Hi, i helped getting an old mod going that reported on who viewed a POST but i had to uninstall it because it provided too much information.
i also run dougiefresh's mod to exclude view counts of the TOPICS (love that mod) !
i would like to see which MEMBERS (and a 'Guest' bin counter) viewed a particular topic (probably only practical for low-traffic sites like mine (but the other day, 35 GB was accessed, as reported by Linux Logwatch)).
i could try to write the mod but i am a busy thinking about the ethics of privacy as well as working on my experimental CentOS7 system running the most recent kernel (exploring Docker, chroot and deeply nested virtualization).
as ever, any input is welcome ... i like to know who reads what so i can later analyse what topics are of great interest and more importantly, to whom.
I doubt this would ever be a feature of SMF but I think this mod might do what you are looking for. (Not sure about guest views though)
It's not a free mod, but it should only cost a couple of dollars- https://www.smfsimple.com/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view;download=181
Looks like you can see who viewed a topic, how many times, and when- and it can be set so only admins see it.
I use this mod to great effect. No idea if it's the one causing you concern...
https://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=4060
In a large forum, this could get to be a Completely unwieldy display and a hugely expensive query...
Not to mention that it won't actually work. If I "mark all messages as read" then the system thinks that I have read everything and I would be reported as having read the message, even though I never even looked at it.
And the reverse is true... if I mark messages as unread, then I would not be listed, even if I have read the topic.
I would be concerned that guest stats would be distorted/randomized by crawlers.
"Viewed" is pretty sketchy... They may have clicked on it but found themselves disinterested when they got there. Participation via posting is the best indicator of real interest.
*ponders the replies*
thanks for your input