October 2015 was another record-setting month. First, page views shattered the previous high of 14,981 page views during August 2015 by 7,500 with a new record of 22,491. Second, last month exceeded last month's 74 comments with 89, another new record. Finally, the blog reached a milestone with its 100th follower, Robin of Your Daily Dose and TV Function Junction. I'm celebrating the record month by sharing the entries with the most comments, most likes, and most page views, beginning with the post that also got the most comments last month, "Science fiction speaks to our current anxieties." Thanks to a battle with several persistent spammers, this post is now the most commented on entry in the history of the blog with 52 comments, half of them deleted. Fourteen more came in October, beating out the next entry by eight.
"Hurricane Joaquin as viewed from Michigan," posted October 2, 2015, came in second with six comments thanks to Paul W. and I having a conversation. It was the entry actually posted last month with the most comments. All those comments only gained it 112 page views according to the raw counter, not enough to earn it a place on the top ten lists otherwise. It also earned its page views by being shared at Kunstler's blog.
Follow over the jump for the most read and liked entries of October 2015.
The tenth most read entry posted last month was "Democrats write better than Republicans, according to Grammarly." It earned 146 page views according to the raw counter. It seems to have earned its page views through being promoted on the political groups on Facebook, as I can't find evidence of sharing at Kunstler's or Greer's blogs.
"A 'Grand Canyon' crosses the surface of Pluto's moon Charon" was either the eighth or ninth most read entry posted during October 2015, depending on which counter's numbers I use. The raw counter shows it with 157 page views, while it never cracked the default counter's top ten for the month, unlike "San Pedro's Sunken City: The final location of 'Fear the Walking Dead' Season 1." This post received its page views from being shared by Infidel753. It's the first of two last month that got that boost from him.
The other entry that could rank eighth or ninth was "San Pedro's Sunken City: The final location of 'Fear the Walking Dead' Season 1." The raw counter showed it with 150 page views by the end of the month, placing it ninth. On the other hand, the default counter listed it with 131 page views, which cracked the overall top ten for the month on Halloween. The default counter wins. This entry earned its page views by being shared on the science fiction and horror groups on Facebook and the Walking Dead communities on Google Plus.
The top ten proper begins with "Drinks for the Democratic debates: Bernie Sanders." It ended the month with 140 page views, 161 according to the raw counter, placing it tenth overall and seventh among entries posted during October. Sharing the link at Kunstler's blog and Paul W.'s blog earned the post its page views.
The top ten for October resumes with "Drinks for the Democratic debates: Hillary Clinton." It was the second most liked post of the month, with seven pluses on Google Plus that resulted from sharing the link at the Hillary Clinton for President community there. The entry earned 157 page views, 174 according to the raw counter, by the end of the month, placing it sixth for the month and ninth overall. In addition to sharing the link at the political groups on Facebook and Google Plus, I posted the link in the comments to Paul W.'s and Kunstler's blogs.
"D&D alignment charts for 'The Walking Dead'" was the first of three entries from the back catalog to make October's top ten. This entry came in eighth with 167 page views, earning them solely through search. I don't recall sharing this in time for the premiere of season 6, so I had nothing to do with its renewed success.
It's Flashback Friday, so it's time to resume the retrospective of last month's top entries with "Democrats making the right enemies." This pose earned 189 page views by the end of October, 201 according to the raw counter. Those were enough to place it fifth among entries posted during October and seventh overall for the month. It got its page views from being shared on the political groups on Facebook.
The second most read entry from the back catalog last month was "Steampunk fans ejected from San Diego area mall." The post placed sixth overall. It earned its 192 page views from being shared at The Archdruid Report.
Infidel753 helped make "Republicans vs. Democrats on climate change at the debates so far" the fourth most read entry posted during October and the fifth most popular overall for the month, first by sharing it at his blog and again at Crooks & Liars. The result was 267 page views, 275 according to the raw counter, 109 of which came from Crooks & Liars alone. Thanks, Infidel753!
"A conversation about the TPP on BlogTalkRadio" won the Revenge of the Back Catalog trophy for October for being the most read of any entry posted from previous month. It earned its 315 page views, enough to place it fourth overall, by being shared at the Coffee Party USA's Facebook page.
http://crazyeddiethemotie.blogspot.com/2015/05/a-conversation-about-tpp-on.html
The third most read entry, both posted during October and overall for the month, was "Happy Sweetest Day!" It earned its 460 page views, 465 according to the raw counter, entirely to routine social media promotion and web search, mostly the latter.
The most liked entry of October with 12 pluses on Google Plus was "Clinton wins the news media while Sanders wins the Internet." Being shared at the Bernie Sanders communities of G+ did most of that. It was also the second most read entry posted during the month as well as overall with 2163 page views, 2172 according to the raw counter. This post earned 2157 page views the first week, all but 40 from being shared at the Coffee Party Facebook page. The first hour of being shared, it brought 427 page views to the blog, part of 1714 that day. It's currently the third most viewed entry in the history of the blog.
"Trump thinks Sanders is the right enemy" was the single most viewed post of the month as well as the most read entry in the history of the blog with 7111 page views, 7422 according to the raw counter. This entry was shared at the Coffee Party Facebook page. It drew 1369 page views to the blog the first hour and 1150 page views the second hour. The total number of page views for the day was 6316, a record, and for the post 7110 over the next week, another record.
