Stats Classics: How to set?
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I saw the new stats page on the dashboard, but it’s not the same as the old stats page that got replaced. It has some of the stuff but not all of it.
Ah, there is the link, at the very bottom of the page. Like somebody put it there so you wouldn’t find it to support the notion that people no longer used it.
OK, while this is somewhat off topic, I really appreciate the help because WP help is HORRENDOUS, a bunch of threads that usually get closed before they are resolved. Who has time to parse hundreds of posts to find a simple answer? I would love to see a documentation system.
Okay, as long as they don’t deprecate the link or force the crappy new dashboard on me, I’ll be all set for a while. Thank you! -
This disaster can be summed up in three words.
“Too much scrolling”
Scrolling takes time and coordination … and the old format allowed you to see everything at a glance. Who ever thought this was an improvement must be working somewhere else. Certainly not behind a computer screen, at a keyboard trying to get everything to work smoothly and easily. It’s a disaster.
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The number of people who prefer the old stats and the old admin screen seems to be increasing. Certainly, I am not the sort of person to write in simply for the sake of writing in unless I feel strongly enough to do so. For example, I did not write in about the ‘beep, beep, boop’ or very blue stats even though they were annoying because they did not impinge too adversely on my blogging experience as I could simply ignore them, and, in the former instance, go straight to the old WP admin screen. Perhaps there are many more people who prefer the old stats and old admin screen but who have not made their views heard because they feel that they will not be listened to.
However, in collecting and collating the information about how many people prefer the NEW designs, could WordPress let us know how many people have written in to congratulate them on these changes and how many people would actually prefer those changes to stay?
Despite reassurances by WP that views on this forum are being taken into consideration, there seems to be an overall feeling amongst writers here that the call for a return to the original way of doing things is falling on deaf ears. Surely it would save time and money simply to revert to the original versions, with said savings being used to improve or develop other parts of WP as proposed by users?
If the WP tech guys or decision making team are using WP to blog too, perhaps they can then compare their experiences of using the platform with those of bloggers out there, discussing and understanding what else may or may not be conducive to the blogging experience. As it is, there is a feeling that the tech guys and decision makers are sitting in an enclosed room away from the bloggers, whilst someone from the WP team is being sent to gather information which may or may not be heard or considered by the tech or decision-making team. Thus, the information that bloggers are trying to send to the decision-making team is reaching them second-hand or perhaps even third-hand, which means that the team cannot personally judge for themselves how frustrated bloggers feel about certain changes that impinge on their blogging experience. It would be good if someone from the decision making team or tech team joins the conversation.
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Just thought I would add my 2 cents on this; WordPress seems to think there is some silent majority out there that likes the new stats. The new stats stink. It is like they were made for child or someone visually challenged, which may be a desired option for some. The old stats page is much more useful having more information per square inch of screen space and where I can assimilate that information at a glance. The new stats requires excessive scrolling and one cannot assimilate that information with the same mental efficiency.
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The new stats page is unhelpful.
I want a quick overview- which is why the better “old” stats page worked so well.
I don’t want to scroll down for information if I can have it in one glance. Why on earth would you want to force people to scroll down anyway?
They “love positive and productive” discussions.
Postive: the stats page was great. Quick overview is awesome.
Productive: the changed stats page is
– unhelpful and serves no purpose as far as I can see.
– No logic to it.
– And you can’t even drag the information you want most to the top. -
The new stats page is unhelpful.
I want a quick overview- which is why the better “old” stats page worked so well.
I don’t want to scroll down for information if I can have it in one glance. Why on earth would you want to force people to scroll down anyway?
They “love positive and productive” discussions.
Postive: the stats page was great. Quick overview is awesome.
Productive: the changed stats page is
– unhelpful and serves no purpose as far as I can see.
– No logic to it.
– And you can’t even drag the information you want most to the top.My page: http://www.poetryisjustawesome.com
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I am willing to PAY up to 20$ a year to get “back” a stats page that allows me to see in ONE glance:
– what countries my readers come from
– which poems/posts they looked at
– which search terms they used
– which tags are successfulSo a stats page LIKE the old one.
Why?
