Past 30 days downloads on the FEX incorrect

I know it is not strictly a Matlab question, but I think it fits best on this forum.

I noticed that for some submissions on the file exchange, the number of downloads is incorrect. For example this submission (captured to the Way Back Machine) is less than 30 days old, yet the life-time downloads and the past 30 days downloads figures don't match (in this case the life-time is 6, the past 30 days is 4).

What might be the reason for this? Has this something to do with the remark they put on the about page To accurately reflect downloads submitted by individuals, File Exchange counts multiple downloads from the same IP address as a single download.?

Answer 1

[John D'Errico]

It may well be a reflection of single IP downloads counting as one download. Some years ago, we had one well-known person (but possibly others) who chose to manipulate the download counts for his own personal glory and bragging rights. So this was probably a fix to remove that as a factor. This was an issue beyond pure bragging rights, since it probably involved a large drain on the file exchange network bandwidth, with some users making huge numbers of spam downloads for no reason at all.

If you remove the motivation to abuse a resource, then you can effectively remove the problem.

[Rik]

Still weird that those numbers don't match. Do you think the all-time counts are not filtered by IP and the 30 day count is?

[John D'Errico]

That is a question that can only be answered by the FEX admin.

[Rik]

My/our suspicion was confirmed by e-mail by a Matlab Central admin. It is indeed the case that the all-time downloads is the 'true' total and the 30-day count is number of unique IPs that downloaded the file.

Answer 2

[John Kelly]

It is due to the difference on how MathWorks calculates All-Time Downloads vs. Last 30 Days Downloaded

[Star Strider]

How can we access the ‘All-Time Downloads’ number?

I’ve never seen it, and didn’t know it existed until now.

[John Kelly]

It's a new feature in File Exchange. If you click on the "i" icon next to the Download count, more Download information appears

[Star Strider]

Thank you!

I didn’t see the ‘i’ icon on the ‘My File Exchange’ page. It must be somewhere else.

[Rik]

I believe I have seen it before the last redesign, but if it was, it has always been a bit hidden away. You can see the button only on the page of a single entry. It might be possible to find the total somewhere listed for all your entries, but I don't know how you would do that.