Continued from home page... Readers of
our website and now of
World Nutrition
come from all continents. After looking through our
statistics for April, we did a check for one week,
1-7 May. People from 75 countries were recorded as
having sessions on the site. Association president
Barrie Margetts says: ‘This is what being a world
association is all about. We have members and
readers from all continents. As somebody who does a
lot of work with colleagues in Africa and India,
it’s especially good to see that our website and WN
already have a great number of readers from
less-resourced countries’.
Between 1 and 7 May readers from 24 Asian countries
or territories had sessions on the site. In order of
numbers as recorded, they were from India, Russia,
Bangladesh, Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Lebanon, the Philippines, Nepal, the
United Arab Emirates, Israel, Hong Kong, China,
Cambodia, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Azerbaijan,
Singapore, Pakistan, Bhutan, the Occupied
Palestinian Territories, Jordan, and Laos. (You may
feel that not all these are in Asia, but that’s
where our machine places them). Next came Europe,
with sessions in order of numbers from 23 countries:
the UK, Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands,
Switzerland, Denmark, Moldova, Sweden, Spain,
Lithuania, Austria, Norway, Portugal, Greece,
Luxembourg, Finland, Ukraine, Poland, Hungary,
Estonia, the Czech and the Slovak Republics, and
Belgium.. People from 13 African countries,
Mauritius, South Africa, Uganda, Mozambique, Malawi,
Kenya, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Morocco, Nigeria,
Senegal, Ghana and Cameroon, had sessions. Then,
readers from seven North and Central American
countries, the USA, Canada, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba,
Nicaragua, and El Salvador, in that order. Then
there were five from the Australia-Pacific region,
from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Micronesia and
Samoa. Then a pathetic three from South America,
apparently from Uruguay, Brazil and Colombia. (OK,
if Latin America, the total would be eight). Perhaps
we shouldn’t say that our site and WN have
readers from all continents – spot-checks have not
turned up any sessions from Antarctica.
Initially we were intrigued by the volume of
sessions from Russia, Mauritius and Uruguay. Our
technical advisors gave us an explanation. Our
system records the total traffic – and actually now
under-records it (see below). Every system
(including that of the UK parliament, and also
randomised controlled trials) also contains ‘fudge
factors’. Some big email providers have the
equivalent of telephone exchanges grouped in one
country. Thus, we are advised, some sessions
actually from readers in Brazil may well be routed
through, and counted as if from, Uruguay.
Also, now we are getting into nerd-land, our
splendiferous offering of free pdf WN and other
downloads will result in our gizmo under-recording
actual traffic. Take last month. We know that a
number of people accessing WN who are networked,
have strong feelings about ‘The great vitamin A
fiasco’ commentary, and have downloaded it (which is
recorded as one session) and have sent it to many of
their pals (which our gizmo cannot record) some of
whom have sent it to their pals (ditto). So, as
should be said of all statistics, treat them with
caution and, in our case, assume that the overall
gizmo records under-record reality, by an unknown
amount.
All this said, readers please do get in touch with
us, and tell us your suggestions and give us your
advice. Better yet, apply to become Association
members. All comments are more than welcome – use
the facility below, please. It will be particularly
helpful if you tell us that you can support the
Association and our work in your country.
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