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Feed Stats. We want them back.

  1. kevinsmith
    Member

    "Hopefully feed stats’ hiatus will help her rest up and be ready for return within a few months."

    This analogy is WEAK. Feed stats is not a person who needs rest, it is a piece of code that runs on a machine.

    The more I think about this the less sense it makes. The only sensible reason to retire feed stats is because it was costing WordPress.com more money than you guys were willing to commit to it, and the only way it was costing money was by being used.

    Time and again WordPress.com has bragged about how people really like its stats, and now we find out that feed stats are not used very frequently. I'm having a hard time buying this story.

    Well, if that's the case, they can't be costing much money and are only being used by people who find them valuable, and given the response here you might as well just go ahead and keep them as a feature.

    Furthermore, WordPress is on the vanguard of blogging and Web 2.0, and a major part of Web 2.0 is ... feeds!

    Give us back feed stats. We find them useful and we want them back.

  2. sulz
    Member

    i suggest you send this to feedback where it will be directly read by wp staff, as not all threads in the forum are monitored by staff.

  3. feartheseeds
    Member

    When did this happen? I just noticed this morning, and it was working fine yesterday. I've always found "Feed Stats" to be more useful than the "Blog Stats" as the "BS" only tell you when a post has been looked at by random people while the "FS" tells you how many people have actually gone through the trouble of adding your blog to their daily activites... if the "FS" were not being used as regularly as the "BS" it was most likely due to the "BS" being the default Stats Page and the "FS" being described as a "Beta Page" with no serious explanation as to what the "Feed Stats" were and how they were collected. There's a big hole on my Dashboard now and the fact there seems to have been no explanation as to why WP pulled something I consider to be important makes me a little nervous...

  4. kevinsmith
    Member

    Sulz, I did. I sent it to them via feedback before I put it here.

  5. kevinsmith
    Member

    Just got this in response to the first post in this thread (which I also sent to WP staff via Feedback) from Alex @ WordPress.com:

    Feed stats as implemented were inaccurate and caused technical problems with caching. We hope to replace it with something better in future.

    Kind regards,

    Alex

  6. caseyatherton
    Member

    I agree with the decision to take down Feed Stats. Many people did not understand or use that feature. Plus, Wordpress' Feed Stats were not very deep with data.

    I think Wordpress should allows bloggers to incorporate Feedburner into their blogs. That is the feed tracking service that many people use and that offers an immense amount of useful features.

  7. disembedded
    Member

    caseyatherton,

    It would be helpful for you to familiarize yourself more adequately with the actual facts of how Feedburner tracks feeds for WordPress.com blogs. While they provide a number of other good functions for use with WordPress.com blogs, they absolutely do NOT provide adequate tracking of feed stats. Feedburner's feed stat number is a totally inaccurate reflection of what actually occurs with a WordPress.com blog.

  8. timethief
    Member

    /nod to disembedded
    featherseeds, kevinsmith and caseyatherton
    Here is the official announcement link. You will find it on your dashboard. http://wordpress.com/blog/2007/06/13/retiring-feed-stats/
    This is a support forum and we do not discuss policy on this forum.

  9. disembedded
    Member

    :-)

  10. drmike
    Member

    Gotta admit that I wondered about the feed stats as well. When my main blog was here, I was averaging about 50-80 pulls a day. Since I've moved, I haven't been under 1k yet. (And that's from different IP addresses)

    I hate to think that they're that bad but...

  11. feartheseeds
    Member

    "...we do not discuss policy on this forum."

    Maybe you don't but we can.

  12. feartheseeds
    Member

    "Gotta admit that I wondered about the feed stats as well."

    This is what I don't get... fine, toss it away if it's so sucky, the last thing I need to be staring at is a number which doesn't represent anything in particular. But why keep the Feed Stats going for so long knowing they're so broken? I think what's really bugging me with this is WP convinced me the numbers were important enough to have their own page, and now I'm finding out that the numbers were totally fudged... and the pruning analogy.

    @Dr. Mike: "...I haven't been under 1k yet."

    Which stats counter are you using?

  13. drmike
    Member

    Sure if you want to stress the folks here trying to help others. Not sure why you're giving us problems instead of forwarding your complaint to those who need to hear it.

    All you're doing is causing more work for us volenteers here in the forums.

  14. timethief
    Member

    @ feartheseeds
    Apparently, you just don't get "it".
    (1) Staff have instructed Moderators and Volunteers to inform all other bloggers that we are not to discuss policy matters on the forum. Moderators can "delete" posts and threads that stray into policy matters.
    (2) The way you treat Volunteers on this forum establishes your reputation in the wordpress.com community. So far you appear to be striving to emulate a two year old throwing a temper tantrum, rather than a mature adult intent on problem solving.

  15. feartheseeds
    Member

    Like most two-year olds I'm looking for answers, that's all, and I came to this forum to see if anyone else was looking as well... . I posted a variation of a comment/question in a "tone" on three posts, Dr. Mike provided answers in a reasonable non-confrontational tone... if you want to delete my comments go crazy, but so far you've been the only volunteer to push back, and I had no idea who or what you were until a few minutes ago.

    As for some kind of "reputation" I have no idea what you're talking about... my two sites speak for themselves and are open forums for conversation. I've never randomly or maliciously attacked anyone on either.

    I believe all of my comments on this thread fit the original forum comments...

