Total Views Count - Update
Tomorrow will be the first time I've posted stats from my Total Views Count script since January. I had some problems with the script breaking and losing the data, then was very busy throughout February/March since I was at Instructables HQ as an Artist in Residence, then when I got home to the UK I didn't have the motivation to fix it.
Well, I've now started work on it again and last Friday I ran it for the first time since January. Tomorrow I'll be running it again and will have a gain value for each group member to share with everyone.
It's still not completely finished, below is a description of how it worked before, how I've changed it and what I'm going to change further. Skip to the last bit if you want to read what the group's going to change into.
Where it was:
I used to run the group once per week by opening a Perl script on my desktop computer. The script automatically visited each of your profiles and added the total views count to a new column in a spreadsheet. Instructables updated some code, my script got confused, didn't update the spreadsheet properly and so all the data went screwy. I had to then post a forum topic and hand out patches, it took a long time.
Where it is now:
I've rewritten the Perl script, it now saves the data to a MySQL database instead of a spreadsheet. It also gathers far more data: total views, number of instructables, comments total, best answers total, number of forum topics, number of subscribers. I have a web page that looks up the total views from that database and displays a list I can copy to a forum topic. I still have to run it manually like before but it's much less hassle.
Where it's going:
I have spent a few hours working on learning to get Perl scripts working on my personal website. I can now automatically run them once per day, which I didn't know how to do. I now need to:
If you're arty and want to help out with this bit, please volunteer, it'll save me some time and they'll look prettier. The cartoons Caitlinsdad did for the total views patches were fantastic, but last time I asked he was too busy to design more.
4) Implement automatic sending out of all of the types of patches
5) Change the name of the group to reflect that it no longer really is just to show a list of total views. That's been surpassed when HQ added the baseball cards to profiles. Got a suggestion? Once done, the weekly forum topic that I post will become a pretty list of who's been awarded what patches.
Let me know in the comments if you've got feature ideas you'd like to see implemented or want to help out. This group's been going 2 years now!
Thanks!
James
Well, I've now started work on it again and last Friday I ran it for the first time since January. Tomorrow I'll be running it again and will have a gain value for each group member to share with everyone.
It's still not completely finished, below is a description of how it worked before, how I've changed it and what I'm going to change further. Skip to the last bit if you want to read what the group's going to change into.
Where it was:
I used to run the group once per week by opening a Perl script on my desktop computer. The script automatically visited each of your profiles and added the total views count to a new column in a spreadsheet. Instructables updated some code, my script got confused, didn't update the spreadsheet properly and so all the data went screwy. I had to then post a forum topic and hand out patches, it took a long time.
Where it is now:
I've rewritten the Perl script, it now saves the data to a MySQL database instead of a spreadsheet. It also gathers far more data: total views, number of instructables, comments total, best answers total, number of forum topics, number of subscribers. I have a web page that looks up the total views from that database and displays a list I can copy to a forum topic. I still have to run it manually like before but it's much less hassle.
Where it's going:
I have spent a few hours working on learning to get Perl scripts working on my personal website. I can now automatically run them once per day, which I didn't know how to do. I now need to:
1) Check that the total views script will run daily
2) Write functionality to patch automatically
3) Design more patches! Once I have total views patches sending automatically I would like to award people for the following:
2) Write functionality to patch automatically
3) Design more patches! Once I have total views patches sending automatically I would like to award people for the following:
Total Views: 10k, 25k, 50k, 100k, 250k, 500k, 1m
Subscribers: 10, 25, 50, 100, 250, 500, 1000
Answers: 10, 25, 50, 100, 250, 500, 1000
Best Answers: 1, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500
Instructables: 1, 5, 10, 25, 50, 75, 100, 200
Comments: 50, 100, 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 3000
Subscriptions: The newest site update now lets me see how many people YOU'VE subscribed to. The more you subscribe to. You'll earn patches for more subscriptions.
Subscribers: 10, 25, 50, 100, 250, 500, 1000
Answers: 10, 25, 50, 100, 250, 500, 1000
Best Answers: 1, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500
Instructables: 1, 5, 10, 25, 50, 75, 100, 200
Comments: 50, 100, 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 3000
Subscriptions: The newest site update now lets me see how many people YOU'VE subscribed to. The more you subscribe to. You'll earn patches for more subscriptions.
If you're arty and want to help out with this bit, please volunteer, it'll save me some time and they'll look prettier. The cartoons Caitlinsdad did for the total views patches were fantastic, but last time I asked he was too busy to design more.
4) Implement automatic sending out of all of the types of patches
5) Change the name of the group to reflect that it no longer really is just to show a list of total views. That's been surpassed when HQ added the baseball cards to profiles. Got a suggestion? Once done, the weekly forum topic that I post will become a pretty list of who's been awarded what patches.
Let me know in the comments if you've got feature ideas you'd like to see implemented or want to help out. This group's been going 2 years now!
Thanks!
James
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http://irssistible.appspot.com/scoreboard/
perhaps more fun, the leaderboard (Top 100)
http://irssistible.appspot.com/leaderboard/
don't see your name?
http://irssistible.appspot.com
enter it in the bar and you'll be on the board
in a few days you'll be able to look at your chart, here is mikeasaurus
mikeasaurus
(if your chart doesn't display yet, it is because there is not enough data on you, wait a couple of days)
rss for member stats only so far, rss for scoreboard cooming soon.
Probably still throws the occasional error, if it does, my apologies.
I started putting together an app that collects a lot of this data.
I am sending you an e-mail shortly with the code. You can open an account and build/fix/improve it from there.
You have a lot of support and encouragement, where as I do not.
I'd put it up on the git, but don't know how. Cheers.
http://irssistible.appspot.com
Were you having problems with the amount of traffic google allowed you for free? If so I could host it on my site and get you ftp access or something so you can carry on. You made loads of good progress and I think our stuff is still fairly different. Yours is more looking at users' stats whereas mine's trending towards a community patch program.
I have virtually no visits. My goal is to have rss output for the things (stats) people might want for their projects or webpages, at the same time I am tracking other data such as total views and a scoreboard and a movie of total-views over time.
mikeasaurus over time (3 days)
I am harvesteting and storing most of the data you mentioned for myself....but you can see that in the code.
Take out the if user is fjordcarver and you are harvesting everyone in the list.
A little tweeking to how the data is stored to reduce the number of writes and you are probably good to a couple of hundred users on a free google account.
I actually thought the two were very similiar. We are tracking the same things, If I had a stocked account, i could give patches easily too..another good easy patch to calculate for would be views for an ible in a day 1 hundred -> and so on, only once for each ible and patch mind you, not every time. 'You cracked a hundred views daily for "
Anyways, sorry that you are no longer interested in putting the two together. You have my site, feel free to build on it, it is mighty fast at harvesting the data.
http://irssistible.appspot.com
hopefully he can do something positive with it.
I know there was a who gained the most bit in view numbers bit most weeks - the percent one was kind of irrelevant since people with only a few views could have insane gains and people with a lot had barely perceptible percentages...
Have you talked to this chap?