Can a plugin developer inflate the number of downloads than the real number?

man_x · August 19, 2024, 3:51am

I am skeptical about using a community plugin due to the warning obsidian shows. I am planning to use minimum number of plugins and usually prefer plugins that majority use.

we have seen app developers on google play store, inflating the number of downloads to lure users into downloading their app, similarly goes for fake Amazon product reviews etc. I am not a technical person so I am not sure how easy or difficult it is for a community plugin developer to inflate these numbers, if he/she wants to. and how much we, as end users, can trust the number that we see over there.

ush · August 19, 2024, 6:14am

Download counts are calculated by this script written by the Obsidian team.

github.com

obsidianmd/obsidian-releases/blob/master/.github/workflows/plugin-stat.yml

name: Pull plugin stats

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: "0 0 * * *"
  workflow_dispatch: # Put here!!

jobs:
  pull-stats:
    if: github.repository == 'obsidianmd/obsidian-releases'
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v2
      - uses: actions/github-script@v6
        with:
          github-token: ${{ secrets.PLUGIN_STAT_TOKEN }}
          script: |
            let fs = require('fs');

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It uses stats provided by GitHub, so basically a developer cannot lie.
However, the download count is the total number of downloads over all versions, meaning it is larger than the actual number of users. Even if there is no new user, the count will go up if the developer releases a new version.

system · September 16, 2024, 6:14am

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