Hi all,
We've made some changes to the way photo views are counted and displayed. As of today:

1) Only distinct views are displayed in all pages.

2) Views are counted only once a day at midnight GMT. This means that newly approved photos will show a zero for the number of views until the system has processed and displayed the correct numbers.

3) All photo stats are now reflective of actual distinct views and not just plain "views". Before, each "view" was counted. Meaning if someone decided to refresh their browser a hundred times, then their total views was increased by 100. As of now, it will only be increased by one.

4) Like wise, "Most Popular Photos" are now displayed based on distinct views as well, and not just "views".

The database was cleaned up of all the extra clicks, and thus the numbers on the stats page dropped a bit for everyone. These changes should result in more accurate and consistent results for everyone as the numbers can no longer be skewed in any way.

Hi Walter,
Yes, that sounds about right. Of course it may vary a little from one member to another. Before the change, some stats were displaying simple views while others were displaying distinct views and made it a little confusing for everyone. The Most Popular Photos being one of them for example. This way, everything is displayed in distinct views and there shouldn't be any ambiguity in any part of the site. In my opinion, this is the fairest and most honest way as it takes out any bias towards one photo or photographer for that matter. We had one photo recently receive over 9,000 views in a matter of only a few minutes and it moved up to first place when viewing the most popular photos while it's distinct views was only around 300. With this system, we can avoid all those kinds of problems and any temptation for playing games, etc.

Sure, the stats drop maybe a little disheartening to some, but it's a more accurate number and will only go up from here. I know views are very important to some, and I'm sorry for what happened. I'm intending on looking forward and not back.

The views on the search results page can be refreshed more frequently so it doesn't show a "0" for many hours, and I'm working on that change right now. I know the zero doesn't look good there to be displayed for a long time.

You're welcome Walter.

I've actually just updated the scripts. The photo views will now update every 10 minutes. So the longest we'll see a zero will be 10 minutes. Hopefully that will make more than a few people happy.