Does anyone understand how the contributions numbers etc work

Question

I have been manually, as opposed to GEDCOM, tweaking my profiles and many others with a target in mind of 1000 contributions per month.

Last month I stopped doing anything early on the day of the end of the month and waited to get an accurate total of my contributions which were 4842. My 'badges' page now says I have made 695 contributions and need another 305 to get to the thousand.

On my navigation home page it says I have made 5465 contributions. But 4842 + 695 = 5537, or to put it another way 5467 - 4842 = 623, a difference of 72. And my total less 72 = 4770 which you can see below agrees.

5465 + 305 = 5770 which means it is saying that at the end of July the figure was 4770, yet the figure I copied into my scratch pad was 4842.

I am wondering if this maybe has something to do with time differences. Although I thought I stopped earl enough and started after the figures (badges) were awarded, I am still 72 out. Assuming EDT is the time zone then if I stop at any time UTC, GMT or IST on the last day of the month I should be well clear of the final hour of the month on the system. Likewise if I start more that 5 hours after midnight of the last day of the month IST then it should be into the new month on the server.

This is not a complaint by the way. I am just intrigued as I have noticed this on previous months as well. In fact one month I thought I had reached my goal but missed it because of the perceived or actual difference.

Comments

I've noticed that as well.  It's safest to get about 10% more than necessary (1100) to make sure you get the credit for 1000.  ....don't know why!  :)

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I noticed I came up to around 900 and would've passed 1000 if not for the GMT time difference with my location yesterday. LOL

No 500 club maybe? "Almost 1000" club? :-)

Answer 1

The counter stops at midnight last day of the month GMT.

You still have 10 days to go to get to 1000 this month, hope you get there.

Comments

Thanks Anne. I had assumed it was on American time. Maybe that is where I went wrong.

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Looks like this not necessarily the case. There is something up with the count. Over the past few days I have been keeping a record at the end of the days adding the contributions and number to go to my scratchpad.

Last night the figures were: July final: 4770; August Target: 1000; August Current 903 (97)

I just looked now after doing a little this morning and the badges page says 921, with 79 needed to get to 1000.

So last night's figure of 903 taken away from 921 is 18, or add 921 to 4770 to give a total of 5691.

But on the Navigation Home Page is says: You've made 5689 contributions - two out in just one day.

We are now a long way our from the original 4842 at the start of the month as that should in theory being giving a total of 5763.

I don't actually care what it says/ What i do care about is accuracy and it is NOT accurate.

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FOUND IT!

The contributions count on your Nav Home page does NOT go up but the count on you badges page DOES go up when you adopt a profile.

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Thanks, David. We'll fix the count on the badges page.

Answer 2

To get an accurate count each day to see where you are at, Click on [view all xx badges / edit display order] under your badges on your profile page. 

It will say something like this: With xxxx contributions this month, (your name) has already earned the August Club 1,000 badge, to be awarded on the first day of September.

The computer count changes over to the next month and starts a brand new count based on GMT time. So for me using CDT which is now 11 AM,  the GMT Time is 1600 a 5 hour time difference. That will effect whether you went over 1000 points in time for the award of the 1000 badge. 

Comments

a brand new count based on GMT time

Yes that appears to be the crux of the matter.