I can't consistently get the views of a story

[8letters]

I was going to do another statistical analysis of stories. Today is seven days from my first pull of stories. A lot of the time, the stories have an Story Info box that looks like:


However, fairly often, the Story Info box looks like:

As far as I can tell, a story has the minimal information if it has not been favorited.

Any suggestions for how else I can get the views of a story? I think I have workarounds for ratings and number of comments.

 

[8letters]

For stories published on 6/23, the most common similar story is Solomon's Solution, also published on 6/23. Four stories have it as a similar story.

 

[SimonDoom]

What are you referring to? Can you provide a link to the stories in question? It's impossible to comment without knowing exactly what stories you are referring to.

 

[AlinaX]

I just went to New Erotic Stories and clicked on
https://www.literotica.com/s/starr-vs-the-emperor-of-space-pt-11

At first, all I saw was the word count, and then after a few seconds the icon for views appeared with a view count of 1.

 

[8letters]

Some sample stories that I can't get the views for:
https://www.literotica.com/s/abby-and-the-ceo-pt-02-ch-06
https://www.literotica.com/s/a-magical-night-ch-02
https://www.literotica.com/s/a-mate-to-howl-for-ch-06
https://www.literotica.com/s/andrea-and-scottie-pt-05
https://www.literotica.com/s/aristippus-ch-03-monday-digital

 

[tenyari]

Some sample stories that I can't get the views for:
https://www.literotica.com/s/abby-and-the-ceo-pt-02-ch-06

Other parts of that story are in my favorites list, so I just added that one as well to see what would happen.

In my list of favorite stories I do see it's rating, view count, and number of favorites. But I don't see this info on the story itself. For the chapter after it, I do see the info in both places. The chapter after it differs in that it has 2 comments as of my typing this.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I just went to New Erotic Stories and clicked on
https://www.literotica.com/s/starr-vs-the-emperor-of-space-pt-11

At first, all I saw was the word count, and then after a few seconds the icon for views appeared with a view count of 1.

That's exactly what I got, View count, 1.

For 8letters - what happens twenty-four hours later? Are all these new stories, just listed?

I wonder if this is another example of the different server refresh cycles, where metadata is updating at different times?

It's a question for Manu.

 

[RejectReality]

You could always try setting up an account specifically for this, and then opt-out of the new story pages so that you get the classic view. You can still opt out, because my Darkniciad account has the opt-out active, and I still get the classic pages when logged in as Dark.

 

[8letters]

For 8letters - what happens twenty-four hours later?

I don't know what happens twenty-four hours later. I tried getting the views today and noticed that some stories had no view information.

Are all these new stories, just listed?

The stories were all published seven days ago.

 

[SimonDoom]

Interesting. In each of those cases it appears that the total number of views is small. I wonder if there's a minimum level that much be reached before the data is reported. All the stories you cited are chapter stories, and they tend to have fewer views.

 

[PennameWombat]

I was going to do another statistical analysis of stories. Today is seven days from my first pull of stories. A lot of the time, the stories have an Story Info box that looks like:
View attachment 2158768

However, fairly often, the Story Info box looks like:
View attachment 2158769
As far as I can tell, a story has the minimal information if it has not been favorited.

Any suggestions for how else I can get the views of a story? I think I have workarounds for ratings and number of comments.

What the issue is, I can't answer as yet. But it isn't necessarily tied to a story being favorited or not. My story Hog in the Ground Day has a favorites count of zero but the ratings, views and number of comments icons are all there. At least, I can see them, I'm on the "new" view. It was published back in February, so it's not a new story, maybe timing has something to do with it.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Interesting. In each of those cases it appears that the total number of views is small. I wonder if there's a minimum level that much be reached before the data is reported. All the stories you cited are chapter stories, and they tend to have fewer views.

I'd pondered that - my last story (a second chapter) only has 750 Views, yet its metadata is all there in the story header. So it's a low threshold, if there is one.

There's definitely a data lag in the first 24 - 48 hours, but I've not examined it closely to know exactly what goes on.

 

[RejectReality]

Some sample stories that I can't get the views for:
https://www.literotica.com/s/abby-and-the-ceo-pt-02-ch-06
https://www.literotica.com/s/a-magical-night-ch-02
https://www.literotica.com/s/a-mate-to-howl-for-ch-06
https://www.literotica.com/s/andrea-and-scottie-pt-05
https://www.literotica.com/s/aristippus-ch-03-monday-digital

The views for those right now ( in order ) pulled from Classic view:

2724
2242
1524
1934
776

No issues nabbing them from there. You would have to scrape them from an account with the opt-out, because even if you use the classic.literotica.com url, it automatically redirects to the new view without the opt-out flag.

