Reddit's Numbers Are a Big Lie

submitted by FThumbStay thirsty, my friends from self.WayOfTheBern

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[–]NetweaselContinuing the struggle 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I have found that a much better indicator of "herenowishness" is "number of comments" or "number of unique commenters."

In the past, say two hours, X unique individuals have actually said something in [location.] There is an unknown multiplier (L) such that for every person commenting, there are L lurkers who have not. Assume L to be an unknown constant.

That makes it a lot more difficult for pingbots to drive the numbers up.

A quicker, easier, fuzzier measurement for actual sub activity is, obviously "number of comments."

For quite a long time at WotB(Reddit) the previously made 25 comments (Reddit default setting on the "comments" page) took less than an hour, oftentimes about 45 minutes. Sometimes as much as three hours, but that was rare.

Currently... <goes to look>
the 100th most recent comment in WotB(Saidit) (Saidit default setting on the "comments" page) was 13 hours ago.

Currently on the WotB(reddit) comment page,,,
<goes to look>

OMG you guys, you need to go look! Until you scroll down, the comments page has one word on it: "kyle"
Dangit! Tried to get an archive, missed it by 2 minutes. https://archive.is/8aNAg
(just picture the comments above the word "kyle" as not being there)

But anyway.. <goes to look again>...
25th comment on WotB(Reddit): two hours ago.

That's not a good thing, that's not a bad thing... that's a thing. Data is data.

[–]FThumbStay thirsty, my friends[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

So, by your analysis, what are you seeing?

[–]NetweaselContinuing the struggle 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

There is another tidbit that has been discovered during recent events, assuming that Reddit's "here now" numbers are accurate....

A "here now" occurs when data is requested, not if/when it is received.
If the "here now" only happened on receipt of data, and not by any blocked accounts that do not receive data, the number would be lower, and much more useful.

What we have now is "Tried to Be Here Now, Whether or Not They Succeeded"
assuming that Reddit's "here now" numbers are accurate....

[–]NetweaselContinuing the struggle 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Well, there was a point in this in which there were no comments made for over a day, with fewer than two dozen people (including mods) even having access to any part of the sub... with over 200 "here now."

If you look at old, old, ollllld automobile odometers, the ones that mechanically record how many miles an automobile has traveled over its lifetime...

Some people would like that recording device to not be accurate, because with fewer miles on it, they can get a better price when selling the automobile.

They had (at the time) two main options.

1) crack the thing open and change the numbers to what they wanted the numbers to be, then put it back together.
2) attach a drill and run the device backwards (I said old) such that the device still thinks it is accurate, while it is not.

Same thing here. Either Reddit is not showing the correct numbers, or somebody is throwing a shitload of Reddit accounts at the WotB(Reddit) part of the database, and the "here now" numbers are technically accurate, but are not giving any useful information.

From out here, we can't tell, except for looking at related information.