Every now and then someone asks; why it is that, according to the members list, they have mede 400 votes but only have the medal for making 50? Why does it say their advice has had 500 views but only has 10 votes? How is it that they have invited

I'm going to go through each little thing and explain all these weirdities and see if I can help make some sense of it. I will use my own stats and tallies as of the time I'm writing this, as the examples for each thing. Hopefully this will give newer members a better idea of why the numbers and stats on Minti don't always seem to add up.

Votes Made.

According to the Members List, I have made 451 votes, yet I only have the medal for making 150 votes on Advice. This is because most of the votes I have made have been on comments, not on advice. The Members List counts up all votes made regardless of what the vote was on, including votes on photos. However, the medal is only given for the number of votes made on advice.

Votes Received.

According to the Members List I have 583 votes received, yet on my advice list when I add up the votes received only totals 203. This is because the number of votes received according to the Members List also includes votes received on each comment I have made. The advice list only shows the votes other people have made on each advice.

Photos.

I have 26 photos downloaded onto various parts of Minti, however, only 8 of these are listed on the Members List. That is because only 8 of the photos that I have are publically viewable. The rest are private. The number of private photos a member has is not displayed on the Members List.

Comments.

On the Members List it says that the number of comments I have made is 412. Yet if you were to click on my comments list, you would only see 231 comments. That is because many of the comments I have made have been in private groups, and these are not shown on my comments list. But the number of comments I have made in total does show on the Members List. I have the medal for 400 comments made, because private comments still count towards this medal.

Views v's Votes.

One of my advice has 90 views, but only 16 votes. This is because anytime someone opens the page to the advice it is logged as a view. However, not everyone will vote for many different reasons.

If I'm searching for an advice on something, sometimes I will open one to scan through it and find that it isn't relevant to what I'm looking for, or maybe I just accidently clicked on the wrong one. So I often won't vote at that time and just move on to something that is more relevant to me. People google searching the internet may stumble across an advice article, read it, and not understand how or why to vote, if they even realise there is a voting system. Some will open it to find it isn't what they were looking for and will instantly leave. But these view are still logged. If your advice has a low number of votes but a high number of views, don't be disheartened. It means that a lot of people are getting to see it, regardless of whether or not they stop to vote.

The advice I have written, I would love to see the number of views reach into the tens of thousands, and I really don't care if it never gets another vote, because I think it's more important that the information it contains is available to the public, than it is for me to get a few more votes on it.

Friend's Patch.

I have invited people onto Minti and some have joined. However, I don't have the Friends patch because the friends I've invited on here haven't joined via the link I have sent them under "Invite a friend" function. Rather, they just had a look and then came back later just by logging directly onto the site to join. When this happens, the system can only register the new member as having come on at random, not as a result of being invited by you. It can only register them as being invited by you if they join using the "Invite a friend" link that you sent.

I have had more success inviting people to join Minti by just telling them about it and giving them the web address and letting them explore it in their own time and in their own way, and many people prefer to join that way. Having a Friend's patch doesn't add that much to your status or rank, so don't worry about it too much if you can't get it. Reputation and friendship on Minti gets you a lot more than numbers or stats anyway.

Advice.

There are two medals for advice. One is for the number of articles written and the other is for the number of articles that have scored an average vote of more than 4 stars.

The number of advice written medal is to encourage members to write advice about more things. The number of advice scoring over 4 stars medal is to encourage members to do what they can to improve the quality of what they have written. If your advice is not scoring high, there are two things you can do about it.

1. Edit it to improve it's score on all future votes. Many members leave comments with suggestions as to how the advice can be improved. Take notice of such comments as many of them come from members who have got a lot of high scoring advice and their input can be most valuable.
2. Delete it and try again. Sometimes members make mistakes like posting something as advice that would be better of in Q&A or as a blog instead. This often ranks low and sometimes it is better to just delete it and put it in the right area. This is again something that many members will comment on.

I have never written an advice that I have published anonymously, so I can't say from experience whether or not anonymous advice will count towards the total number of advice written on the Members List, or whether it will count towards the advice medals. I'm inclined to say that if you have something to say, say it at the top of your voice and don't be embarassed if it turns out that you are wrong about something. No one is perfect after all, and you can always delete it if you have to.

On your advice list, any advice that you have deleted will still appear, however, it no longer counts towards your medals or number of advice on the Members List.

Groups:

There are many groups on Minti that you can join and the number of groups that you are part of will appear on your homepage. Sometimes there does appear to be a variation however, depending on the groups you have joined. If you look on my groups list you will only see that I am a member of 3 private groups. I am in fact a member of a few more than that, but some of the groups are hidden groups that only I can see on my groups list.  In the grey box on the left hand side of my homepage it says that I'm in 13 groups. I'm not however. I have joined a total of 13 groups, but I have since left several of them, but that number remains. I don't know why that is, it's just a glitch I guess.