ThemeXP download counts

from WinCustomize Forums
On one of the posts here I saw someone talk about how ThemeXP download counts are very high. That got me curious so I went over there and saw that sure enough skins get incredibly high download counts.

But are they legitimate?

To find out, I looked for a really old unpopular skin that couldn't possibly be getting any downloads. I found one with 'only' around 2000 downloads in its history and was over a year old. I clicked on download and it brought up the dialog. I aborted. I clicked again and aborted. Did it again, aborted. I did this about 3 times. When I refreshed the page, the download count had jumped by 9!

I don't know if they're doing it intentional or not but the download counts are being inflated by a gigantic amount. That's really too bad too because I wanted to be able to really get an idea of how popular a similar theme there was to one here or on Deviantart.
2,832 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Hehe. That's an odd "bug".
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
hey madice long time no see brother!
Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top

It can be a real 'problem' if/when sites have a lend of reality when they misrepresent downloads and other comparison criteria.

One assumes it's for saleability...an impression of success, etc.

My guess is that many such situations are a result of accident/ignorance of the problem......even personal, individual attempts to falsely inflate one's own DL ratings/stats, as everyone has that base desire to be top dog or 'greatest' skinner, etc.

Proof that a site's stats can be fudged only brings into question whether they actually have been...or not.  It's certainly no real guarantee or proof of any conscious intent to deceive...

Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
yep, they might just have an error somewhere within their site that they haven't fixed.
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
yeah, I'm sure that's it..
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Calculating download counts isn't very easy to do accurately.

The only bad thing is that it gives the false impression that msstyles are a lot more popular than they really are.