Monday, September 16, 2019

Will the Real Gonsalvo Please Stand up?

Over the last six months or so, I have been watching my good friend, Gonsalvo (Peter from Blunders on the Danube) slowly slide down the Top Commentators roster.  Puzzling since I had not mentally recorded a noticeable drop-off in his comments.  Being a stalwart commentator, Peter remained consistently near the top of the list throughout the life of The Palouse Wargaming Journal until spring.  I wondered if commenting frequency was, indeed, declining.  What if the widget gathering the statistics had gone awry? 

My puzzlement intensified over the last week when Peter's comments were appearing regularly for each of my recent posts and some of the older ones too but his comment count was nor increasing.  Perhaps the counter had a bug?  How could this be that his comment count was continuing to dip?

As of this evening, the Top Commentators widget offers up a clue.
It appears the Gonsalvo in Rank #10 is falling in the polls because another Gonsalvo is sneaking up in the poll!  With time, I wager Gonsalvo in Rank #12 begins moving up in the ranking while the original Gonsalvo falls out of the Top 12 completely.

How do we find ourselves in this situation?  I do not know.  Did Gonsalvo change an email address?  Not that I can see.  Did Gonsalvo change his avatar?  I don't think so.  Did this second Gonsalvo originate with the demise of Google+?  The time frame fits.  Perhaps Google+ lays at the root of the problem?

Regardless, I will be keeping an eye on the Gonsalvo doppelganger.

42 comments:

  1. You Sir are Gonsalvo and I claim my five Pounds. :-)

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  2. Now this is intriguing. I fear that a glut of conspiracy theory may develop out of this, however:
    Gonsalvo (all five of them) are the Bavarian Illuminati;
    Gonsalvo was the first man on the moon...;
    Gonsalvo is in fact, the head of Games Workshop :O

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    Replies
    1. Conspiracy theories will soon be rampant. Only Gonsalvo may be in a situation to bring clarity from confusion.

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  3. The easiest thing to do is blame it on Brexit, no wait....

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    1. Too easy of a target, George! This requires more precision to get to the bottom of it.

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  4. You've unearthed my cunning plan to stay top of the commentator table! Curses and I would have got away with it if it wasn't for you darned kids!
    Best Iain

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    Replies
    1. Very funny, Iain! I see you spent your childhood in front of the television watching many episodes of Scooby Doo. Didn't we all?

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  5. I suspect a cunning ploy to double his gin ration.

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  6. Double Bubble for Gonsalvo, that's for sure!

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    Replies
    1. I expect to see one version climb up the ladder and the other drop off. This will be short-lived, anomaly.

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  7. Replies
    1. My guess is that Peter has two blogger profiles: one obsolete and the other in use.

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  8. Just trying to trick you in the better hopes of getting two Xmas presents this year.

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    Replies
    1. Good one! I will be on guard for such trickery. Two Christmas presents is nothing. You should take a look at my library and see the number of duplicate books purchased over the years.

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  9. I wish there was another one of me as I'd put him to use in completing some of the many projects lying in wait. I'd avoid too much contact with him though as I'd probably find him frustrating to deal with.

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    1. Very good, Lawrence! Many of us would have similar ramifications from having ourselves cloned. What I would like is two hobby lifetimes: one to paint and one to game.

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  10. It is because I otherwise had no hope of being in the top ten - but he is now beating me with both profiles!

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  11. A sure case of split personality if ever I hear one.

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  12. I'm Gonsalvo, and so's my wife!

    There is a lot of strangeness at the heart of Blogger. For example I have found commenting works best on Chrome.

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    Replies
    1. I only use Chrome so I cannot attest to the workings of other browsers. I sometimes have difficulty commenting even in Chrome.

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  13. I am of course the one true Gonsalvo, "El Gran Capitan", and all that. I probably modified my Blogger profile a year or so ago (after the great Blogger upheaval), although it is still associated with the same account, and my aol email account dating back nearly 2 decades now. Still, there is something not quite right with it, as many blogs refuse to forward notice of my comments to the blogger saying that my identity cannot be verified due to some DMARC or similar policy of AOL's. I have tried to figure out how circumvent that, without success to date.

    It would be a rare post of your that I do not comment on, Jon , as you know. Like you if I read something I will usually comment on it, even if it's just some version of "good job!".

    Managing to have two accounts in the top 12 if quite a feat, LOL. Assuming, of course, they really are both me.

    Remember the Garigliano! :-)

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    Replies
    1. Peter, two in the Top 12 is a feat, for sure. Well done! Both accounts link back to you so you own them both. Notice that you are again #10 and #12 following a short lapse yesterday when Ed bumped you out of #12.

      You know, your account is the one account for which I never receive notification that you commented nor does you comment appear in my gmail feed. Very puzzling. Maybe the issue with aol is affecting this too?

      Anyway, I always appreciate your comments from whichever account it originates!

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    2. That is exactly the effect; Blogger blocks notification of my posts (even my own to me, LOL!). I really don't know why!

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    3. Your also the only one blogger doesn't notify if you make a comment on my blog,I thought it was just me!
      Best Iain

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  14. The real Gonsalvo revealed 🤔 or is he ?

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