likes by other members and I can see now how that correlates to more views here. ...also, I'm glad not many people read it anyway. The part about not filling up that service with crap was important to me. This avenue is more for the creative writers. I'll leave my blog style status update and steemit related stuff here and push my stories and art posts that way. I think you know what I mean. We all have the variety on our blogs here.
On the other site, my recent additions have hit a roadblock for some reason. It tells you how many hits you're getting over there.
I didn't know that, I'll have to check mine. I doubt there's any hits.
Yeah, zero hits. That thing is really a time and luck game, but by statistical law must eventually start producing results.
I learned early on in my posting days, do not look at the view counter!!!!
Maybe that's the best advice! LOL!
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