That was not the “weakest link” that was banished from the set. And although it may be true that it’s the votes (percentages) that count, you have potentially and inadvertently voted off your strongest players.
I’m leaving this question open and will keep it on the top of the list until the “missing link” is found. And in reference to HoosierDaddy’s answer in the other related question (I like that alias, by the way) I thought I’d add a comment or two inresponse.
A 4.5 percent hit rate was mentioned as being low, but It wasn’t clear to me if Doug was comparing that hit rate to ALL pages on TechRepublic or just the Q&A pages. If it was ALL pages, he should seriously consider comparing apples to apples to get an accurate representation of the Q&A preference. After all, that is the issue here.
If he was comparing it to other Q&A links, then by obvious observation a 4.5 percent hit rate, although that may initially appear low, is certainly not among the lowest. Simple math will bear that out. Including that “missing link” (and excluding the top 5 questions links), there are 50 possible links from which to choose. If all those links were selected equally, each would receive 2 percent of all possible hits. (1 divided by 50 equals .02) Assuming that not all links will receive equal attention – and that is certainly a feasible assumption – then one could surmise that there are many links that receive less than 2 percent of the hits, probably much less than 2 percent. Therefore, removing a link that receives many times more hits than other links doesn’t make sense. My guess is that the “missing link” received more hits than many of the less popular ones combined.
(continued..)