2. Someone writes a script that hammers a page from a single IP, to boost the seeming engagement.
In the case of EA forum, the readership statistics have no consequences whatsoever. They’re not even publicly viewable. Why would anyone try to artificially inflate them?
Hmm, well, I guess we could imagine a scenario where someone works at an EA nonprofit, and wants to impress their boss, so they write a blog post, and artificially inflate the readership statistics, and then show their boss a printout of how many people have read their blog post. And then the boss goes to EA Forum mods and says “I want these statistics to be harder to fake”. But then I imagine the EA Forum mods would respond “Why should we spend our time doing that? This is your problem, not ours. You should come up with a less stupid way to judge your underlings.”
In the case of EA forum, the readership statistics have no consequences whatsoever. They’re not even publicly viewable. Why would anyone try to artificially inflate them?
Hmm, well, I guess we could imagine a scenario where someone works at an EA nonprofit, and wants to impress their boss, so they write a blog post, and artificially inflate the readership statistics, and then show their boss a printout of how many people have read their blog post. And then the boss goes to EA Forum mods and says “I want these statistics to be harder to fake”. But then I imagine the EA Forum mods would respond “Why should we spend our time doing that? This is your problem, not ours. You should come up with a less stupid way to judge your underlings.”