"Porn's" greatest hits

[Update: Some items flagged by the library' system as porn that are not porn.]

(Greensboro, NC) In response to a records request, I have received a report from the public library generated by their Cymphonix internet filtering system.* It reports items ("hits") throttled as porn on library computers from 12:29 P.M. to 8:49 P.M on August 23rd, 2010. It shows why it is disingenuous to report these items as counting "porn site visits."

Prodded by a previous report from the library, some local bloggers confused internet "hits" with site "visits" even though the library's report cautioned that a single web page may account for multiple hits and that counting the hits was not the same as counting visits. Tony Wilkins acknowledged the misinterpretation. Joe Guarino repeated the error without correction, twice.

With this file, we can see for ourselves what a number reporting "hits" actually reports. Scroll through the log and you will see multiple image files (extensions of gif, jpg and jpeg),  icon files (ico), formatting files (css) and scripting files (js). These are in addition to and separate from the entries for web pages (html files) but they load as components of a web page and get counted as individual items -- hits. These are the items that, as the library initially explained in their report, result in multiple hits being reported for a single web page. So, while this list shows 500 hits, it should be comprehensible to the rational mind that these are not 500 "visits"or even "pages."

* The library is working with the vendor, I am told, to figure out why the system is failing to report more than five hundred items but, for now, the available log is substantially instructive.

[The items in the log file are in reverse chronological order. ]
8/23/2010 Greensboro Library throttled internet hits