Download Count Accuracy

Friday, January 23, 2004 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize News

One of the things WinCustomize prides itself on is the accuracy of its download counts. While some sites seem to intentionally or unintentionally inflate their download counts (massively) to give the perception of popularity, we have refrained from that tempation because we feel it is very important that authors have an accurate gauge of roughly how many people are actually using their work.

For example, if you download Author X's skin and then come back and download it again, the download count is only incremented by 1 total (not 2). While no system is perfect, we believe WinCustomize's download counting system is amongst the most accurate counts out there.

But since download counts are important to skin authors, we want to make sure they are aware that WinCustomize's download statistics are accurate and that a considerable amount of work has gone into making sure that they are accurate.

Anyway, this is an announcement that in the next few weeks we will be providing a lot more statistics to skin authors about their downloads. So on their downloads there will be a link. The skin author will be able to click on that link and see a lot more data.  We won't provide who specifically downloaded the skin (since that's private information) but pretty much anything else is open for discussion.

What we are interested in knowing is what data you would like to see about downloads on your skins. Let us know here what data you'd like to see.

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[brazen weep]
Reply #1 Friday, January 23, 2004 4:27 PM
Well, for one, let's say I create an object and 400 people download it. Then I update the object with new features using "Reset Update Date", and 200 users who downloaded the first version download the new version, and 200 new users download the object. Is the new download count only 600? Or is it 800, as I think it should be, when using "Reset Update Date" for large updates?

Frogboy
Reply #2 Friday, January 23, 2004 4:58 PM

Brazen: Repeat downloads wouldn't get counted.  So if you update your skin or theme, it only counts the new people who downloaded.


Arguably people who are redownloading an updated skin should count but they currently don't count. This could be changed based on what people want us to do.


But yea, basically if your skin or theme has 400 downloads that means 400 people downloaded it. Even if you update it it's looking at how many total unique downloads there are.


dundalk120
Reply #3 Friday, January 23, 2004 5:31 PM
Great!! Now if you could only do something about the rating system. It's nice for friends to encourage each other, but giving an 8 rating to a skin that really should be a 4 is only hurting the author. As I'm sure your aware, you have a group of people all giving each other high ratings!

_DrDrrae_
Reply #4 Friday, January 23, 2004 5:43 PM
I like brazen's idea. I think it would be a good idea.

jack_johnson
Reply #5 Friday, January 23, 2004 5:45 PM
about the downloads - i agree with brazen's idea too, but i also think that they should show both unique downloads and total downloads in the information of the skin... although i think that a repeated download by the same user for the same skin should not be counted in any downloads but a download by the same person for an updated skin should be included in the total downloads... hopefully this wasn't too horribly written to understand

about the ratings system - they had a solution (well kind of) for that a while back (a month or two) where they could detect if people were going around giving a favored author 10's (or other high ratings) on everything or 1's (or other low ratings) to a disliked author... thats they best they can do so far as it is almost impossible to make a perfect rating system to the public (instead of just members)

Z71
Reply #6 Friday, January 23, 2004 7:21 PM
About the downloads, I would like to see a seperate download count.
It's crazy when someone has 3000 downloads then they change the startbutton and they get 3000 more from the same people.
Start with the regular download count then have an (updates) count and stop the regular count. Basically, if you update, you start all over again.
(Or) If someone updated a skin, you start the download count all over again from (0). That way, if people update and check the reset update, it had better be a major update. Not just a few tweaks.
Also, I would like to maybe see another coments section. Telling the skinner (why) they liked or disliked the skin. Instead of saying "I like your skin. Well done". You could name it (Why you like or dislike-only).

Frogboy
Reply #7 Friday, January 23, 2004 8:06 PM

We have a ratings system solution just have to implement it.


But yea, it's always been tough because while I can honestly say that when it comes to skins and themes, WinCustomize is generally the top site for a lot of different types in # of different users, it's always been at a disadvantage because our downloads have reflected unique downloads.


There are sites whose download counts are inflated by a factor of 10X or more (where downloading a skin will result in the download count jumping by hundreds sometimes). 


But clearly with so many people concerned about downloads, it would be easy for a site to take advantage of that fact by puffing up their DL stats.


SelfExiled
Reply #8 Friday, January 23, 2004 9:03 PM
Z71, I don't like your idea. I'm sorry, but starting all over from zero seems to be harsh. If a old popular skin got 100,000 downloads over a couple of years, being innovative during its time and a lot of work for the artist, is suddenly updated to include all the WB4 goodies, are you saying that the artist should start at zero? I would never update a skin if that were the case.

I do like the comment that if one updates a skin and it is a major update, then it would be nice to know the unique(new)downloads and the updating downloads. This way you can know who really liked your theme and likes the improvements.

mooshoo
Reply #9 Friday, January 23, 2004 9:33 PM
you see, people, being as egotistical as they are, would constantly update tiny things in order to make the top 10 or make themselves feel better. However pathetic that sounds, it will happen and it will annoy me

Updates are updates, unique downloads should still be unique downloads whether before or after the update... the idea of an "update download" sounds fine - just so long as the current unique download remains the official representation

eieio
Reply #10 Friday, January 23, 2004 11:30 PM
The update download sounds good, but reseting to zero doesn't seem so good. Unless you could keep the original count which would include downloads before and after the update (uniques only) and then also show a unique count starting at zero for the update in the 'extended' info available only to the skinner. That way the skinner (and everyone else) could see his total unique downloads, as it is now, but would also be able to see (and only he could see) his total updated downloads, which would include all unique (for the update) downloads but starting at zero. I hope this makes sense.