  16. drmike
    Member

    Staff have instructed Moderators and Volunteers to inform all other bloggers that we are not to discuss policy matters on the forum.

    Actually no, they didn't. I did. Considering what was occuring at the time, I decided that since we had a couple of folks who were debating policy where it really wouldn't have done any good and was just pissing folks off, (That and Matt came in, made one comment, never came back and made for more confusion.) it wasn't worth the trouble. I for one have better things to do and dealing with that mess isn't worth it.

    We'll state policy without issue. There's no problem with that.

    Let's just move on folks. Go watch south park or something. ;)

  17. kevinsmith
    Member

    Here is the official announcement link. You will find it on your dashboard. http://wordpress.com/blog/2007/06/13/retiring-feed-stats/

    Read it and commented on it. Unfortunately Matt closed comments on it after making the 200th comment himself and now no users are able to get a word in on that link, save via trackback. I imagine some people would still like to publicly voice their opinion about this matter in a centralized location. What place better than the WordPress.com forums?

    This is a support forum and we do not discuss policy on this forum.

    This thread's topic is "not a support question." Where do we discuss policy?

  18. clapso
    Member

    South Park? eeeeeeeewwwwwww

    I for one would rather be watching my feed stats grow. But, oops it looks like I can't now. I also sent a feedback about this. I think feed stats were a good thing to have and want them back.

    The scientifically impossible I do right away
    The spiritually miraculous takes a bit longer

  19. drmike
    Member

    Where do we discuss policy

    Your own blog and via feedback to staff.

  20. wank
    Inactive

    A blog entry with a trackback to the relevant news post has a much better chance of being seen by Matt than a forum thread. Still not a terribly high chance, but hey.

    I'm more intrigued by the addition of yet another secret staff member, to be honest. I see no 'Alex' on the Automattic site. Has Mark started outsourcing support without telling anyone? ;)

  21. kevinsmith
    Member

    I agree that on blogs and the feedback button are good places to discuss this issue, as was http://wordpress.com/blog/2007/06/13/retiring-feed-stats/ until Matt closed the comments on it. However, I'm having a hard time seeing what is wrong with discussing this here, in the forums, a centralized location. WordPress.com makes a decision that affects all of its users and we're not supposed to talk about it on the forums? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

  22. timethief
    Member

    @kevinsmith
    I'm assuming you want action to restore the flawed feed stats program and not just an opportunity to discuss this. That's why I'm having a hard time understanding why you don't write a blog post on the subject and, tag it with wordpress.com with a trackback to the announcement.

    As wank points out, blogging this is a far more effective way of getting staff and management attention than creating a fuss here will be. This is not to mention the fact that once blogged, the issue would be in the search engines and could even be submitted to digg and reddit.

    @wank
    It seems the last people to know what's going on are Volunteers answering questions on the forum. If you discover who the heck Alex is, please let us know.

  23. drmike
    Member

    @kevinsmith - It's simple. One of the forum moderators here has stated that this is not the place for policy discussions. Sorry if you don't understand that. As stated above, your options are via your own blog and feedback to staff.

    We would rather spend our time helping folks here with their questions and problems. We would rather not have to deal with rants and folks causing problems. By going on about something that you can't change, all you're doing is causing trouble for those folks trying to help out here.

    End of discussion.

  24. kevinsmith
    Member

    @timethief You're right that I want action. I would love to see feed stats restored, and even better, for WordPress.com to give the maintenance and development of feed stats a high priority. If only 20 or 30 people comment on this thread it will be pretty useless. However, if it got a couple hundred comments I think WP staff would take notice. I doubt that by blogging about this on my blog this issue could get that much attention. Even the 20 comments here is better than what I could probably manage on my blog. And the reason for this is partly due to location. These forums are a focal point for the WordPress.com community. When something happens that affects the community as a whole it is only natural, in my mind, to have a look in the forums about it. This is why I haven't written a blog post the subject and tagged it with wordpresss.com with a trackback to the announcement. I think it would be less effective than this thread could be if it gets a lot of comments. I'm still having a hard time see what's wrong with talking about this here.

  25. kevinsmith
    Member

    @drmike

    One of the forum moderators here has stated that this is not the place for policy discussions.

    Why?

  26. drmike
    Member

    @kevinsmith - It's simple. One of the forum moderators here has stated that this is not the place for policy discussions. Sorry if you don't understand that. As stated above, your options are via your own blog and feedback to staff.

    We would rather spend our time helping folks here with their questions and problems. We would rather not have to deal with rants and folks causing problems. By going on about something that you can't change, all you're doing is causing trouble for those folks trying to help out here.

    End of discussion.

  27. drmike
    Member

    @kevinsmith - You're causing trouble and pulling me away from those folks who I am trying to help. Please stop it. I'm trying to finish these last few questions I have and instead I'm dealing with you.

  28. kevinsmith
    Member

    It's a bit of a stretch to state that one thread on this topic in the forums is causing trouble. Furthermore, the topic of this thread is "not a support question." What does that mean if not that this thread is not a place that needs "those folks trying to help out here" to help out? Finally, if, for arguments sake, 10,000,000 people commented on this thread would this still be something "something that you can't change"? You are right, of course, in saying that I can't change it. But we, the user base, certainly can.

  29. drmike
    Member

    Closing thread and reporting abuse.

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