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According to this question and this question, the visits/day metric on sites' Area 51 page is calculated as the median number of visits per day over the previous 14 days. At the moment, the Area 51 page for the Mathematica site is showing a figure of 718.

But on the main StackExchange site's listing of sites, it's 717. That's also the number showing in the little box on the front page of the site.

It's a trivial difference, but it got me wondering if there was some kind of rounding bug or inconsistent calculation methods going on. Are the calculations different?

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Good catch – the code was slightly different. Area 51 rounded to the nearest integer, while Stack Exchange always rounded down. Stack Exchange has been updated to also round to the nearest integer, so the two numbers should match now.

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  • Glad I could help! I am just surprised that rounding is necessary if the median is used, per this answer. Perhaps the answer should be updated?
    – Verbeia
    Feb 29, 2012 at 20:07
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    @Verbeia When there is an even number of values, the median is the mean of the two middle values.
    – Emmett
    Feb 29, 2012 at 21:57
  • Oh duh, of course. I should know that - obviously too early in the morning here in Oz.
    – Verbeia
    Feb 29, 2012 at 22:25

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