 

[8letters]

Interesting. In each of those cases it appears that the total number of views is small. I wonder if there's a minimum level that much be reached before the data is reported. All the stories you cited are chapter stories, and they tend to have fewer views.

The story with the lowest number of views that had a full Story Info box had 71 views.
https://www.literotica.com/s/marcie-and-leo-ch-17

 

[PennameWombat]

My Nude Day (Maggie and the Sailors) story posted last night, in E&V. According to my Dashboard... my Works view shows 2 favourites and 3.3k views, no votes, no comments. My Home view shows three readers having favorited it...

But if I go to the story (on new view) I get the same 'empty' view from the top posting in this thread. Only shows the word count, nothing about views or favourites. And I guess no one’s voted on it. I didn't expect huge numbers of votes, but zero seems odd.

 

[jsmiam]

... Any suggestions for how else I can get the views of a story? I think I have workarounds for ratings and number of comments.

I don't think this counts as doing anything untoward, so here goes... (I'll make all the scripting you do sound easy.. ;-) Thanks again for all you do!

Using this hyperlink as an example (https://search.literotica.com/?query=abby ceo), if you run a search for the story name (in my example I took a shortcut), the results show stats when you view it that way. So, extra coding/processing would be required to go off on the tangent to capture this, but it's theoretically possible.

• From the search results screen - score, votes, hearts, and whatever that last icon is... (Notepad? ;-)
  
• From viewing the story (no view counts/hearts/etc.)
  

 

[RejectReality]

I don't think this counts as doing anything untoward, so here goes... (I'll make all the scripting you do sound easy.. ;-) Thanks again for all you do!

Using this hyperlink as an example (https://search.literotica.com/?query=abby ceo), if you run a search for the story name (in my example I took a shortcut), the results show stats when you view it that way. So, extra coding/processing would be required to go off on the tangent to capture this, but it's theoretically possible.

I think it would be a little too imprecise for a scraper. The Lit search function isn't consistent enough even if you enter the full title. It would require too many conditionals to sort through the generated results and grab what you're looking for. Assuming this is a backup function for when the initial scrape fails to gather certain data, you would probably have sufficient data for those conditionals, but the chance you're still going to come up empty due to the search function would probably outweigh the effort involved.

 

[8letters]

I don't think this counts as doing anything untoward, so here goes... (I'll make all the scripting you do sound easy.. ;-) Thanks again for all you do!

Using this hyperlink as an example (https://search.literotica.com/?query=abby ceo), if you run a search for the story name (in my example I took a shortcut), the results show stats when you view it that way. So, extra coding/processing would be required to go off on the tangent to capture this, but it's theoretically possible.

That sounds promising.

 

[jsmiam]

I think it would be a little too imprecise for a scraper. The Lit search function isn't consistent enough even if you enter the full title. It would require too many conditionals to sort through the generated results and grab what you're looking for. Assuming this is a backup function for when the initial scrape fails to gather certain data, you would probably have sufficient data for those conditionals, but the chance you're still going to come up empty due to the search function would probably outweigh the effort involved.

I think eventually, the four or five or six scores converge. I’ve chosen to trust (of the many different possible scores) my account portals “works” score (1) mostly because even when the search (2), top lists-7 day (3), top lists-30 day (4), top lists-all time (5), or viewing the score while reading the story (6) scores are all different (it can happen), they seem to converge to match “my works” eventually when scores stop changing as voting slows down.

I *think* searches are second most accurate, but again, just my own anecdotal viewpoint. Either way, 8letters is picking something that varies no matter what since he can’t see anyone’s “works” portal but his own. Plus we just don’t know exactly which is the true truth.

It’s also possible (I haven’t tried hard enough to notice unpredictability in search results) that sorting by date might force it to be more predictable. (I have faith in @8letters.)

That sounds promising.

Hope it helps!

 

[jsmiam]

Btw. Under advanced search, there’s an option to search titles only. That adds a degree more control in searching for a story where you know the title.

I don’t see evidence of double quotes truly matching exact strings though. Case in point my own story Ole Betsy the Wingman, if I limit to titles only I’ll still find the story if I search for (with quotes) “Betsy wingman”, a string that doesn’t occur in the title or text. It (the double quoting) doesn’t appear to work anywhere as documented.

On the plus side (ba dom bin) The plus sign (exact word match MUST be found) and minus sign (exact word match must NOT be found) DO seem to work though.