After all the bother of finding and installing a post ratings plugin, I decide to turn it off.

In an article I wrote a few weeks ago, WP-PostRatings, I discussed my search for and installation of a post ratings feature for this site. I thought it would be kind of cool for site visitors to be able to rate a post. I could then use the post ratings to list the most interesting posts as links in the sidebar.

Well, I might think it was cool, but site visitors obviously didn’t. This feature was rarely used. I found that odd because all it took to use was a simple click on one of five stars that appeared under a post. I wasn’t collecting rater information or even directing them to another form or page. In other words, there was no penalty for clicking the rating icon.

That means one of two things:

• Site visitors can’t be bothered clicking the rating icon to voice their opinion.
• Site visitors rarely get to the bottom of a post so they don’t see the rating icon.

Either way, the feature wasn’t worth keeping on the site. It displays an apathy I’d rather not showcase here.

So I removed the feature.

The post views feature, which I added at around the same time is still being tested, although I did remove the annoying (experimental) text that appeared after the number of views at the end of each article. (That’s still in the sidebar right now; I’ll probably remove it there, too.)

The main problem I see with the post views feature is that it only counts views when someone reads a post on its own page — a direct view, so to speak. So if you read a post on the Home page, it isn’t counted. And if you read a post on its category page, it isn’t counted. And if you read a post on its search results page, it isn’t counted. So if a post has “8 views,” it more likely has at least three to five times as many views.

I could force more direct views by using excerpts on Category and Search Results pages (or on the Home page, for that matter), but it is not my intention to make this site more difficult to browse.

I just need to re-evaluate how important those kinds of stats are. IN the grand scheme of things, they’re probably not very important at all. So that feature may disappear shortly, too.