Where have all the followers gone?
Currently the number of posting views outstrip the comments by roughly 5 : 1. Seems an awful lot of interest with no opinions. Does anyone have any ideas of why this is and/or suggestions to improve this ratio.
Sid
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somehow discourage lurkers. not sure what the solution is..
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I think at this point, it would be useful if there was any indication as to where the viewers come from, i.e. members, non-members, suspicious elements (bots), Ai scrapers. etc.
Any light you can shed on this question @RainyDayMan?
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I think "views" probably includes both members and non-members just peering in from the internet. So, the number of "views" will always be substantially larger than the number of "comments" that can only be posted by members. In my opinion, it would be counterproductive for the site to "discourage lurkers" just peering in from the internet by, for example, making viewing of the site a member-only thing. I think it's by checking this place out from the outside that might lead someone to decide at some point to become a member. I know that was the case for me.
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@sidshovel I think part of the problem is when you hit the notification bell and go to 'Mark All Read' at the bottom of the menu, even after you've read all the comments in a particular Discussion, the 'Mark All Read' button doesn't work causing you to reopen the Discussion several times for no reason.
That's my take and hope it was helpful,
Renee
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@HoboSage - that's partially true. however, when I post lyrics.. there are initially 2 views, then suddenly it jumps to 4. Which means member(s) viewed but not commented. TBH, I did that originally, but no longer. there are artists here where I simply don't like the lyrics or music, so I stopped viewing them.
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@sidshovel There's no breakdown of View stats available via the software. My understanding is that every view of that page counts: members, non-members, bots, repeat visits.
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My own take on this is that a proportion of the views are bots scraping the comments to feed the Ai models that emulate human interactions, e.g. customer help agents on many websites.
Comments made by people on any kind of forum are ideal hunting grounds for Ai developers to feed into their models.
And just in case you think this is far fetched and delusional, it has already happened on this forum, a few times.
The bots were identified and removed without some members being aware they were having conversations with a bot.
Don't worry, there's none on here now, and hasn't been for a while, since the introduction of the new application process.
But that doesn't stop the tech bro's from scraping the current comments available via the public access.
My recommendation would be to make the comment sections member-only access, but I've no idea if that is even possible.
Just my thoughts,
Sid
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@sidshovel to get a better grip on AI and what's to come, over the weekend I watched two films on Netflix. "Subservience" and "AfrAId" so, I don't doubt anything you've said about AI its' capabilities. You know, they always show us what's to come in the way of predictive programming on the television. The Simpson's would be a prime example.
Rant over,
Renee
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An interesting question. Sorry, no answers/suggestions from me though!
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