I've been playing around with the idea to attribute a difficulty level or popularity level to each WHS, based on the number of WH travellers that have visited that site.

For example (click on the image to enlarge it):


I could name the levels (see first column), but maybe it would be even better to just show a percentage (4% have been here before)

Any thoughts/ideas?

Interesting. I would stick to popularity rather than difficulty. Some unpopular sites are in fact quite easy to visit, yet either because of their proximity to conflict zones or disease prone countries, or simply because they're relatively new on the list are less visited.

I am instinctively against arbitrary cut offs ie. 10 visits = "Rarely visited" whilst 11 visits = "visited by a small part". IMO they don't "clarify" but rather "obfuscate"! We are perfectly capable of assigning our own views of "rare" and "small" within a sequenced list!
I suppose that you could add %age on the RHS of each site in the sequenced list - we can't easily discover the total population of the Community which has completed the "visited list" to calculate our own. Thus for instance what %age of us has visited Paris? I know the total is 506 but don't know how this compares with our total number.
I have always thought it a shame that we have lost the single overall list across all continents and would quite like to see that reinstated whilst still keeping the individual continental lists.
As mentioned by Clyde and in our earlier discussions our "number visiting" reflects rather more the geographic location of all of us (heavily "Europe based") than any true measure of difficulty or even popularity. Approximate position in the list as between sites which are in the same general area is a better indication of popularity/difficulty - though even that is skewed by "number of years inscribed" with the more recent always "suffering" in number of visits given the extent to which the Community seems to plan its travelling very much on a "WHS targetting" basis.
Am I correct in thinking that the feature showing "visits by UNESCO continent" for the "top 25" which you put up a few weeks ago has been removed? I don't seem able to find it now! That also I thought quite interesting and needn't be restricted to the so called ""top 25".

I agree that the popularity of the sites is not necessarily reflected in the number of visits done by our community, yet I would find the comparative information of genuine interest.
Although Solivagant is right about the division between the categories being completely arbitrary, I still think it is easier to perceive a category rather than a numeric continuum. Since our endavour has no scientific aspiration, I would personally rather have the former.

No, it is still there and even has been extended: http://www.worldheritagesite.org/stats.html

Yes - but how do I get to it from the Web site if i don't have that link for "Stats"? I don't seem to find it in "Community" anywhere?

It's in the top right corner of this page http://www.worldheritagesite.org/allusers.php

I agree it's a bit hidden, I've been looking at creating different tabs to access these user related lists

I would keep it in categories, rather than showing %. Words are usually more user friendly than bare numbers. But I would stick to the community. "Popular among general public" not always equals our ranking. E.g. WHS that are served by cruise ships or sites offered as day trips from holiday resorts are in general visited by much more people. but as most of us are not the typical cruise/resort tourists, these places are not necessarely ranked high on our list.