Thank you, Ken, for reminding us again of some of the background - and I join you in your appreciation of the work of active Admin. As ever, we need more of them.
I am not so pessimistic about finding a way to change the present position, which is not really to do with inward linking itself, but the way in which rankings are generated. Cody and I have this as an active subject for discussion with IT.
It should be noted that the issue is often exaggerated, and the reasons for photos receiving higher numbers of views are many and various. By way of illustration, taking the current three front page photos, at this moment they have 519, 404 and 272 views respectively. The 1st and 3rd have no inward-linked views, the 2nd has 90 inward links, so even if these were removed 314 views would still place it in 2nd position. I am not sayng that there is not an unfairness in the current system - there indeed is - but members should not get so excited about it.
There are some open or thinly veiled attacks on other members in some previous comments which will be removed. Members are recommended to re-read the Code of Conduct.