random.bml

[nibot]

In a (usually futile) effort to break out of the usual LJ-clique and find new and interesting content*, I have a toolbar button that takes me to a "random livejournal" (http://www.livejournal.com/random.bml).

It just took me to frinkle_twinkle, whose current (from September) entry is all about how it seems she gets a disproportionate number of visitors via the random journal selector: http://frinkle-twinkle.livejournal.com/

Is the random-livejournal selector broken, or is this just observational bias? (Anyone could notice some random visitors, put up a note about them, and then suddenly have lots of people saying that they, too, got there via the random journal button, and isn't that funny.) I suppose the way to test this, aside from inspecting the source code to random.bml, would be to make a new journal with a post that says "Isn't it funny, so many people seem to be getting here via the random button" post, and see how many "me too" comments accrue.

* actually, just to waste time.

Comments

[evan.livejournal.com]

It's sorta sad, but I can often diagnose these sorts of LJ failures by just knowing that they're generally sloppy about the sorts of monitoring/regression testing necessary to keep everything going simultaneously.