PBase Statistics page returns

[alangrant]

I generally find statistics more useful for looking at trends and patterns than for the absolute numbers. I'm not just talking about PBase here - I have another website and I know that I could drive myself mad if I worried about reconciling the stats I get from Google Analytics with those derived from the server logs. But I find that even when the numbers themselves differ a lot, they are usually consistent in indicating which pages are most popular, and in the trends over time.

There are a number of things that might explain some of the differences (although 1207 v 133) is larger than I've seen in my own stats:
- The Statcounter code doesn't get inserted into profile pages, so visits to this page definitely won't be counted in Statcounter. I think they may be counted in the PBase page views, although I'm not 100% sure.
- Some users may have Javascript turned off; they will be excluded from Statcounter but not from PBase stats.
- You can set a blocking cookie in Statcounter to exclude your own visits; according to reports on the forum these seem to be included in PBase stats even if you are logged in.
- If someone tries to access a deleted image in your galleries (which seems to happen me a lot), it won't be counted in Statcounter (as no page with javascript will be loaded), but it looks like it does count in the PBase stats.
- A single day may start and end at different times in the two sets of stats (of course this should have a neutral effect on average, but could cause a difference for any single day).
- Most search robots and other non-human sources probably aren't counted in Statcounter as they probably won't execute the javascript. The MAY be counted by PBase stats, but I don't know for sure. This is potentially a big one. Think of all the search engines (google, yahoo, bing etc, most of them with separate crawlers for image search and normal search) that have to regularly re-crawl all the sites they know about to make sure their indexes are up to date - which in the case of PBase potentially means checking every gallery and image page - it all adds up to a lot of activity. But as I say, I have no idea to what extent, if at all, PBase identifies and excludes non-human hits.

[larsjohnsson]

To all the fanboys who say PBase can do no wrong and doesn't have an obligation to provide quality of service to its paying members: I was once one of you. But I have broadened my horizons and found that there is life, very much life, beyond PBase.

To the "Morality Police": I couldn't give a hang what you think about mature content as you are obviously not our target audience. PBase should strive to accommodate ALL of its paying members. I don't see why they are cow-towing to puritans in the United States..

No one has said there are not still problems to be fixed, but bashing PBase administration and whining here insistently does not help resolve the problem.
PBase is worth the $23.00 a year I pay, a much better value and compared to Flickr the community is more mature and less chaotic, PBase indexes better too.
The filtering I think has to do with advertisers internationally they do not want nude pictures showing up with their ads next to them, other site use other methods.
I have said it before you can come to this forum and piss and moan and yell all you want at PBase and it only allows you to vent to the other whiners about PBase.
It is clear slug knows there are problems and is trying to fix them as quickly as possible without losing any of the 10 years of information and pictures.

But if you want to vent go forth, it is doing nothing to help solve the problems .... just saying ...

Be honest here. You don't have a clue about what Slug are thinking or doing.
And how can you say that people are whining ??? The website has not been working in the last 2½ months. And not everybody are paying $ 23 like you. Many people are paying a lot more. And the only part of Pbase that never will stop working is the part where Slug collect money.......he is really great in keeping that part in perfect condition year after year........

[fishit]

Be honest here. You don't have a clue about what Slug are thinking or doing.
And how can you say that people are whining ??? The website has not been working in the last 2½ months. And not everybody are paying $ 23 like you. Many people are paying a lot more. And the only part of Pbase that never will stop working is the part where Slug collect money.......he is really great in keeping that part in perfect condition year after year........

I had communication with Emily about another issue and got a update.
Lars do you really think slug and Emily do not care that the site is not running correctly?
Do you have a clue about what is going on?

If you are paying so much more then finding another site should be easy and less stressful for you.
If you are unhappy and I think you have expressed that ad nauseum then go else where, no one is stopping you.
There are problems, it has been expressed they are being worked on. I see no point in slamming the administration, it will do not good.
You either wait it out and enjoy what is working on the site and the community or make other plans, the berating and whining is tiresome.
Good luck to you what ever choice you make.

[mytmoss]

Fishit, its nice you got an update. Now how about the rest of us. What I slam them about is poor to pathetic communication. Is it so hard to take 5 minutes and post something? If they cared about us, they would let us know. And if they do care about us and their customer base is treated the way they do, maybe they need to take some time and take some customer service classes for dummies.

Mike

[fishit]

Fishit, its nice you got an update. Now how about the rest of us. What I slam them about is poor to pathetic communication. Is it so hard to take 5 minutes and post something? If they cared about us, they would let us know. And if they do care about us and their customer base is treated the way they do, maybe they need to take some time and take some customer service classes for dummies.

