'Top Authors'.
A phrase that conjures up all manner of 'superiority'...a status to which to aspire, perhaps.
But how is this 'top' calculated? Exactly what acclaim is to be had when pure number totals are added and the result is accreditation to the most prolific?
Would it not be so easy to upload a sequence of single icons, perhaps and therefore make all and sundry download individual items, one at a time [but quickly because they are so tiny] and have a wonderfully high download count than a single, lowly [but brilliant] suite of works in one multi-meg bundle of superlatives, but comparatively feeble DL count?
Exactly who is 'Top' there?
How about the innocent uploader who submits his/her work, and achieves modest numbers...how does he/she contend with the 'serial updater' who knows the ropes and rorts the system?
To my way of thinking the List of 'Top Authors' should be dynamic, or at least calculated in a way that shows a dynamism that has been sadly lacking under the old, simple system.
Obviously there is more than one way to tally results, eg, by date cut-off, favouring more recent uploads, or by factoring a preferential multiplier to a particular section...as I said, all sorts of ways.
On occasion it has been suggested that anomalous DL counts on some works were down to external 'bots', or by off-site linking...[the latter certainly occurred on a WinAMP skin]. The concept of a 'different' calc method could quite conceivably balance that out as well by eliminating it.
Anyway, the bottom line is that the 'Top Authors' list should reflect exactly that, and not merely a 'body-count' of total downloads.
What impresses more...
a 1000 uploads each with 10 downloads over a year,
or
10 uploads each with 1000 downloads over a week?
Part of MadIce's thread about the recognition of 'newer' talent/s is the inspiration of this desire to see a more fluid, transient 'Top Author' list with the application of a newer accounting system.
Needless to say, the numbers will be quite odd until the setup is 'settled', but generally I'm betting it'll all be for the good...
