I was just wondering, How do you views work in Scratch 2.0? Do views only increment if the page is brought up from a unique IP range, or does it increment views whenever the page is brought up like on YouTube? That's my question about Scratch 2.0. It would be great if you could answer, and Scratch On!

At least for now, I think it's 1 page load = 1 view.

We've settled on +1 view for each click of the green flag. It works nicely for embedded projects on other sites.

Of course, like everything, it can be gamed. But since there is no top viewed, there is less motivation for gaming it.

Lightnin
We've settled on +1 view for each click of the green flag. It works nicely for embedded projects on other sites.

Of course, like everything, it can be gamed. But since there is no top viewed, there is less motivation for gaming it.

Oh, no top viewed? Yay!

Lightnin
We've settled on +1 view for each click of the green flag. It works nicely for embedded projects on other sites.

Of course, like everything, it can be gamed. But since there is no top viewed, there is less motivation for gaming it.

now i bet there will be some people mashing the green flag to see who can amass the most views.

Wes64

Lightnin
We've settled on +1 view for each click of the green flag. It works nicely for embedded projects on other sites.

Of course, like everything, it can be gamed. But since there is no top viewed, there is less motivation for gaming it.

now i bet there will be some people mashing the green flag to see who can amass the most views.

That's always the case - some people like having super high numbers of things, even if the number doesn't mean anything.

NO TOP VIEWED?! D:

Lightnin
We've settled on +1 view for each click of the green flag. It works nicely for embedded projects on other sites.

Of course, like everything, it can be gamed. But since there is no top viewed, there is less motivation for gaming it.

Interesting - mind explaining the no-top viewed idea? I'm curious.

I personally enjoyed having the top viewed, but I understand that it may be better to remove it.

Wait. It's pretty easy to just jab the green flag a couple hundred times: what does a view even mean anymore? Though I understand views aren't really important, they are a great motivation, and a good way to track your progress on Scratch.

Most of all, though, it's gratifying to know that 900 different individuals have seen a project made by you. Anyone who has had a project curated or featured knows how it feels to know how many people have seen your code, and 900 is a big number of unique people (more than a whole school).

I don't see why you would change the system now. Clearly 2.0 projects will get many times more views than 1.x projects got, and it skews the scale of “popularity” of a project (for whatever it's worth). How will, for example, curators know whether or not to curate a project? (From my experience, you can have high-viewed projects with around 5-6 comments, which in itself is kind of interesting). I think removing top viewed is a great idea, and it will definitely help move the focus of Scratch towards, well, Scratch. But changing the view count system seems to have more negative points than positive.

A fair comparison might be replacing the number of tablet sales with the number of times that kind tablet has been booted. It ruins the statistics, and offers no helpful insight.

It is the green flag that you must click when you reload the page. That one. Not the tiny one at the top bar.

Still. When testing, I often refresh the page many times and press the big green flag each time: no biggie.

I personally enjoy the no top viewed: People click on projects, but may not like them. Even so, they get to the front page. However, you need to take the time to love-it to make sure it gets on the front page.

I completely agree: top viewed was a bad way to show off projects: the popular got more popular while the less popular didn't get as many chances. It widened the gap. I'm just saying, views should be the number of individual viewers, not the number of green flag clicks since it skews everything. Right now, I would say 0-50 views is un-popular project; 50-100 is ok; and anything above 100 is pretty popular. The new system would change all that.

Also, keep in mind, 100 people is a lot. Knowing 100 different people viewed your project should be pretty gratifying, and I think it isn't worth it to take it away from Scratchers.

Lightnin

Wes64

Lightnin
We've settled on +1 view for each click of the green flag. It works nicely for embedded projects on other sites.

Of course, like everything, it can be gamed. But since there is no top viewed, there is less motivation for gaming it.

now i bet there will be some people mashing the green flag to see who can amass the most views.

That's always the case - some people like having super high numbers of things, even if the number doesn't mean anything.

I kind of don't like this whole +1 per green flag click. The last version was just fine, why did you have to change it. It is also annoying because you won't ever get to see the real number of views.

Firedrake969
I personally enjoy the no top viewed: People click on projects, but may not like them. Even so, they get to the front page. However, you need to take the time to love-it to make sure it gets on the front page.

What projects you like are probably different than the projects that I like. If anything, the top remixed row should be removed because those projects have hardly any love its but a ton of remixes, which usually just meanss that it's a project that's encouraging people to remix. Plus, the Top Viewed is usually the reason people give projects love its anyways.

joletole

Lightnin

Wes64

Lightnin
We've settled on +1 view for each click of the green flag. It works nicely for embedded projects on other sites.

Of course, like everything, it can be gamed. But since there is no top viewed, there is less motivation for gaming it.

now i bet there will be some people mashing the green flag to see who can amass the most views.

That's always the case - some people like having super high numbers of things, even if the number doesn't mean anything.

