IMHO no more no less.
This post being on the open board surprises me cuz I thought I put it up in "About the Narrow Gauge Discussion Forum" not on the open board. I did not want to cause a back and forth discussion.
I post on numerous sites almost daily and counters help me decide which sites are worth posting on and which sites are not worth the time and effort to post on. Counters let me now if there are posts that have no looks and if there are looks I can see how many folks did look. If numerous posts have no looks then I know I wasted my time posting the posts.
The Friends site "http://www.coloradonewmexicosteamtrain.org/FriendsForum/" has counters and they work just fine.