Mike

Mike my information was secondary to another event I had sent a email about to Emily.
The issue of all the current repairs to make the site work correctly was a priority and being worked on daily.
slug has admitted it was a weakness in his post. You have to trust he is doing everything he can as quickly as he can.

A update would be nice and it takes little time.
It is the after time remarks and questions that people want answered that takes time.
Time I would think most wisely spent on repairing and improving PBase.
It is what it is, lambasting slug's efforts do not do anything to improve the situation, imo.

[hmetal]

But if you want to vent go forth, it is doing nothing to help solve the problems .... just saying ...

I am actually quite a friendly person.

If you check back, I first responded with a very friendly although somewhat critical message, stating my opinion with a request for information. It wasn't until people responded with malice that I got irate. So, calling me a whiner when I was simply responding to some idiots bashing my photography is rather unfair and just adds fuel to the fire. But whatever.. I've come to expect it here. If you come here asking for resolutions to valid problems, especially when it comes down to content not suitable for 13 year olds, expect some idiot to come along and call it smut.

[hmetal]

Feel better now? To each his/her own. I sell via multi ways of marketing and have made some good money off search engines, sorry that has not worked for you.
People looking for a place or thing find my PBase site and look at it and buy pictures related to the search. In the past I provided prints off my printing service website.
I started looking for a site with print option included and found both smugmug and zenfolio as options, after reading and trying both it was clear smugmug had major advanatges.
PBase has always been for fun and work and not my main website for showing my photography, I use many sites to do that as well as some art shows and publications.

I understand PBase's short comings but I see the advantages to the PBase and the community, neither one of those things I have found else where are quite as good as here.
Having other more stable website locations just makes sense no matter what your marketing plan is with photography, if you are happy where you are at great, I am happy for you.
But to return here and to repeatedly beat a dead horse of your displeasure of the service here at PBase makes no real sense other than to allow you to vent your frustration and trash the owners.
You have made your choice you have moved your pictures and left behind notice where you have gone, why do you feel the need to harp on the current short comings of PBase after the fact makes no sense.
But if it makes you feel better, have at it while you enjoy your new home.

This is what bothers me. Someone like lars or myself raises valid concerns and asks for a simple reply from administrators and instead of the admins stepping in and cooling the waters, we get criticized by other site members. I know your reply is very friendly, Dennis. But I can tell you right now why this is a bad situation overall..

1. The number of people wanting resolution to the statistics problem is large so when someone comes along and minimizes our issues (not necessarily you, but those who don't care about it or those who *think* that it is working fine when the admins themselves admitted problems STILL exist), and the moderators and administrators let the status quo exist, it pretty much illustrates that there is not much concern by the admins to address them nor is there much concern in calming the community waters. Most of us have been friends or acquiaintances and commented on each others' photos at one time or another. PBase can easily fix this problem by making a schedule and then sticking to it, or at least giving us an update if the ETA is passed and say, "We're working on it but need another week, or two more weeks;" whatever it is that the programmers decide it will take to either fix the problems or implement feature X.

Before I became a professional photographer I was (and still am) a C, C++, PHP (and other historical processing languages such as Perl and sed/awk) software developer and have dabbled somewhat into Web 2.0 technologies. I know the development cycle quite well and have been involved from conception to delivery of software products (e.g. my most notable standalone product was CNet Amiga Bulletin Board software versions 4 and 5). This is why I have the experienced opinion that there is not enough communication. I know that unforseen programming issues can arise but I can also tell you that if our work overshot a milestone, I gave my customers/community a public update as once you surpass a milestone, everything beyond that has to shift. That's called being professional and courteous. It leads me to wonder if programming the site is a hobby for someone or if they are being paid.. Paid people should have certain expectations put upon them. I am not saying anything about the programmers' abilities, just asking informed questions and making educated statements. I may not be inside Slug's head nor the programmers' heads, but I do know how to develop, market and sell a successful software product, web-based or otherwise.

2. The PBase model works for you. I looked at your work and it, like mine and so many others, it is top notch. I'm happy your are getting sales. The model is *somewhat* working for me too as Google analytics tells me that 19.5% of traffic to my commercial website comes from PBase referral, but I am hoping to help Slug and Emily increase that it, by being vocal publically and attempting to keep them to their word.

My issue is that without the content filtering system, only those who either already know from BEFORE my gallery was removed from "public galleries" or people browing the member list sees the work of those who create artistic nudes. Not even those who WANT to see it can see it in public areas. The content filter would fix that. It can be as simple as Flickr's 3 state (safe, moderate, restricted) user-moderated flag system with periodic reviews or it can be as siple as a "work-safe" flag. PBase could make ALL parties happy by simply acting like professionals and giving us a timeframe for what they promised. In my humble opinion it is far from dead and I will continue to lobby for it. I'm sorry you see it as beating a dead horse. We don't have to become enemies and resort to insult when we disagree. Simply agree to disagree while letting the site owners know what it is we all want.