Because of the specific information that is helpful for MY blog.I take a quick screenshot at the end of the day and I can visually follow the changes in what people are reading and where during the day. Because I have a blog that is very specific, I can see what news/political happenings/cultural days influence my (small) readership.
yes: you *could* do that with the “new” stats page, but you would have to put three or four screenshots together in *photoshop* to get the same quick visual overview and wealth of information.
– Information is there to give meaning. I think we can agree on that.
– meaning follows from our interpretation of the data.
– the information I pull from an Overview-type Stats page is (for me!) more helpful, quicker and more fruitful. Because it is so close together: in one screen view!Just give back the parts that work. I will pay for it.
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I am yet another user who is very angry at the new stats page, for all the reasons outlined by others in this thread: especially, less information on the screen at a time, forcing me to scroll up and down instead of being able to compare quickly. A third of the new screen is taken up with the left-hand menu, for crying out loud!
The old stats page also superimposed a “visitors” chart over the “views” chart so at a glance I could see how likely it was that visitors looked at more than one page, which I found incredibly useful. This is absent on the new stats page.
I want an “at a glance” overview of my stats, and then only dig deeper if something catches my attention. Having to scroll up and down ruins this for me, and means I can’t see what might be of most interest.
I am sure the new stats page is great on a phone, but that’s no reason to deny the excellent utility of the “classic” stats to people who use desktops, laptops or other “big screen” devices. The change is hugely disruptive to my way of working on my blog and very frustrating.
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The old stats page also superimposed a “visitors” chart over the “views” chart so at a glance I could see how likely it was that visitors looked at more than one page, which I found incredibly useful. This is absent on the new stats page.
Not only this, you could also hover with the mouse over one of the bars to the the more precise numbers of that bar. Not even this is possible with the new stats. The new stats page lacks of so many things.
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What a tool! I’m referring to the new Stats page, of course. ;-)
My take on all this — if any of you are interested in my 2 cents — is as follows: since I am not in control of this process, and since the interest in feedback from the customer base seems to be pro forma to this company, I’m simply going to ignore whatever changes they make, and continue with work-arounds, such as using ~/my-stats etc.
I personally would not run my business this way, but then again, I am not in charge here.
If the changes become too annoying (they of course already are irritating, due to the inherent clumsiness of the new UI design) or if things like Google analytics and Adwords buys and fully functional HTLM5 and CSS3 all become that important to the success of my start-up venture (which is a B&M, this means I pay actual rent and utilities!), I shall simply move on to another platform.
For example, if I decide to invest in an online shopping cart presence — it’s adios WP.com. This is currently under evaluation, as my own business environment grows and changes.
Was the sudden closing of a thread (one I started, if you might remember) that was getting tons of comments puzzling if not high handed?
Of course. But as the owner of a modest sized business, I have to leave my ego at the door.
Does any of this really matter to me in the scheme of things (ie, from a biz viewpoint)? Do I really care about improving it (the Stats page) and devoting my limited time (as a sole proprietor, there are only so many hours in the day!) — time I could use to grow my business — giving detailed feedback to Automattic?
Not really. The technical and UI inferiority of the new design is obvious to anyone who doesn’t have career skin in the game. But I’m indifferent, as I don’t work for Matt.
If and when Automattic has its IPO. or is acquired, I won’t be seeing a dime. Neither will you. So thank you very much, Automattic, for offering a low cost solution, and hello Blogger if future changes become too annoying, or there are other compelling reasons to move.
To repeat my point, I have to choose my battles, as my time is not free. I am not in the business of long form blogging. What I do is not a hobby. I use WP to display presumably attractive images of the things I sell in my store, but also to show off interesting pics (usually beach and wildlife related) about the locale of my store, which is in a beautiful part of the country.
To my business, WP is more like a low cost calling card. It does provide a tiny and indirect revenue stream to my business, from time to time. But I mainly keep this blog (or catablog, as I call it) active it for the enjoyment of my customers, and to have fun, when I have the time to take a zillion digital pics (then choose the best ones), edit them with Gimp, come up with some clever CSS to make them stand out visually, make sure this custom CSS works on the browsers I care about, and of course write the copy.
