It’s time for the end-of-the-year summing up. As of January, this website will have been going 14 years. In that period I’ve put up 26,803 posts (including this one), and there have been 1,252,059 comments. That was 46.7 comments per post, and a few years ago I vowed to discontinue the site if comments dropped below 50 per post. Well, as you see, I’ve violated my vow, but am not sure why. Maybe, like the Twitter addicts I just denigrated, I need the love.
Below is what my dashboard tells me are the top posts in terms of views (I’m not sure whether this is just for the year or for all time; I suspect it’s the latter, simply because the audience has grown). I can’t take a lot of pride in this because the two top posts had very little intellectual input from me. #1, which was posted recently, just points to a good website harboring informative videos about sex and gender. The second one I saw as a “throwaway post”—one of those pieces where I rant in Andy Rooney style—this time about the shrinkage of ice-cream quantities with no corresponding reduction in price. How did I know that so many people shared the anger against Big Food?
Looking them all over, I can see no real pattern in them. It may be that when a Big Fish like Dawkins or Pinker tweets about one of my posts, it gets a lot more views. But I can’t be arsed to look.
At any rate, if you missed any of these, here’s your chance to see what got the clicks.
Top Posts
The ice cream scams 77,817 Views
Progressive professors: the root of all evil 60,663 Views
Two religions collide: Cambridge student preacher causes row by suggesting that Jesus was a transsexual male 42,411 Views
Scientific American does an asinine hit job on E. O. Wilson, calling him a racist 23,991 Views
Caturday felid trifecta: Celebrities’ cats; cat has rare brown kittens; giant cat screen in Japan; and lagniappe 22,748 Views
Success shouldn’t be measured by the number of comments. I only comment when there is something I feel strongly needs to be said. Too many people feel the need to comment on everything.
I underscore what Franklin wrote. I comment only when I feel my comment will advance the discussion. But now, based on what our host wrote, I will relax my restriction a bit and comment more often.
Yes, I don’t comment often but this is the only website I check and read every day.
Number 3 on the list was comment-Tweeted by Dawkins (2.9M followers), and then that Tweet was replied to (approvingly) by Elon Musk (123M followers).
Update: It seems that Dawkins is now among the mere 164 people that Musk follows on Twitter. And he’s just replied to another Dawkins Tweet of a WEIT post (the American Naturalist one).
I’d like to see the numbers for tye deep cuts, and by-category.
You know, if it is easy to show – or perhaps I can do it in WordPress.
I get a kick out of those search terms too.
I hope you wont discontinue. I enjoy your posts but have never commented. They are also the best and sometimes only source for what’s happening in science/education in NZ where our media is captured by the woke.
I have definitely benefited from your postings, so I hope you’ll keep it going. I’ve also enjoyed having a forum for commenting, as this allows me to contribute at least in a small way. The topics you raise here are super important, and your forum provides an important counterpoint to so much of the craziness out there. Your site loudly exclaims that The Enlightenment still lives!
The number of comments may have gone down, but IMHO, the average quality of the comments has gone up significantly.
Wow, if you got a penny for every comment, you’d have over $12,500! But since comments are like someone’s “2 cents” let’s double that amount. 🙂
An average of 46.7 comments per post is still a lot of comments. I don’t think I’d have the reading time if you got hundreds of comments per post.
What about the least commented/viewed?
I have never commented before, but your website is nevertheless part of my daily routine, reading the Hili at lunch (I live in Portugal so it’s approximately at the time the post is up) and everything else later in the day. I too have benefited immensely by what is written here, both by the posts themselves and by the comments. Hope you keep up with the good work & voice.
👍🤓
Hi Jerry – I enjoy reading your scientific/humorous comments and daily posts. I mostly don’t feel any need to comment on them – for me it’s a passive intellectual entertainment. Keep it it up, your site is a beacon of intellect in a mostly vacuous on-line world. And the wildlife photos are wonderful.
Please keep it up. Yours is the only site I regularly peruse.
I would like to see that .7 comment! Duuuuuh…
Remember Milton’s request in the preamble to Paradise Lost for a “fit audience though few.”
I comment occasionally when I feel I can add to the conversation. This comment is to add to the numbers!
Hello to everyone, first time posting here. There’s something I always wanted to comment to the professor about the WEIT emails, the full article can be read in them, thus many readers may not feel the need to access the website (I’ve done this several time in my years as a WEIT email subscriber). My suggestion is that the email contains only a paragraph (or partial) of the full post, that way we all have the come to the website to finish the post, maybe this will raise the number of comments too. English is not my first language, so I’m sorry in advance for any errors.
Good point but this has come up in prior discussions, and I recall that Jerry is aware of this. He has occasionally done what you described above (e.g. by adding ‘Read More” at the end of an introduction).
If increased quantity would help this site in any way, I bet many would be willing.
This site is a tonic, and I am very grateful for the political touchstone. Should you ever need a vacation, do take care of yourself, but please keep this vital forum.