"X number of people viewing "

[QueenClinomania]

Is this a new thing you're testing out?
It appears on active convos but only one thread, not all the threads. Does this mean nobody else is reading those threads at this moment or are you only testing it out on a few threads?

Very happy that viewer count seems to have disappeared from the website.

I agree they were much lower than I'd have thought! Unwise to continue, I feel.

If MN wants more new subscribers, I'd suggest they stop prioritising ad loading over content. If I weren't already addicted, there's no way I'd put up with its sluggish performance now; I'd just fuck off to another site that seems to want my engagement.

Very happy that viewer count seems to have disappeared from the website.

It is still there for me- I can only assume that there wasn't enough people to count when you visited.

Still there for me too.

It's incredibly annoying, and serves no purpose.

Very happy that viewer count seems to have disappeared from the website.

It's not gone unfortunately, chances are you just looked when all the threads had less than 20 viewers. Sometimes when I refresh active there's only one or two threads which actually show the counter.

Honestly a complete waste of time and a complete own goal for the site.

Thanks, everyone 😞 This was around 6pm - wouldn't have expected an echoing void early evening! Very much an own goal, in that case.

Yeah I'm not to keen either.

Ugh, I swear that was a typo. Not TOO keen!

I’m surprised MN wants advertisers to see how few people are viewing threads though - hundreds of views on a site this big is pretty dire. If it was thousands you could understand the appeal of doing it. Clearly engagement is down which is why they keep trying new things, like this and Justine’s vow to step up moderation to stamp out nastiness in posts.

I like it

Can you explain why you like it? It genuinely seems like pretty pointless clutter in my opinion.

I'm also curious to know why posters like it. Knowing there are 20+ people viewing a thread isn't exactly helpful information.

It's an online community, it's an online community of support and knowing other people are at that very moment doing the same as you makes it feel more real maybe. The live amount makes you feel more connected possibly I don't I just quite like it. I certainly can't see by anyone would dislike it.

Imagine someone with MH issues or struggling with abuse and seeing that only 5 people are reading their post, while 500 are reading a post about Meghan.

I imagine that knowing 5 actual real people care might be very reassuring.

I dint like it either. Entirely pointless.

Just additional clutter, which seems to be the way MN is going. I like a clean simple screen on a forum. I'm surprised how quiet MN is these days, but I wonder if a lot of posters left when they changed the boards to include all that original poster nonsense and turned the screen colours bright enough to be seen from space?

It doesn't show anyone cares though. Taking time to post a thoughtful response might show it, that's reassuring.

Oh they used to do this with clothes on the Sainsbury’s website. ‘12 people are looking at this now’ Why do I care how many people are looking at a jumper?!

Ok you asked me why I answered if you can't see any point of view but your own that's on you. It's a nice feature I like it, you don't let's agree to differ.

I certainly can't see by anyone would dislike it.

Have you read the thread? Plenty of posters have explained why they dislike it.

I appreciate that it helps you feel more connected to other posters, but I don't understand why knowing 20 other people are viewing a thread at the same time matters. Especially if none of those people are replying.

As for making the site feel more real, I would argue that it does the opposite. It highlights how few people are actually using the site. The viewing icon appears when 20 or more people are on the same thread, and there are a lot of threads that don't reach that threshold.

Well it seems to have gone now. I assume MN ditched it when they realised it just highlights how quiet the site is.
That's been an eye opener to me actually. And thinking about it, the site does seem quieter. You can look at active threads and come back hours later and it hasn't changed much.
I wonder what the viewing trend has been over the history of MN. I'd love to see a graph.
I get the feeling that MN has a lot of members but fewer people are posting.
I wonder if a lot of people have drifted away because of the constant barrage - years- of site problems, poor changes and annoying adverts.

For online sales, it’s usually a case of snap this up now or the other 12 people will! EBay have done this for years with their online auctions, gives out a sense of panic that if you don’t act quick you won’t get it. I have no idea how it benefits Mumsnet in any way.

I can still see it.

It's been really surprising for me to see how little people actually use mumsnet. I always just naturally assumed that there were thousands of people on here at any given time. The reality I've seen through the counter is its not even a few hundred of people and how many of these people could have multiple names/accounts?

The watching counter has certainly opened my eyes to the reality of mumsnet and the numbers we have seen in the past few days certainly don't match the hype.

Yes.
If it was me, and the numbers were this low, and I was wanting to seem like the site was more active, and I had no morals 😁 I'd at least change it to x number of people viewed this in the last hour, shortened to the eye sign, and the number, with the fact its the number viewed in the last hour buried somewhere in small print.