User Stats for Community Members

Who does a good job at this?

[lorenzinho2]

As webmasters, we know that stats are addictive. If you're like me, you're checking your stats at least several times an hour.

Come to think of it, this is exactly how I want my site's users to behave. I want them constantly coming back to the site. Why can't they be coming back to check stats of some kind?

Depending on your site, stats can be earnings, profile views, pokes, recogntion, discussion generated, reputation indicators, etc, etc, etc.

What are some sites that you've seen that do a good job at this?

What are some things you would keep in mind to build the ultimate user stats panel?

Here's some of mine:

- Refresh at least once an hour
- Special categories for stats from within the user's network
- Display everything, let the user decide what's important
- Offer filter by date tools
- Track and compare user against top community performers

Any other ideas?

[rogerd]

Interesting ideas. I think comparing to friends' stats is probably a key thing. Some will step up activity to stay ahead.

Quality measures are good to offset mindless posting activity.

The idea of a customizable dashboard probably adds complexity to the coding, but would be cool for users who are inclined to mess with that kind of stuff.

[Frida]

start an interesting contest! Ask the users to perform or create something, then announce the winners in a hall of fame kind of section and award them with special sort of functions or abilities. Think of this forum as a role playing game - users gain experience and excel their options (skills) :) hope this works!

[Ahkamden]

For a Social Network Site what stats can you compare though? I would be very interested in following this up because you're right stats do keep you coming back.

If you have a community with a central theme running it though and it's not as competitive, what kind of useful/useless stats can you present to them?

Number of posts on forums?(done a lot)
Blog postings?
Photos?

If anyone does have thoughts on some good user-driven stats I would love to hear.

[rogerd]

thread starts (forum)
reputation (total points, votes, etc.)

[lorenzinho2]

profile views
post views
posts
comments to post
user testimonials
site activity
friends invited
earnings
total friends over time