Is this where we all sing Kumbaya?

[larsjohnsson]

Be honest here. You don't have a clue about what Slug are thinking or doing.
And how can you say that people are whining ??? The website has not been working in the last 2½ months. And not everybody are paying $ 23 like you. Many people are paying a lot more. And the only part of Pbase that never will stop working is the part where Slug collect money.......he is really great in keeping that part in perfect condition year after year........

I had communication with Emily about another issue and got a update.
Lars do you really think slug and Emily do not care that the site is not running correctly?
Do you have a clue about what is going on?

If you are paying so much more then finding another site should be easy and less stressful for you.
If you are unhappy and I think you have expressed that ad nauseum then go else where, no one is stopping you.
There are problems, it has been expressed they are being worked on. I see no point in slamming the administration, it will do not good.
You either wait it out and enjoy what is working on the site and the community or make other plans, the berating and whining is tiresome.
Good luck to you what ever choice you make.

I also has communication with them a few weeks ago (just like you) One of the very few times they bother to reply on an e-mail. Then they wrote that the site would work in a few days. So you can see how much mine or your update from them are worth And it's not "slamming the administration" when complaining about something that has not been working in 2½ months. And you are a paying member. It's also not up to you to tell a lot of the people here that they should leave or stay. I still have 43 credits left here also. A fanboy like you will be very pleased with slug even if the site stopped working for many months or for ever. Nothing can change your view of how perfect Pbase or slug is.
I don't belive he can fix or repair the old statistic. It's just that he don't like to admit it. It will never come back. But the worst thing is that fanboys like you will make this place stop going forward and improve like it should do.Sorry to say that, but that is the worst threat here, not the people who complain and want improvements

[bracciodiferro]

Hi folks!
For three days of statistics page was blocked.
Today has begun to function again...
But on 4 December marks zero hits!
What happens, someone has lost data???
You can check too?
I have big doubts on the proper functioning of this system.
I also have serious doubts on the recovery of old data when the statistics were zero....
What do you think?
Thanks!
Paolo
http://www.paolopeggi.com

[akmc_in_au]

Hi folks!
For three days of statistics page was blocked.
Today has begun to function again...
But on 4 December marks zero hits!
What happens, someone has lost data???
You can check too?

Zero for me as well.

I have big doubts on the proper functioning of this system.

I don't; I'm pretty sure that it's nearly useless if it's tracking your own visits and 'bot visits as well. However as long as you don't leave huge footprints through your galleries then as the other Alan mentioned at least it's likely to show a trend even if the absolute numbers are rubbish.

I also have serious doubts on the recovery of old data when the statistics were zero....
What do you think?

Each previous time there's been a "gap" in the new system's numbers they've managed to pull the figures out... eventually. I suspect it'll happen this time as well in due course. However whether the new system's numbers will ever be integrated with the old ones is anyone's guess.

[ronsc]

I also have zero hits on December 4.
Count me among those who think PBase statistics will never again work properly.

Ron
http://www.ronwrightphotography.com

[ronsc]

I also have zero hits on December 4.
I suspect PBase statistics will never again work properly.

Ron
http://www.ronwrightphotography.com

[ronsc]

..

[ronsc]

Now you can't edit or delete your own comments? What next?

[fishit]

I also has communication with them a few weeks ago (just like you) One of the very few times they bother to reply on an e-mail. Then they wrote that the site would work in a few days. So you can see how much mine or your update from them are worth :) And it's not "slamming the administration" when complaining about something that has not been working in 2½ months. And you are a paying member. It's also not up to you to tell a lot of the people here that they should leave or stay. I still have 43 credits left here also. A fanboy like you will be very pleased with slug even if the site stopped working for many months or for ever. Nothing can change your view of how perfect Pbase or slug is.
I don't belive he can fix or repair the old statistic. It's just that he don't like to admit it. It will never come back. But the worst thing is that fanboys like you will make this place stop going forward and improve like it should do.Sorry to say that, but that is the worst threat here, not the people who complain and want improvements

lol lars you are a stitch, I hope you feel better now. "fanboys" now that is a mature way to refer to people who do not see the situation the same as you do.
I merely suggested if you do not like how things are being run here at PBase find another site that suits your needs.
Some of us do not feel as you seem to that the stats page has the importance you have put on it and how it is working.
But if you wish to piss and moan in this forum for the how ever long it takes slug to fix the problem feel free to vent out your frustrations.
If you really feel your whining and berating of the administration of PBase is productive to fixing the problem have at it, but it is getting infantile.