View Counter - Suggestion

[Kelikaku]

I note that a 'view counter' shows, in a tiny number to the right of the topic, the number of times a topic's been viewed.
Every time I refresh the topic, the counter increases. I have one suggestion (request):

The originator of the post currently increases the number of times viewed, even when the post has just been entered. My suggestion would be for the view counter, not to be incremented, when the originator of the topic views that post.

Can anyone think of a reason that the originator of a topic, viewing that topic, should affect that number? I do not consider it to be helpful to know how many times a user views his own topic. However, it is somewhat useful, to be able to see the number of times a topic has been viewed by other users. I should point out, that when the view counter reflects the number of times that a user clicks on his own topic, that distorts the value of the category, which is trying to show the number of times that the topic has been viewed. A user could intentionally, or unintentionally, click on his own topic, and increase the number of views, even when the user is the only person that had viewed the topic.

[coto.i]

I guess what you describe applies not only to the originator, but to any other user as well, in relation to any topic on the forum.

That number is pretty much meaningless if it can be manipulated like this, and it doesn't matter by whom.

Maybe it could be incremented only at the first access by each user, in order to reflect how many users viewed the topic?

[Corinnebelle]

Currently archiving, as such, I am sometimes going back and looking at posts many times. I have some posts of links to other posts which I keep adding to as I go along, I'm sure the counter is going way up!

[Kelikaku]

... number is pretty much meaningless if it can be manipulated like this ...

That didn't occur to me, but it is also, actually, the same issue. I was only noticing this after making a topic on this forum, and seeing the views increment, even though noone else had time to view it.

... it could be incremented only at the first access by each user, in order to reflect how many users viewed the topic?

Maybe. I might think that it would conceivably be limited to one view-increment per day, so that an individual user could increment the same topic's viewing number more than once. But then, your point about how many different users view a topic would not be reflected. Alternatively, there might be an optional setting in the preferences, for users to be able to see the number by individual views (by user), and "general views" that reflect the amount of traffic a topic is getting.

[Basler Biker]

The real counter would be "number of distinct aliases", no matter how many time the same person opens (i.e. not the same as "view" ) the post, maybe 20 times per day to "consult" and work with the contents

The system knows per post who has viewed it, because you have the "unread posts" option in the top-right menu.
So, as soon as this post is found "already viewed/read" by the user => then the view counter should not increment anymore for that user.