Wetlook World Forum

Yes we do. Our site refers people to the Alexa site for this information and the Alexa site gives people a complete page of info about how they gather their stats.

>So I do have a valid question here.  Is the data collected cumulative or averaged over the last few weeks?  Or is it just the last week or so that counts...

Gee...can't you read what it says on the Alexa site. They say their data is gathered daily (for sites ranked under 100,000) or weekly (for sites ranked over 100,000), but the actual ranking number they come up with....is a "last 3 months average" of your rankings for the last 3 months. Their reported averages change every 2 weeks, and that is why we have programmed our scripts to pull updated stats from Alexa every 2 weeks as well.

>If the data is cumulative, then the first person to start collecting data will have and maintain a substantial lead over all the others.  

>Then if it is just the past week's data then things would obviously fluctuate more rapidly.  So which is it?

It is not cumulative data. It's a "last 3 months averaged" statistic.

If what you said were true, then the oldest and longest running sites on the net would have a completely unfair advantage over those sites that are relatively new to the net. If that were the case, them my wamtec site (on the net since 1995) and Nigels forum and Derek's UMD forum (both on the net since 1998) could never be caught. But as you can see, some very new sites are high in the rankings already. The Wambank site is only 6 months old....but has been consistently getting similar traffic to UMD and this forum. My own wamtec site is only 8th (it just dropped again today, and was overtaken by Graham's wetlook forum). And some of the newest producers like Wetlook Pro and WetlookDVD are all ranked very highly.  The age of a site or when data started to be gathered....has no bearing....they only report on the last 3 months traffic averages.

>And my real question is if this is an actual popularity contest or just a bunch of cookie/data collection.  

It is not a voting system....it is just a bunch of cookie/data collection....but that IS an indication of "popularity" too.....i.e. the sites with the most traffic....are ALSO the most popular sites....because they are the most visited sites. It is not a "contest" with voting....but it is a popularity indicator based on visitors traffic to the site.

>The name 'top wam site' would imply the site has been selected by users as their favorite, when it seems that is not the case.  

>Nowhere on your site is any of this stuff explained... In 'clear english' or otherwise.

Nowhere does it say that these sites have been selected by the users. It clearly states that the rankings are provided by an independent research company. The term "TopWam" is totally accurate....these are the Top wamsites that get the most traffic. It is you who do not seem to understand English....cos if I used your definition of "selected by the users as their favorite" I would have called the site.. "Bestwam" or "Favoritewam"...but it does not say that. My use of the English language is perfectly accurate...and you inventing things in your own mind that my site never says.

>I'm not taking pot shots to piss people off but instead to provide some sorely needed feedback

The forum rule states....."no negative attacks"....and you must provide "constructive criticism"......and I am happy to deal with that. I have had several webmasters pose similar questions about "how" the statistics are gathered....and they posed those questions in a legitimate way. You chose to make a blatant and false accusation, with no facts to support your claim, ..accusing me of being biased and not impartial and favoring my own sites.....which it does not do. Most of my sites are ranked way down the list. The data is 100% consistent and fair to all sites (it treats all 200+ sites using the same formula) and it is 100% independent....i.e. the data is not compiled by me or anybody else inside  the wam world (which is the fault with the Wam Awards site) and the data cannot be manipulated by us either.

If you wanted to give some "constructive feedback" as per forum rule....where was your feedback. All you did was to question my integrity and level baseless charges....without having any facts...and without having anything constructive to say.

If you had said to me...."why are you basing this site on cold independent 3rd party statistics on traffic......why not base the rankings on VOTING and let the fans vote for which site they like the best".....that would have been a valid question. And the answer would have been.....we do not need another site like that...because we already have one....it is called the "Wam Awards site" run by Chainsaw John. His site already lists all the most popular sites based on a voting system....so there is no need for our site to duplicate what the Wam Awards site already does. If you want to vote for your favorite webmasters or models....go to Johns site at

http://wamworld.ca/wamawards/

I still do not "get" what the purpose of your message was. You did not have anything constructive to say...and all you did was to look foolish in your attempt to question my integrity. Had you bothered to take the time to read what it says on the site (as Leon did) you would have understood things, before you decided to launch into your attack.

The irony is....the site that you say you actually like....our Wambank site.... also suffered the same thing when we launched that site too. It was relentlessly attacked by people on this forum for the first 2 months, so we abandonded making announcements on this forum...due to the hostility, and we migrated to Graham's forum instead, because this forum is unmoderated and the inmates run loose in the asylum, whereas with Graham's forum, it is well managed and moderated every day, and baseless attacks and slander will not be allowed to stay up on Graham;s forum. The interesting thing is...all the naysayers and negative attacks we got from people who hated the wambank site, did not affect us or the site at all. And today the site has more users than UMD and this forum and has just as much traffic and popularity today as the 2 biggest forums. Lots of people tried to tear us down for that site too....and it did not have any effect on us. All it did was stir up more publicity for the site.....so thanks for that.

MK