Faux Followers and Bogus Stats

It’s high time we face up to grossly inflated readership figures

I find it tedious to respond piecemeal to the deluge of posts despairing/delighting as to one’s followers and stats, hence this rant.

My purported 1.5K followers yields 15 regular readers.

I’m not in the least surprised. Followers do not translate to fans. The population is rife with solicitors of courtesy click-backs. Consider also the random one-timers who follow in conjunction with clapping.

Winnowing … I end up with 53 subscribers.

Cutting to the chase … excluding 38 hit-and-runs, I’m a not-so-proud member of the one-percenter club.

How about you? Congratulations if you are over-qualified to join me.

As to the much lauded and lamented stats …

I’ve paid them no mind since my first week on site when I was shocked to see 5.3K external reads and 2.8K internal reads for a piece that got claps from three people. Surely, if there were 2.8K readers, more than three of them would have given at least one click of the clapper.

This was not an isolated instance, just the most outrageous overstatement gleaned from my quick glimpse of 18 months ago. Intermittent spot-checking has borne out my conclusion that stats are grossly misleading.

Have you checked yours? Do the math and get back to me.