The reads aren't counted by user ID, they're just counted by page loads. A logged-out, ad-seeing, non-member can also increment the counter by nexting through the messages.
A while back, Matt/Bob were able to stop the automated 'bots from doing things like putting the 'Closed' board on the hot list by repetitive page loads, so maybe they can do something again here. At least investigate the IPs responsible and compare them to those from user IDs. Or change the algorithm to also reflect # of unique IPs to read the board, instead of # hits? Pumping the home page is worse than spamming or making a second alias, IMO, as it's more effective.
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