I kind of don't like this whole +1 per green flag click. The last version was just fine, why did you have to change it. It is also annoying because you won't ever get to see the real number of views.

It's interesting to see that many Scratchers who are active on these forums find it very easy to criticize our decisions, or assume there is little thought behind them.

I'd love to spend all day explaining and justifying our decisions - but that would leave me with little time for anything else. So you guys are going to have to be patient, and trust us on some things. After all, at one point we did make some software that you really like, right? And gave it to you for free? Can we get a little patience?

So to add to this issue: the old site counts one view per IP that is used to view the project. That means entire school districts that view a project increment the view count by…. +1! (Most only have a single external IP address.) Did your mom and brother view your project at different times? (Or your friend's mom and brother?) Too bad - that's one view per IP.

We were cool with that for a while, but decided it would be better to have a more accurate count. And of course there will be some people who will click and click to their heart's content with the new system (but people can always game any system). However, all that clicking will win them very little. They can say they have a higher number than other people have, but that number won't really be used for all that much (no top loved, etc.). So we hope that those people will decide to spend their energy on other stuff, like making cool projects, and incrementing their view counts the olde fashioned way… by gettin' views.

But who knows? Might end up being a bad call - if that's the case, we'll change it. But let's not pretend that all these problems are simple, and have obvious answers. They're only simple until you dive into them.

p.s. Forgot to mention - we may end up incrementing on page unload - meaning you get +1 view added to the count when you leave the page. So you can still +1 to your hearts content, but you'll have to also reload the page each time. Still not sure about implementing that though… we'll see.

Lightnin

are you going to translate the current 1.4 views to this new formula? i know you've been experimenting with the formula or something as i was told there was a cause behind my increased views on 2.0.

Lightnin
It's interesting to see that many Scratchers who are active on these forums find it very easy to criticize our decisions, or assume there is little thought behind them.

Hey! I put a lot of thought into my criticism (two medium-sized posts' worth of thought), so please don't think I'm just ranting because I can. I thought we were encouraged to give constructive but kind criticism?

I'd love to spend all day explaining and justifying our decisions - but that would leave me with little time for anything else. So you guys are going to have to be patient, and trust us on some things. After all, at one point we did make some software that you really like, right? And gave it to you for free? Can we get a little patience?

Fair enough. But I'd like to point out that AFAIK YouTube counts 1 view per IP (as far as I remember, I'm not on YouTube). They put some thought into it, too, so maybe we could look into their system?

p.s. Forgot to mention - we may end up incrementing on page unload - meaning you get +1 view added to the count when you leave the page. So you can still +1 to your hearts content, but you'll have to also reload the page each time. Still not sure about implementing that though… we'll see.

Why not on load instead of unload (sorry if I'm missing something obvious here)? If someone's browser crashes or they lose internet or whatever, you don't get that view (ok, that's nitpicky, but it's a possibility).

Hardmath123
Fair enough. But I'd like to point out that AFAIK YouTube counts 1 view per IP (as far as I remember, I'm not on YouTube). They put some thought into it, too, so maybe we could look into their system?

We did look into their system, but that's not quite right - they aren't doing 1 view per IP. They're doing super-secret special sauce that they won't tell you how it works = 1 view.

From link above
“YouTube has sophisticated technology to count views consistently.”

That's Google speak for “We're not telling you because then you would use it to game us.”
The other thing is that they have an easier problem to solve in some ways. Most vids are probably a minute or so, but some Scratch projects start and finish almost instantaneously (Art projects, etc.) So it's trickier to do things like “Wait till at least 50% of the video is watched, and then count a valid view.”

Hardmath123

p.s. Forgot to mention - we may end up incrementing on page unload - meaning you get +1 view added to the count when you leave the page. So you can still +1 to your hearts content, but you'll have to also reload the page each time. Still not sure about implementing that though… we'll see.

Why not on load instead of unload (sorry if I'm missing something obvious here)? If someone's browser crashes or they lose internet or whatever, you don't get that view (ok, that's nitpicky, but it's a possibility).

Yep, would work out about the same I guess, and would probably be more robust. Actually, at one point we talked about only counting views when the “overlay” green flag is clicked (the overlay is the green flag thing you see over the project when you first browse to the page). I rather like that solution, and it works out about the same: +1 view if (page is newly loaded && green flag is clicked)

re: Tone - don't take that personally, it was meant to be more of a general statement about the tone in these forums. And we do welcome constructive, respectful, criticism. However some posts these days read like “I am outraged that you haven't done thing x to this free software you have developed and given to me freely when it's so clearly obvious that thing x is the right thing to do.”

When people use an arrogant and dismissive tone, it ends up discouraging ST members (and many other Scratchers) from reading the forums.

Lightnin
When people use an arrogant and dismissive tone, it ends up discouraging ST members (and many other Scratchers) from reading the forums.

if i have done this i apologize