HN Explorer

Ask HN: View Count for Submissions

1 points by specialist ↗ HN
Please show the number of views a submission has. Both clickthroughs to the submitted URL and views of HN pages (like this one).

In the absence of upvotes, view count is probably a nice proxy for reader's interest. I'm a poor voter. I expect others are as well.

Maybe stop counting views when a story becomes locked.

(Is this how to submit a feature request? This https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=363 thread is closed. And the FAQ doesn't give guidance. Apologies if I'm not doing this right.)

Edited for clarity.

4 comments

[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 18.3 ms ] thread
CarolineW
I don't know what you're asking for here. Are you asking how many click-throughs there are on a submitted link? Are you asking how many people view the HN page that has the submission on it?

What exactly are you asking for?

minimaxir
There is no benefit nor additional insight to a view counter over upvotes.
specialist
YouTube should remove views, game sites should omit times played, IMDB should remove revenue, Google Analytics et al should shutter their businesses (for lack of utility), etc.
minimaxir
The "for Hacker News" was implied.