[theme-reviewers] WordPress Themes Download Statistics Counter

[Srikanth Koneru]

Don't think admins will care much about 25 to 1000 a day, not worth their
time. I have seen some themes jumping like that but then those themes
aren't any good and probably didn't make any money and gave up.


On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 6:22 PM, Bryan Hadaway <bhadaway at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yeah, you'd have to use an IP switcher with iMacros for every single
> simulated click (which would consist of obvious spam IPs mind you). It
> would be tedious and difficult to say the least. Besides ethics obviously,
> would it even be worth it?
>
> First, the only people that would use this method are those that aren't
> able to create themes of much popularity or value in the first place, hence
> the need of artificial boosting. That, combined with a crummy theme all of
> a sudden dramatically rising in the ranks would be a huge red flag.
>
> The stats would show 25 downloads a day to an abrupt 1000 a day (or
> whatnot) and the admins would be all over that like rats in a grain
> factory, banned!
>
> The difficultly : outcome ratio (removing ethics from the equation) only
> equals moron who's going to get their account and theme banned from wporg.
>
> So bottom line, sure, it can still be spoofed, but you can't remove the
> human element so it's just going to backfire on anyone who tries it.
>
> All in all, I think the stats are accurate enough to have some value, but
> like I said, I'd doubt it being anywhere near 100% accurate as there are
> simply too many flaws and variables that might not be solvable no matter
> what you did to enhance it.
>
> *However*, dun dun dunnn. Someone could use this method to attack other
> themes in the repo to try and get them banned. That scenario could also be
> used as plausible deniability, which does create an impossible situation.
>
> At the end of the day, we can only hope that most people in our community
> are good, kind and ethical people. That even if they have monetary motives,
> which there's nothing wrong with that, so long as they play by the book,
> respect the GPL and it's protection of their user's freedoms. In other
> words, having a bottom line is okay, so long as you *also* care about
> people.
>
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