Another suggestion, if it's possible. I know you can't reveal who downloads the skins, but would it be possible to show categories of downloads. How many of the downloads were by guests, citizens, apprentices, etc.

[brazen weep]
Reply #11 Saturday, January 24, 2004 12:54 AM
You definitely shouldn't be reset to 0 if you make an update. Especially updates where you click "reset update date"... using that checkbox usually indicates that your changes are big enough to honestly warrant being re-shown as an object back at the top of the date-descending list. It is very annoying, indeed, to see constant updates and small tweaks just so people can see their objects be at the top of the list again. But when I think of things like DXScript-ed objects (that sometimes take me considerable time to create), if I make MAJOR enough changes or fixes to it, I want people to see it again at the top of the date-descended list so those who got the first version and liked it will be sure to see that I made a major change or fix to it, and will redownload it. (As a rule, one should only use the "Reset Update Date" feature if there truly were major enough changes or fixes to the object/skin).

It would be very helpful to see the number of people who have re-downloaded objects in some way - even if it's not a part of the total downloads, to have it broken out seperately would be cool so you can tell which objects (or skins) have more long-term users. Or even better, a list of previous versions and the number of downloads per version of the object/skin:

SKIN/OBJECT NAME
Update 1 - Jun 18, 2003 (527 Unique Downloads)
Update 2 - Sep 4, 2003 (732 Unique Downloads, 202 of whom Downloaded Previous Updates)
Update 3 - Jan 23, 2004 (12 Unique Downloads, 7 of whom Downloaded Previous Updates)

This is great information for both the author AND for potential downloaders alike I think

BoXXi
Reply #12 Saturday, January 24, 2004 2:03 AM
I think it would definitely be wrong to reset to zero after an update. I am not going to lose 57,000 downloads off my count, what would be the point? That is what I would lose if I updated my carbon fibre skin, so, I would just not update it anymore, and I think many people would feel like that, so it would be a loss to the community if authors stop updating skins when new features are added to WindowBlinds etc.
With regard to implementing a new system, I don't mind what features are added to the download information, any extra info is always agood thing. But, like Frogboy, I like the fact that the download count is accurate, unlike some other sites. I would like to keep it that way.

XX
Reply #13 Saturday, January 24, 2004 4:46 AM
Hmmm I think brazen weep hit on the solution.

Depends on what kind of download database was used of course.

Dand4n
Reply #14 Saturday, January 24, 2004 5:25 AM
Hey...What about if you hit download but deside you dont want it and cancel it?

PixelPirate
Reply #15 Saturday, January 24, 2004 7:27 AM
I think it might be fun if we were able to see which countries the people who download our work are from, like in percentage or something. Say I've had 3.241 downloads and 1.296 of those came from Spain. That's 40%, then I could start wondering why my work is so popular in Spain. This could exceed to other variables like type of browser, region, gender, or even age if a database could do that, and we were to give that input, we'd have to change our account for that I guess. It's another way of getting to know the community without asking everyone ourselves. Just a thought.

gef
Reply #16 Saturday, January 24, 2004 9:52 AM
Why not start with a count for the original upload then use a seperate count each time a skin is updated whilst still showing the original count. Also, limit the number of updates to say three.
I do not see the need to update skins more than this.
I would also have thought that comments help the authors more than the number of downloads.

kith
Reply #17 Saturday, January 24, 2004 5:02 PM
I agree it would be a bit spooky seeing exactly who downloaded your skin. But I think it would be interesting to see for example how many people in a user ID range have downloaded it. Like how many people with 1-100 User ID downloaded something compared to those with an User ID over 500 thousand. Of course there are an endless number of ranges you could use, but it might give the author a better idea of who is using his work.

wulfn1
Reply #18 Saturday, January 24, 2004 5:04 PM
Brazen Weep's Idea sounds the most logical and fair, but I have to consider the amount of work that would have to go into maintaining a db with that amount of changing information.Also eventually all that data would create more pages to load, for especially if an artist updates on a regular basis(which is a very responsible thing to do, and those of us who dl updates are very appreciative), you're talking about keeping info for up to what, ten updates?maybe more?I would love to see the breakdown on each skin's updates, for sheer curiosity, to see if others like a skin as much as I do. But knowing the budgetary difficulties that will arise from such a plan I have to question whether it's feasible. What if, this additional information was only made available to WC subscribers? Then it would justify the added work and expense to create such a db.plus it would be an added feature that only subscribers get, making subscription just a little more worth the money.
Just my ideas on the subject Don't want to ruffle feathers any more than usual.

MarkSnyder61
Reply #19 Saturday, January 24, 2004 9:21 PM
Accurate counts are one thing but try to get a skin approved is another...I've had a LogOn pending since January 7th and it's still waiting for approval. I have e-mailed two Moderators and the last time the Web Administrator, they don't even answer your e-mails. The site is starting to reflect poor service. Renewing my subscription when it runs out will depend on the service.

Phar0e
Reply #20 Saturday, January 24, 2004 10:30 PM
In terms of additional data about downloads; I'd love to see stats on what people are runnings in terms of versions of windows.
My uploads are mostly Litestep themes, so that would be very usefull information. Specifically WinMe\Win9x vr WinNt vr Win2k\WinXP.

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