But it would take the revenue of years of posts to pay for even 1 month of my run rate, so I’m not losing any sleep over the Stats page changes, or any other admin page layout all that might be in the offing.
In my experience, WP does not generate — to a business owner such as myself — on a per blog basis sufficient traffic to worry all that much about the Stats page.
Perhaps your experience is different, in that regard.
So… massive changes to the Stats page?
Does it really matter?
Cheers.
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I too would be willing to pay to go back to the classic stats page – the new one lacks key information, and just mangles something that used to work well. Please, please restore the old one.
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@nickpmacdonald
I am not willing to pay for stats!I am a desktop computer user. I do not use my IPad to post to my blog and wouldn’t even consider using a teeny, tiny mobile because I don’t post nothing but instagrtam embeds, reblogs, images and the stuff that many think constitutes publishing a blog post. I actually write and publish quality content when I am not angry and I am very angry now so I am not publishing at all.
To be clear I do not begrudge mobile users (CISCO reports there are more of them on the planet than those who own toothbrushes) their own scroll and click, and scroll and click, toilet paper roll stats pages styling. Let ’em have it.
That said it’s clearly time to setup a BETA testing opt in for WordPress.COM bloggers who want to have that kind of frustrating roller coaster blogging experience and to stop treating all of us as if we are witless guinea pigs.
I am a paying customer using a desktop computer and I get what I paid for (domain mapping and no-upgrades).
Pay for stats! In pig’s eye. I clearly expect to be able to have the full array of stats depicted on the classic stats page now and and in the future. I also expect to see some stats enhnacement ie. I expect to get all of the same information other bloggers get from Google Analytics, and I want to that enhancement happen sooner not later.
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Ditto to timethief’s comment. I am not going to pay for the old Stats page.
I wrote on another thread asking specifically if WP is going to keep the “classic” Stats page and have not heard back. https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/upgraded-stats-and-changes-to-wp-interface?replies=7#post-2197614
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@dandelionsalad
I am still peeved off about Quantcast stats being removed last January and not replaced with anything that was as useful. -
I don’t have time to read all of these posts, but I gather the idea is the new page is more mobile friendly. As a developer I certainly understand mobile first (although I’m clearly not writing my 5000 word posts on a phone). However in the mobile first world, you are supposed to enrich the experience as the platform enriches, not force the mobile experience on desktop users. I think that it is the issue somebody forgot.
Although as a social experience, there has to be a name for changing a UI experience for the worse. Yahoo has done this not once but successively over multiple iterations. And, it’s not just a matter of people not liking it because they are not used to it. People here have very clearly stated good objective reasons why the old design was better. (Including one feature, the user overlay that I always wanted and never knew was there, now I have to sort through another endless batch of threads to figure out how that worked.) -
jontobey, what is the user overlay that you mentioned?
timethief, not sure what the Quantcast stats were? Wasn’t that something that WP used?
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Are there any stats available about the ratio of bloggers who blog on PCs compared to phones?
Was there actually something indicating a demand for a phone-friendly layout, to the extent that it was considered worth annoying all those who don’t use a phone?
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As with almost everyone else commenting on this thread, I am extremely unhappy with the new stats page. As has been pointed out ad nauseam, more information is available at a glance on the old page and endless scrolling is a huge PITA. I was not surprised to see all the bugs that have been reported on the new page functionality, given the immediately apparent deficiencies.
My main feature request for the new stats page is that you add auto detection of the user’s form factor and serve an appropriately designed page accordingly. The new page looks ridiculous on my Apple Thunderbolt widescreen monitor. Or better yet, add a feature that allows the user to choose their layout preference.
I am a software developer as well as a writer, so I am not adverse to positive change or bothered by learning new software. I am, however, extremely busy and don’t have the patience for the endless scrolling and inferior design. I will continue to use the old stats page, which I’ve added to my toolbar, until such time as the new stats page meets my requirements.
If the old stats page is removed before the new one is acceptable, I’ll start shopping for a new blog platform.
Thanks for listening. I’d be happy to beta test your new page.
(email visible only to moderators and staff) -
Why has the black drop down menu lost it’s links to my Blogs and there Admin Pages ?
Why
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