Bonus: "Corn questions from 'Food, Inc.' worksheet" fell out of the all-time top ten, but re-entered at the end of the month. Before it fell out again, it had 994 page views and sat in tenth. It got most of those page view from my printing it and passing the copies to my students. It has since been knocked out of the all time top ten by November's top post.
As for November's page view goals, all but one has been achieved already. The only one still to go is 13,000 page views. That will take 1400 page views in seven days. I'll probably make it, even though I've stopped sharing links to Greer's and Kunstler's blogs last Wednesday, when the blog exceed last November's 10,358 page views, and I'm only posting one entry per day until the end of the month. Stay tuned to see if I make that last goal, too.
I used to check my stats regularly. One of my favorite things to still look at is the key words that brought people to my blog. There are always a couple that leave me scratching my head.
ReplyDelete100th follower... woohoo!
Congratulations, both for being my blog's 100th follower and for being one of the fastest people to leave a comment on one of its entries. I think 20 minutes is a record, but I'd have to check. As for today's search term, it's "shoes and spam." I know exactly what entry that goes to: OMG, Spam Shoes!
DeleteHey Pinku -- have you given up on commenting on Kunstler's blog now that he seems to have gone into semi-permanent grumpy WHITE man mode? I usually read the first few dozen comments each Tuesday (when it appears on my side of the Dateline) and yours tends to be at the top. Any further down, that's when the racists start to stink up the atmosphere. JHK's writing is getting more accolades from the peanut gallery than ever since he's veered into resentful whitefella mode.
ReplyDeleteNo, I haven't, as I commented last month. Just the same, I'm not encouraged by his "get off my lawn, you people I think are idiots" mode lately. I'm mostly refraining from commenting when I've reached my readership goals for the month. It's more a form of managing growth in my readership and not going to the well any more than I need to than an expression of disapproval of the turn his writing has taken.
DeleteIf you want an example of someone I've disassociated myself from, it's Elaine Meinel Supkis. I turned sour on her three years ago when her principled anti-Zionism crossed the line into a form of antisemitism and her unorthodox views of astronomy turned into outright crankery. In both cases, she seemed to be rebelling against her family, both by marriage (her in-laws, both past and present, are Jewish) and by blood (her father was an astronomer). Whatever her motives, I decided I was better off not commenting on her blog. The last time I did so turned into ISIS looks like Sith, not Jedi, which was me mocking her.
Just last week, not last month. I recycled that into Bye, Bobby! Jindal drops out. I have more to use from that comment.
DeleteI was looking forward to your take as a university professor on the Kunstler column from two weeks back about how there's a new "Cultural Revolution" a la Mao in the U.S. At first glance, I thought he had a good analogy to make likening the xenophobic, reactionary "modernism be damned!" Teabagger movement to the Great Leap Backwards that Mao put Red China through in the 1960s. (Much to the detriment of the 20 million people who starved to death because they were too busy getting forced to build mini steel mills in their back yards instead of growing food.) He coulda made a great point that way. Instead, it turned out to be another whinge about how he was dissed by some dumbarse hypersensitive black lecturer. She sounded a bit prickish, but when you let someone else bend you out of shape, you're giving that person a lot of power over your mood. In my own life, I don't give a chit about what anyone thinks (aside from my bosses and the people whose opinion I care about.) I'm not letting rank strangers have power over me.
DeleteBecause you're there in one of the trenches of today's university world, I'm curious as to your thoughts on the political correctness freakout. Is it as bad as portrayed on reich-wing websites? My opinion is that the people who are loudly against P.C. are fuckheads who want to be able to say "nigger-nigger-nigger" without anyone calling them on their shit.
As for Supkis (someone I never heard of) it's a shame that antisemitism makes it hard to criticise Israel. I'm revolted at the turn the country has taken, and that's speaking as someone whose blood and sweat is literally in the soil there. (Spent a summer on a kibbutz in 1980, even though I'm not Jewish, and my first job was getting up at dawn to machete the dead leaves off banana trees in the plantation. My aim was not always so good and I nicked myself a few times. We got to quit when the sun rose high enough to put the temps up to 40 degrees C, hence the sweat.) The trouble with slagging the government of Israel is that it puts me in company with revolting neo-Nazis. I reckon it's better to keep my mouth shut about the enemy of my enemy, lest I be regarded as its friend.
That attempt to shame Kunstler about his views on race and assimilation backfired; it pissed him off instead, stiffening his resolve and giving him another target in the process. Now he'll double down on his attacks on higher education as part of his rants about the "eds and meds rackets." He won't just go after the financing of college through student loans and the irrelevance of post-secondary education to the future he foresees, but also about elite universities being actively harmful to preserving the culture now. I'm not looking forward to it.
DeleteWhen I mentioned elite universities, I meant it. That's where this phenomenon is taking place so far. It hasn't filtered down to the commuter colleges and branch campuses, not like the Vietnam war protests, the most infamous of which took place at Kent State, hardly the flagship campus of Ohio's public higher education system. The "political correctness freakout" has not reached where I teach, which is a community college in the suburbs of Detroit. That's not to say that diversity and sensitivity aren't issues; they are. But I'd like to think we're more level-headed and practical about them where I work.
Elaine Supkis lives just outside the next town over from where Kunstler resides, so the two know each other. They also no longer get along, with Supkis talking about it and Kunstler keeping his mouth shut.
I generally stay away from the Israel-Palestine issue on my blog. I have friends on both sides and I'd like to keep as many of them as possible. The most I'll say is that I like Israel, but I intensely dislike its current government. As you wrote, critisizing it puts me in bad company, so I won't go any further in that direction.