Explanation of the number next to the link

Site discussion
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1

What does the number next to the link in the post mean?

Is it the number of people who clicked on the link?

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s771Ă—161 17.4 KB

In my case, only 2 people clicked Silesia?

Does Incognito mode interfere with the counting?

2

Yes.
But I don’t know if cookie- and other blocker add-ins in our browsers can prevent this counter from increasing.

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3

You can middle-click to bypass JavaScript and not increment.

4

You can’t trust anyone anymore. :wink:

5

I middle clicked on it do that makes it at least three 3 :stuck_out_tongue:

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@regagain

Thank you. You are a good person.

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@chaban look.

Mine, yours and sound&vision.

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v537Ă—126 13.2 KB

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@Freso

I think at the beginning of metabrainz discourse it was decided to disable the link click tracker.

The meaning of not understood by users, its value is nil and it is kind of clutter to the post reading.

Isn’t it? :wink:

Or has recently reappeared, probably without intent, due to some updates.

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10

Trackers are a little creepy, but some people like stats. I don’t remember the number being visible before, but in the “badges” section of your user account on this forum there is a “popular link” badge.

I assume these stats are only kept on this forum and don’t make it back to Discourse or anywhere else. MB are not the kinda people who will be selling our data.

11

From link of chaban:

  • Intelligent tracking: The click counter tracks clicks from other users but ignores clicks from the user who posted the link. Each user’s click is only counted once.

I click Silesian language.

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21367Ă—581 93.1 KB

12

You can certainly create several e-mail accounts using the BAT file and use a cunning script to cheat the system. :wink:

13

Yes, the stats have been counted (see also the top links at the top of the big topics).
Why not, it’s cool.

But the click counter next to each link in all posts, looks very distracting and useless… to me. :wink:

I think, writing posts is not a contest of who’s got the best link.

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14

Does left-clicking on a link always open a new tab or window?

In this case, there is no need to right-click and “Open in new tab”.

Edit:

IMHO external links (leading to other pages) should automatically open in new tabs.

I don’t know about internal links, e.g. when entering a Disc ID. Will clicking “Back” cause the form data to be lost?

15

More and more programs, more and more loopholes …

Who will keep an eye on it? :wink:

16

Only if you have enabled the following option and only for links that are considered external:

https://community.metabrainz.org/my/preferences/interface
Open all external links in a new tab

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17

Many useful functions.

But you have to read it carefully and look everywhere, just like in a legal contract. :wink:

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18

Ugh! I hate this practice. I’m aware that it’s commonplace, but I’m convinced that it’s driven by (at least originally) a “we need to maximize ad views, and we can’t risk anyone leaving our site” perspective.

Now I’m aware that musicbrainz is trying to make our site easier to use, and I support that, but I think that “right-click for link in another tab” is simple enough that we don’t need to infantilize users.

TLDR: I like the current behaviour where it’s an option that is turned off by default.

19

I have enabled it, as a user, I like it, FWIW. :wink:

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@bsammon

But without right-click at least it wouldn’t be cheated “the link click tracker”. :wink: