In Blogging, Statistics

‘Nacle Numbers 2007, Part 3

Author ZiffPosted on 36 Comments

The longest bloggernacle post of 2007 that I could find was Kevin Barney’s “On Elkenah as Canaanite El” at BCC, which was 9072 words.

It actually isn’t a post in the usual sense of the word. It was posted under the title of “BCC Papers,” and it’s clearly more like an academic paper, with two appendixes and 65 footnotes.

In Part 2 of ‘Nacle Numbers, I looked at differences in numbers and lengths of posts and comments by blog. Now, in Part 3, I’ll be looking at differences by blogger. I’ll be using the same sample of 11 blogs described in Part 1 of ‘Nacle Numbers.

About 175 bloggers wrote at least one post at one of the blogs in my sample in 2007. I reduced this number by considering only bloggers who posted at least semi-regularly, which I’ve defined as every other month, or at least 6 posts in 2007. As you’ll see, this bar is low enough to include a number of guest bloggers as well as permabloggers. The number of bloggers achieving this level of activity was 110. Well, actually, it was 106, plus 4 additional administrative accounts (e.g., BCC Admin, FMH Guest) also having at least 6 posts.

Okay, so with this list of 106 bloggers, I’ll ask the same questions I did in Part 2 about blogs.

Who wrote the most posts?

  1. Heather O., MMW: 190
  2. fMhLisa, FMH: 106
  3. Kaimi Wenger: T&S, 104
  4. The Wiz, MMW: 101
  5. Kevin Barney, BCC: 92
  6. Deborah, ExII: 91
  7. Geoff B, M*: 90
  8. RonanJH, BCC: 77
  9. Julie M. Smith, T&S: 70
  10. Steve Evans, BCC: 67

Wow! Heather O. of Mormon Mommy Wars wrote nearly twice as many posts as any other blogger, more than one every other day. Following her is an unsurprising list including another MMW super-blogger (The Wiz) and some of the people known for being among the most talkative in the bloggernacle.

Of course, this is a point where the results are seriously and clearly biased by my decision to only include group blogs in the sample. Bloggers at group blogs, no matter how motivated, may be prone to social loafing. Solo bloggers, on the other hand, have nobody else to take up the slack and so may be more diligent at keeping up their blogging. Take Dave of Dave’s Mormon Inquiry, for example. He wrote 157 posts in 2007, even while taking a summer vacation and finding the time to become a permablogger at T&S and write 17 posts there. (In fact, Dave wrote an interesting post about the phenomenon of people becoming permabloggers at the big group blogs without being solo bloggers first.) Anyway, my point is that there were likely a number of solo blogger at Mormon themed blogs who out-posted many of the bloggers in this group-blog-only sample.

Who wrote the most words in posts?

  1. Kaimi Wenger, T&S: 54,667
  2. Kevin Barney, BCC: 54,447
  3. Heather O., MMW: 53,027
  4. Ardis Parshall, T&S: 45,656
  5. Deborah, ExII: 39,263
  6. Nate Oman, T&S, 36,480
  7. Matt W., NCT: 34,450
  8. Julie M. Smith, T&S: 34,104
  9. J. Nelson-Seawright, BCC, 31,903
  10. fMhLisa, FMH: 31,396

One thing to note: Unfortunately, Kevin Barney’s total does not include his 9072-word treatise because it was posted under the BCC admin account. Now of course I know that he wrote it and I could include it in his total, but then to be consistent I would have to go back and check who actually wrote all the posts posted under admin accounts (like FMH’s 98 Guest posts) so I could attribute them to the right people. And really, I would have to manually check every single post, since permabloggers sometimes put guest posts up using their own accounts. All that seemed like a really big hassle for not much payoff, so I didn’t do it. 🙂

Turning to the list, using the standard of 1 Book of Mormon = 293,472 words that I introduced in Part 1 of ‘Nacle Numbers, the most prolific posters each wrote nearly 20% of a Book of Mormon in 2007.

This list of most words overlaps the list of most posts somewhat, but there are some new faces. Ardis Parshall of T&S, for example, jumped from not appearing in the top 10 for number of posts (she wrote 47) to #4 in total number of words. Such differences raise the obvious question of who wrote the longest posts.

Who wrote the longest posts (highest mean number of words)?

  1. Keller, M*: 1850
  2. J. Nelson-Seawright, BCC: 1387
  3. lxxluthor, FPR: 1367
  4. Blake, NCT: 1356
  5. Kevin Burtt (The Baron), M*: 1293
  6. amelia, ExII: 1132
  7. Wilfried Decoo, T&S: 1119
  8. Patricia Karamesines, T&S: 1083
  9. Maria, ExII: 1004
  10. Brad, BCC: 995

This is a completely different list than the previous two, with the exception of J. Nelson-Seawright of BCC who wrote both enough posts (23) and posts of enough length to also make it onto the top 10 words list above. Keller of Millennial Star had far and away the highest mean post length, with a few that look like Kevin Barney’s longest post of the year, full of footnotes and quotes, like this one about Annie Lyman.

Who wrote the longest posts (highest median number of words)?

  1. Keller, M*: 1404
  2. Kevin Burtt (The Baron), M*: 1318
  3. lxxluthor, FPR: 1314
  4. J. Nelson-Seawright, BCC: 1262
  5. Wilfried Decoo, T&S: 1086
  6. Brad, BCC: 1011
  7. amelia, ExII: 997
  8. Curtis DeGraw, T&S: 967
  9. Patricia Karamesines, T&S: 959
  10. Blake, NCT: 877

Looking at the median can show whether some bloggers have really high means because of a few long posts. This list, though, matches 8 of 10 bloggers on the highest mean list, albeit with a little reordering.

Who wrote the shortest posts (lowest mean number of words)?

  1. Not Ophelia, FMH: 155
  2. Don Clifton, Nine Moons: 209
  3. Rebecca, FMH: 211
  4. The Wiz, MMW: 241
  5. CJ Douglass, Nine Moons: 247
  6. a Random John, Mormon Mentality: 252
  7. Rusty, Nine Moons, 262
  8. Heather O., MMW: 279
  9. Nitsav, FPR: 288
  10. fMhLisa, FMH: 296

Janet of FMH once said that FMH felt “orally residual” to her, which I think means that it has some characteristics of talking rather than writing. Given that we often talk in smaller bits than we write, it makes sense that FMH bloggers would take two of the top three spots on this list of shortest posts. So this might be a list of bloggers whose blogging is most like talking. MMW and Nine Moons both placed multiple bloggers on this list, and so may be like FMH in this way. (Now Janet, please feel free to come by and set me straight about what “orally residual” really means. 🙂 )

Who wrote the shortest posts (lowest median number of words)?

  1. Not Ophelia, FMH: 136
  2. Rusty, Nine Moons: 144
  3. Steve Evans, BCC: 162
  4. a Random John, Mormon Mentality: 176
  5. Kristine, BCC: 180
  6. Rebecca, FMH: 186
  7. Deborah, ExII: 192
  8. Frank McIntrye, T&S: 193
  9. Matt Evans, T&S: 199
  10. Brooke, ExII: 200

Several bloggers appear on this list who aren’t on the shortest by mean list. This suggests that they wrote a lot of short posts, but also a few long ones that kept their means up. Steve Evans, for example, posts the Friday Firestorms; Kristine posts a lot of poetry around Easter and Christmas; Deborah posts the Virtual Oases. All of these posts tend to be short, giving these bloggers lower median post lengths than their mean post lengths, which are increased by their longer posts that don’t fall into these series.

Whose posts were the most variable in length (highest standard deviation of number of words)?

  1. Blake, NCT: 1470
  2. Keller, M*: 1231
  3. Kathryn Lynard Soper, T&S: 921
  4. Ardis Parshall, T&S: 840
  5. J. Nelson-Seawright, BCC: 782
  6. Deborah, ExII: 781
  7. lxxluthor, FPR: 760
  8. Russell Arben Fox, T&S: 739
  9. john f., Mormon Mentality: 695
  10. Julie M. Smith, T&S: 691

Four of the 10 bloggers on this list are also on the longest mean list. This suggests that even the most verbose bloggers sometimes wrote posts of more typical lengths, pushing their standard deviations up. But there are also several bloggers who aren’t on the highest mean list, 4 of them from T&S, and their posts do vary in length to a degree that surprised me. Ardis Parshall and Julie M. Smith, for example, wrote both lengthy posts (see Ardis’s “Of Perfect Organizations” or Julie’s “In Defense of Commentaries“) complete with headings, quotes, and footnotes, as well as brief conversation starter-type posts (see Ardis’s “Have You Read All These Books?” or Julie’s “Does Seminary Make Kids Fat and Stupid?“).

Whose posts were the least variable in length (lowest standard deviation of number of words)?

  1. Don Clifton, Nine Moons: 89
  2. Tagore, Mormon Mentality: 108
  3. Devyn S., Mormon Mentality: 116
  4. Rebecca, FMH: 144
  5. CJ Douglass, Nine Moons: 152
  6. Starfoxy, FMH/T&S: 157
  7. Not Ophelia, FMH: 180
  8. Amri Brown, BCC: 193
  9. ECS, FMH: 196
  10. Tracy M, MMW/BCC: 197

I would have guessed before checking that the bloggers whose posts were of the most consistent length simply wrote very few posts and had little chance to deviate from their usual. But this isn’t the case. Don Clifton wrote 33 posts. Devyn S. wrote 34. Rebecca wrote 56! It is the case, though, that the bloggers on this list tended to write fairly short posts. Only Starfoxy (562) and Amri Brown (537) had mean lengths over 400 words. I guess it’s easier to write consistently shorter posts than consistently long ones.

Whose longest posts had the most words?

  1. Deborah, ExII: 6909
  2. Blake, NCT: 5249
  3. Julie M. Smith, T&S: 4879
  4. Kaimi Wenger, T&S: 4777
  5. Keller, M*: 4083
  6. J. Nelson-Seawright, BCC: 4025
  7. Ardis Parshall, T&S: 3833
  8. lxxluthor, FPR: 3181
  9. Kathryn Lynard Soper, T&S: 3170
  10. Kevin Barney, BCC: 3023

Note that this isn’t necessarily a list of the ten longest posts. It’s a list of the ten bloggers whose longest posts were the longest. It may be, for example, that Kaimi wrote 5 more posts over 4000 words in addition to his longest, but they’re not included because they’re not his longest (I haven’t checked). Also recall that Kevin Barney’s 9072-word post doesn’t appear on the list because it was posted under the BCC Admin account, and these lists don’t include posts under administrative accounts. He makes the list anyway, though, with a 3023-word post that I’m sure was child’s play for him. 🙂

Now that I’ve shown you top 10 lists, let me show you results for all 106 bloggers. In the pink-topped tables below you’ll find each blogger’s total number of posts, total words in posts, mean, median, standard deviation, and maximum words.

A few notes about the tables:

  • Bloggers are listed by their blogs. Bloggers who posted at more than one blog are listed at the blog where they posted the most. Footnotes below the tables tell how many posts they wrote at each blog.
  • Blogs are ordered by their total number of posts. Note that the sum of the individual bloggers’ numbers of posts and words won’t necessarily add to the totals for the blogs in Part 2 of ‘Nacle Numbers because of the exclusion of bloggers who wrote fewer than 6 posts.
  • Bloggers are ordered within each blog by their total number of posts.
  • Values among the highest 10 in the lists above are highlighted with yellow. Values among the lowest 10 are highlighted with green.
  • Within each blog, the highest value for each variable (e.g., number of posts) is bolded. The lowest value is italicized.
  • Administrative accounts are not included in choosing highest and lowest values. Their names appear in brackets: [Guest].
By Common Consent
Name Posts Words in Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
Kevin Barney 92 54,447 592 482 454 3023
RonanJH 77 28,338 368 319 359 1861
Steve Evans 67 20,834 311 162 391 1833
Sam MB 65 26,549 408 324 275 1080
J. Daniel Crawford1 41 20,130 491 433 306 1180
Kristine 41 12,857 314 180 388 1934
Mark Brown 40 25,277 632 601 402 2541
J. Stapley 34 20,317 598 563 257 1316
Norbert 30 13,642 455 438 201 1159
J. Nelson-Seawright 23 31,903 1387 1262 782 4025
[Guest] 16 13,668 854 707 493 2133
Amri Brown 16 8,592 537 543 193 788
Natalie 15 8664 578 577 277 1043
Aaron B 14 10,472 748 723 536 1719
Stirling 11 8,126 739 522 583 1918
Melissa De Leon Mason 10 5,793 579 579 270 926
Taryn Nelson-Seawrighta 8 4,439 555 347 505 1532
[BCC Admin] 6 12,496 2083 43 3669 9072
Brad 6 5,972 995 1011 348 1501
S.P. Bailey 6 3,575 596 515 431 1424
Kris 6 2,709 451 419 388 978

1This includes 35 posts at BCC and 6 at FPR.
aThis includes 6 posts at BCC and 2 at FMH.

Times and Seasons
Name Posts Words in Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
Kaimi Wenger 104 54,667 526 371 670 4777
Julie M. Smith 70 34,104 487 312 691 4879
Adam Greenwoodb 59 18,471 313 210 374 2276
Nate Oman 56 36,480 651 563 467 2119
Ardis Parshall 47 45,656 971 711 840 3833
Jonathan Green 45 27,961 621 577 346 1499
Russell Arben Fox 37 25,815 698 337 739 2786
Dave Banack 17 10,549 621 628 289 1200
Patricia Karamesines 16 17,324 1083 959 507 2515
Kathryn Lynard Soper 16 12,101 756 501 921 3170
Jim F. 13 7,727 594 531 418 1590
Matt Evans 13 5,265 405 199 632 2458
Frank McIntyre 13 4,693 361 193 371 1121
Wilfried Decoo 9 10,073 1119 1086 604 2033
Rosalynde Welch 9 6,862 763 594 522 1997
Curtis DeGraw 7 6,417 917 967 311 1260
Ben Huff 7 4,154 593 610 448 1330

bThis includes 57 posts at T&S and 2 at M*.

Feminist Mormon Housewives
Name Posts Words in Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
fMhLisa 106 31,396 296 223 259 1313
[Guest] 98 68,171 696 550 522 2819
Rebecca 56 11,827 211 186 144 981
Artemis 47 21,054 448 393 397 1755
ECS 27 8,433 312 256 196 682
Janet 24 13,028 543 501 337 1180
Quimby 24 11,609 484 358 404 1618
EmilyS 21 12,685 604 559 408 1992
Starfoxyc 10 5,622 562 575 157 795
G 8 4,271 534 575 264 987
JohnRd 8 3,714 464 535 232 763
LAGirrrl 7 4,447 635 526 431 1515
Not Ophelia 7 1,086 155 136 180 530

cThis includes 6 posts at FMH and 4 at T&S.
dThis includes 7 posts at FMH and 1 at ExII.

Mormon Mommy Wars
Name Posts Words in Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
Heather O.e 190 53,027 279 265 204 921
The Wiz 101 24,328 241 224 209 1291
Tracy Mf 47 14,168 301 269 197 1026
Hollywood 39 17,238 442 434 249 1315

eThis includes 189 posts at MMW and 1 at FMH.
fThis includes 33 posts at MMW and 14 at BCC.

Mormon Mentality
Name Posts Words in Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
DKL 58 29,843 515 450 447 2506
annegb 53 26,320 497 399 465 2330
danithew 48 14,822 309 273 205 1048
a Random John 35 8,816 252 176 238 1036
Devyn S. 34 11,871 349 334 116 547
Matt B 29 19,708 680 664 466 1654
Proud Daughter of Eve 22 7,867 358 272 264 1121
Tagore 19 7,368 388 381 108 591
Dan Ellsworth 18 10,144 564 613 286 1102
Margaret Youngg 17 11,590 682 613 293 1396
john f. 13 11,754 904 745 695 2335
Amira 10 3,471 347 327 211 853
Wayne L. 8 6,805 851 766 441 1633

gThis includes 6 posts at Mormon Mentality, 6 at T&S, and 5 at BCC.

Exponent II
Name Posts Words in Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
Deborah 91 39,263 431 192 781 6909
EmilyCC 39 28,204 723 565 593 2478
Caroline 34 18,649 549 507 337 1758
jana 21 9,995 476 289 520 2204
Dora 17 13,392 788 847 380 1576
AmyB 15 10,260 684 568 464 1997
Maria 13 13,056 1004 793 526 2207
Brooke 13 4,188 322 200 233 870
ameliah 11 12,456 1132 997 489 2333

hThis includes 8 posts at ExII and 3 at FMH.

Millennial Star
Name Posts Words in Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
Geoff B 90 28,558 317 237 271 1001
John Mansfield 34 11,053 325 228 286 1147
Brian D. 29 13,618 470 427 315 1183
Ivan Wolfe 16 7,853 491 376 411 1508
Kevin Burtt (The Baron) 15 19,402 1293 1318 639 2426
Keller 11 20,347 1850 1404 1231 4083
Sarah 7 4657 665 637 244 1063
Nine Moons
Name Posts Words in Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
Rusty 64 16,769 262 144 389 2851
Don Clifton 33 6,888 209 211 89 369
Susan M 30 12,688 423 332 383 2046
Tom 17 9,373 551 527 285 1087
Lamonte 14 9,857 704 696 305 1422
Seth 13 7,431 572 589 260 1107
CJ Douglass 11 2,720 247 229 152 515
Faith Promoting Rumor
Name Posts Words in Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
TT 49 23,011 470 450 312 1494
smallaxe 26 8,333 320 247 308 1567
Nitsav 25 7,202 288 212 265 1157
lxxluthor 18 24,607 1367 1314 760 3181
Mogget 11 9,609 874 728 672 2383
jupiterschild 9 5,363 596 632 255 1004
Chris H. 6 3,887 648 698 431 1116
New Cool Thang
Name Posts Words in Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
Matt W. 63 34,450 547 522 419 1794
Geoff J 41 20,272 494 399 354 1551
Jacob J 28 25,748 920 840 514 2427
Blake 9 12,205 1356 877 1470 5249
Kristen J 8 4,906 613 487 314 1237
Zelophehad’s Daughters
Name Posts Words in Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
Lynnette 26 19,540 752 690 357 1789
Eve 19 14,888 784 806 337 1339
Ziff 13 9,084 699 545 604 2091
Seraphine 13 8,628 664 770 246 958
Kiskilili 12 10,459 872 867 335 1466
Vada 9 4,725 525 444 210 854
[ZD] 8 790 99 50 114 348

Now let’s look at number of comments broken down by post author.

Whose posts drew the most total comments?

  1. fMhLisa, FMH: 5561
  2. Steve Evans, BCC: 5297
  3. RonanJH, BCC: 4954
  4. Kaimi Wenger, T&S: 4822
  5. Kevin Barney, BCC: 4249
  6. Julie M. Smith, T&S: 3848
  7. Heather O., MMW: 3667
  8. Geoff J, NCT: 2715
  9. Geoff B, M*: 2553
  10. J. Daniel Crawford, BCC/FPR: 2474

Comparing this list to the second table in Part 2 of ‘Nacle Numbers, it appears that fMhLisa, Steve Evans, Ronan, and Kaimi each drew more comments individually than did the entire blogs Nine Moons, M*, ZD, FPR, or ExII.

Also, as you’ll see in the tables below, the FMH guest account, had it been included, would have been #1 with 5901 comments on 98 posts. They sure do know how to attract lots of interesting guest posts at FMH. So many that mfranti was recently appointed as the organizational keeper of the guest posts, which I hope means even more guest posts will appear in 2008.

Whose posts drew the most comments (highest mean)?

  1. JohnR, FMH: 124
  2. ECS, FMH: 85
  3. Steve Evans, BCC: 79
  4. Aaron B, BCC: 71
  5. Matt Evans, T&S: 70 (70.31)
  6. Devyn S., Mormon Mentality: 70 (70.27)
  7. Geoff J, NCT: 66 (66.22)
  8. Russell Arben Fox, T&S: 66 (65.87)
  9. G, FMH: 65
  10. RonanJH, BCC: 64

It looks like JohnR really stirred up some discussion during his stint at FMH–124 comments per post–nearly half as many more as the #2 person (although ECS did write 27 posts to his 8). G, at #9, is also an FMH guest blogger. So not only do the one-time guest posters at FMH draw a lot of discussion, the people who formally guest blog there do also.

Whose posts drew the most comments (highest median)?

  1. JohnR, FMH: 102
  2. ECS, FMH: 77
  3. Steve Evans, BCC: 72
  4. Matt Evans, T&S: 67 (67.0)
  5. Aaron B, BCC: 59
  6. G, FMH: 54
  7. RonanJH, BCC: 51
  8. Julie M. Smith, T&S: 48
  9. Rosalynde Welch, T&S: 46
  10. [tie] Mark Brown, BCC and Blake, NCT: 45

This is largely the same list, with Ronan, Julie, and Rosalynde replacing Devyn S., Geoff J, and Russell Arben Fox. Not surprisingly, on this list, which probably best captures number of comments per post, other thank Blake of NCT tied at #10, everyone is from the big three blogs.

Whose posts drew the fewest comments (lowest mean)?

  1. Deborah, ExII: 6 (5.88)
  2. Brooke, ExII: 6 (6.15)
  3. EmilyCC, ExII: 6 (6.26)
  4. Keller, M*: 7
  5. Amira, Mormon Mentality: 8 (8.10)
  6. Sarah, M*: 8 (8.29)
  7. Kevin Burtt (The Baron), M*: 11 (10.80)
  8. Dora, ExII: 11 (11.12)
  9. Brian Duffin, M*: 12
  10. John Mansfield, M*: 14

You can get at least a vague idea of what people post about by number of comments. Deborah’s virtual oases, Brooke’s poetry, and EmilyCC’s recipes, for example, are more FYE (for your edification) than comment-inducing (argument-inciting?) topics more common among the bloggers who draw lots of comments.

(In the tables below, you’ll see that AmyB of ExII also had a mean of 14, but hers was actually 14.20 while John Mansfield’s was 13.71.)

Whose posts drew the fewest comments (lowest median)?

  • 1. Deborah, ExII: 3
  • [tie] EmilyCC, ExII: 3
  • 3. Chris H., FPR: 4
  • 4. Brooke, ExII: 5
  • 5. jana, ExII: 6
  • [tie] Rebecca, FMH: 6
  • 7. Amira, Mormon Mentality: 7
  • [tie] Keller, M*: 7
  • 9. John Mansfield, M*: 8
  • 10. Dora, ExII: 9
  • [tie] jupiterschild, FPR: 9
  • [tie] Sarah, M*: 9

Sorry about the kludgey look; I couldn’t get a numbered list to allow for ties.

Whose posts drew the most variable number of comments (highest standard deviation)?

  1. Devyn S., Mormon Mentality: 117
  2. Russell Arben Fox, T&S: 93
  3. JohnR, FMH: 91
  4. amelia, ExII: 83
  5. Geoff J, NCT: 79
  6. Seraphine, ZD: 77
  7. ECS, FMH: 72
  8. Steve Evans, BCC: 61
  9. Kris, BCC: 60
  10. J. Nelson-Seawright, BCC: 58

Devyn S. had the highest standard deviation far and away, I think largely because when you write a post that draws 650 comments (637 at the time I gathered data), it really pushes your standard deviation up. I think at least some of the other bloggers on the list also have high standard deviations because of a few posts that drew a whole bunch of comments. Russell Arben Fox, for example, typically posts the T&S General Conference open threads, and these sometimes draw hundreds of comments.

Whose posts drew the least variable number of comments (lowest standard deviation)?

  1. Keller, M*: 4 (3.70)
  2. Sarah, M*: 4 (4.27)
  3. Brooke, ExII: 4 (4.49)
  4. Amira, Mormon Mentality: 5
  5. Dora, ExII: 8 (7.77)
  6. Kevin Burtt (The Baron), M*: 8 (7.80)
  7. EmilyCC, ExII: 9 (8.68)
  8. LAGirrrl, FMH: 9 (9.01)
  9. Deborah, ExII: 9 (9.10)
  10. Proud Daughter of Eve, Mormon Mentality: 11

This list largely overlaps with the “fewest comments” lists.

Whose most-commented-on post drew the most comments?

  1. Devyn S., Mormon Mentality: 637
  2. Russell Arben Fox, T&S: 449
  3. Geoff J, NCT: 410
  4. ECS, FMH: 329
  5. fMhLisa, FMH: 318
  6. JohnR, FMH: 316
  7. amelia, ExII: 290
  8. Seraphine, ZD: 283
  9. Steve Evans, BCC: 251
  10. Lynnette, ZD: 249

There’s Devyn S.’s “Married Mormon Graduate Students on Welfare” post with 600+ comments. Russell Arben’s Fox’s #2 was the Conference Open Thread for the session in which President Beck delivered her “Mothers Who Know” talk. (fMhLisa’s #5 also addressed President Beck’s talk.) Geoff J at #3, Seraphine at #8, and Lynnette at #10 were all part of one big long argument discussion. ECS’s most-commented was her comparison of President Benson’s and President Hinckley’s statements on mothers working outside the home. JohnR’s #6 was “The Loneliness of the Male Feminist.” Amelia’s #7 was a guest post at FMH, “the rhetoric of marriage, or please tell me why.” Steve Evans’s #9 was “The Priesthood Ban and Infallibility,” but he had lots of other posts with similarly high numbers of comments, such as “Your Home Teacher Tortures Inmates” and two consecutive Friday Firestorms in December, for example.

This whole topic of what kinds of posts draw the most comments is so interesting that, as jjohnson suggested, I’m going to write an entire post on it soon (or at least start one–I might not finish it).

Here are the results for all 106 bloggers. In the blue-topped tables are the total number of comments on each blogger’s posts, as well as the mean, median, standard deviation, and maximum. In these tables, blogs are ordered by their total number of comments, as are bloggers within blogs.

As in the previous tables, values among the highest 10 in the lists above are highlighted with yellow. Values among the lowest 10 are highlighted with green. Within each blog, the highest value for each variable (e.g., number of comments) is bolded. The lowest value is italicized.

By Common Consent
Name Comments on their Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
Steve Evans 5297 79 72 61 251
RonanJH 4954 64 51 48 242
Kevin Barney 4249 46 27 46 226
J. Daniel Crawford 2474 60 37 52 187
Sam MB 2079 32 23 28 112
Mark Brown 1796 45 45 27 104
J. Nelson-Seawright 1451 63 42 58 233
J. Stapley 1249 37 31 29 136
[Guest] 1061 66 40 73 222
Norbert 991 33 29 22 110
Aaron B 990 71 59 50 175
Amri Brown 893 56 41 35 145
Kristine 810 20 12 32 193
Natalie 667 44 33 37 132
Stirling 489 44 37 41 122
Melissa De Leon Mason 416 42 36 25 81
Taryn Nelson-Seawright 391 49 39 47 149
Kris 380 63 34 60 175
[BCC Admin] 285 48 37 30 94
Brad 252 42 21 40 108
S.P. Bailey 165 28 28 14 50
Times and Seasons
Name Comments on their Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
Kaimi Wenger 4822 46 33 41 213
Julie M. Smith 3848 55 48 49 244
Russell Arben Fox 2437 66 23 93 449
Adam Greenwood 2016 34 23 32 128
Nate Oman 1770 32 24 26 142
Jonathan Green 1706 38 31 36 215
Ardis Parshall 1527 32 25 35 228
Matt Evans 914 70 67 51 191
Kathryn Lynard Soper 814 51 44 37 117
Dave Banack 784 46 37 29 98
Patricia Karamesines 713 45 40 27 103
Frank McIntyre 586 45 41 30 112
Rosalynde Welch 452 50 46 37 129
Wilfried Decoo 359 40 33 29 116
Curtis DeGraw 253 36 23 31 91
Jim F. 250 19 18 17 55
Ben Huff 213 30 24 27 82
Feminist Mormon Housewives
Name Comments on their Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
[Guest] 5901 60 44 71 467
fMhLisa 5561 52 37 54 318
ECS 2291 85 77 72 329
Artemis 1854 39 23 47 213
EmilyS 1236 59 35 57 223
Quimby 1228 51 36 40 160
Rebecca 1076 19 6 33 203
JohnR 994 124 102 91 316
Janet 960 40 30 34 137
G 523 65 54 36 114
Starfoxy 410 41 42 21 71
Not Ophelia 184 26 17 32 84
LAGirrrl 146 21 20 9 35
Mormon Mentality
Name Comments on their Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
Devyn S. 2389 70 39 117 637
DKL 1785 31 23 25 102
annegb 1592 30 19 29 120
danithew 1028 21 16 20 105
a Random John 978 28 18 27 123
Margaret Young 825 49 37 38 141
Tagore 739 39 37 16 73
Matt B 733 25 17 28 150
Dan Ellsworth 709 39 25 46 170
john f. 495 38 23 40 145
Proud Daughter of Eve 399 18 15 11 40
Wayne L. 155 19 14 15 48
Amira 81 8 7 5 18
Mormon Mommy Wars
Name Comments on their Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
Heather O. 3667 19 17 16 112
The Wiz 2332 23 16 27 219
Tracy M 1228 26 20 27 175
Hollywood 991 25 22 18 85
New Cool Thang
Name Comments on their Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
Geoff J 2715 66 39 79 410
Matt W. 2043 32 22 34 216
Jacob J 987 35 25 29 112
Blake 538 60 45 44 134
Kristen J 179 22 21 12 43
Nine Moons
Name Comments on their Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
Rusty 1877 29 23 25 121
Don Clifton 587 18 15 16 91
Tom 553 33 22 31 122
Susan M 449 15 11 12 46
Seth 325 25 23 14 54
Lamonte 314 22 14 20 65
CJ Douglass 200 18 14 20 74
Millennial Star
Name Comments on their Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
Geoff B 2553 28 17 30 162
John Mansfield 466 14 8 17 88
Ivan Wolfe 427 27 23 26 100
Brian Duffin 339 12 10 12 61
Kevin Burtt (The Baron) 162 11 10 8 28
Keller 78 7 7 4 15
Sarah 58 8 9 4 15
Zelophehad’s Daughters
Name Comments on their Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
Lynnette 880 34 21 47 249
Seraphine 768 59 25 77 283
Kiskilili 563 47 34 52 202
Eve 458 24 17 15 55
Ziff 352 27 24 22 94
Vada 333 37 19 35 112
[ZD] 82 10 6 12 26
Faith Promoting Rumor
Name Comments on their Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
TT 1047 21 11 25 106
lxxluthor 504 28 19 24 80
smallaxe 418 16 11 15 62
Nitsav 369 15 11 17 85
Mogget 266 24 12 20 55
jupiterschild 184 20 9 19 57
Chris H. 99 17 4 22 56
Exponent II
Name Comments on their Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
Caroline 792 23 21 15 54
Deborah 535 6 3 9 52
amelia 451 41 16 83 290
jana 343 16 6 25 113
Maria 257 20 17 12 39
EmilyCC 244 6 3 9 45
AmyB 213 14 11 12 40
Dora 189 11 9 8 36
Brooke 80 6 5 4 17

Finally, here are some top ten lists for length of comments on each blogger’s posts.

Whose posts received the most total words in comments?

  1. fMhLisa, FMH: 592,690
  2. Kaimi Wenger, T&S: 471,420
  3. Steve Evans, BCC: 415,822
  4. Julie M. Smith, T&S: 414,430
  5. RonanJH, BCC: 412,337
  6. Kevin Barney, BCC: 341,082
  7. Geoff J, NCT: 334,710
  8. Geoff B, M*: 316,920
  9. ECS, FMH: 274,485
  10. Devyn S., Mormon Mentality: 270,637

Just to make sure I’m clear, this isn’t the number of words each blogger wrote in comments, but rather the number of words of comments written on the blogger’s posts. So for example, all commenters on fMhLisa’s posts collectively wrote 592,690 words of comments. That’s about two Books of Mormon worth.

Whose posts received the longest comments (highest mean)?

  1. Keller, M*: 191
  2. Kiskilili, ZD: 171
  3. JohnR, FMH: 158 (158.00)
  4. Wayne L., Mormon Mentality: 158 (157.64)
  5. Vada, ZD: 153
  6. Lynnette, ZD: 150 (150.22)
  7. Dora, ExII: 150 (150.04)
  8. amelia, ExII: 150 (149.93)
  9. Blake, NCT: 147
  10. Seraphine, ZD: 146

Keller of M* shows up on a lot of these lists. It appears that he writes very long posts that draw a small number of comments, but those comments are also really long. JohnR also appears high on the list here just as he did for number of comments. So he not only drew lots of comments, he also drew long comments. Several of my ZD co-bloggers also show up here as inducing people to write really long comments. Admit it, Kiskilili, Vada, Lynnette, and Seraphine! You stay up nights thinking of inflammatory posts to write just to see what great lengths people will go to to refute you.

Whose posts received the longest comments (highest median)?

  1. Dora, ExII: 125
  2. Kiskilili, ZD: 123
  3. Vada, ZD: 118
  4. Seraphine, ZD: 115
  5. amelia, ExII: 110
  6. Lynnette, ZD: 108
  7. JohnR, FMH: 107 (107.0)
  8. AmyB, ExII: 107 (106.5)
  9. Wayne L., Mormon Mentality: 105
  10. smallaxe, FPR: 101

This is largely the same list, although with some re-ordering that makes it really dominated by representatives of the feminacle.

Whose posts received the shortest comments (lowest mean)?

  1. Kristine, BCC: 55
  2. Russell Arben Fox, T&S: 62 (61.81)
  3. Kristen J, NCT: 62 (62.03)
  4. The Wiz, MMW: 67
  5. Tagore, Mormon Mentality: 70
  6. Heather O., MMW: 73
  7. Amira, Mormon Mentality: 73
  8. a Random John, Mormon Mentality: 74
  9. Hollywood, MMW: 75 (75.12)
  10. Brian Duffin, M*: 75 (75.25)

You might say this list is dominated by MMW bloggers, as three of their four permabloggers show up on it. This matches my (admittedly limited) experience with MMW: it’s more like a chat than a place where people fire 1000-word treatises back and forth.

(Note that if you read the tables below, you’ll find that J. Stapley of BCC and Nitsav of FPR also had means that rounded to 75, but their actual means were 75.34 and 75.37, so they just missed the list.)

Whose posts received the shortest comments (lowest median)?

  1. Russell Arben Fox, T&S: 27
  2. Kristine, BCC: 29
  3. Nitsav, FPR: 41
  4. Kristen J, NCT: 42
  5. Amira, Mormon Mentality: 43
  6. The Wiz, MMW: 45
  7. Susan M, Nine Moons: 46 (46.0)
  8. Rusty, Nine Moons: 46 (46.2)
  9. Brian Duffin, M*: 47 (46.5)
  10. Curtis DeGraw, T&S: 47 (46.7)

I wonder if Russell Arben Fox’s comment lengths weren’t affected by the Conference Open Thread posts. This wouldn’t be surprising given that these means and medians are based on all comments on a bloggers posts, not aggregated as the mean of means across posts or anything like that. So his comment lengths are likely dominated by the very brief comments typically written during Conference.

(Note that Steve Evans of BCC also had a median that rounded to 47, but it was actually 47.2.)

Whose posts drew comments of most variable length?

  1. Keller, M*: 273
  2. Patricia Karamesines, T&S: 186
  3. Blake, NCT: 185
  4. Ben Huff, T&S: 180
  5. Stirling, BCC: 176
  6. Wayne L., Mormon Mentality: 175
  7. JohnR, FMH: 172
  8. Lynnette, ZD: 170
  9. Kiskilili, ZD: 166
  10. lxxluthor, FPR: 165

Whose posts drew comments of least variable length?

  1. Kristen J, NCT: 64
  2. Hollywood, MMW: 69
  3. Tagore, Mormon Mentality: 70
  4. The Wiz, MMW: 74
  5. Heather O., MMW: 75
  6. J. Stapley, BCC: 76 (75.82)
  7. Kristine, BCC: 76 (76.35)
  8. Amira, Mormon Mentality: 82
  9. Wilfried Decoo, T&S: 84
  10. a Random John, Mormon Mentality: 85 (84.72)

I’m not sure that these lists have much to say, as they largely replicate the longest and shortest average lists. This suggests that all bloggers receive some short comments, as those whose means and medians are higher also have standard deviations that are higher.

(Note that a Random John’s standard deviation was 84.72, just beating out fellow blogger danithew (85.08) and Nitsav of FPR (85.09), whose standard deviations also round to 85 in the tables below.)

Whose longest comment received was the longest?

  1. fMhLisa, FMH: 3404
  2. Kevin Barney, BCC: 2769
  3. Frank McIntyre, T&S: 2481
  4. Devyn S., Mormon Mentality: 2449
  5. Tracy M, MMW/BCC: 2187
  6. Geoff B, M*: 2090
  7. Adam Greenwood, T&S: 2089
  8. Stirling, BCC: 1973
  9. Lynnette, ZD: 1915
  10. Blake, NCT: 1856

I know it would be much more interesting to know who actually wrote these ultra-long comments rather than whose posts they were written in response to. I’ll present some data on commenters in a future post.

Finally, here are the results for all 106 bloggers. In the gray-topped tables are the total number of words in comments on each blogger’s posts, as well as the mean, median, standard deviation, and maximum. In these tables, blogs are ordered by their total number of words in comments, as are bloggers within blogs.

As in the previous tables, values among the highest 10 in the lists above are highlighted with yellow. Values among the lowest 10 are highlighted with green. Within each blog, the highest value for each variable (e.g., total words in comments) is bolded. The lowest value is italicized.

By Common Consent
Name Words in Comments on their Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
Steve Evans 415,822 79 47 92 1046
RonanJH 412,337 83 50 96 1162
Kevin Barney 341,082 80 51 104 2769
J. Daniel Crawford 224,557 91 51 120 1467
Sam MB 200,285 96 64 108 1147
Mark Brown 168,259 94 65 99 1211
J. Nelson-Seawright 165,518 114 77 126 1474
Aaron B 102,824 104 78 97 745
[Guest] 101,262 95 66 98 713
J. Stapley 94,100 75 53 76 556
Norbert 88,307 89 60 96 766
Amri Brown 83,664 94 65 95 1083
Natalie 68,804 103 78 99 771
Stirling 48,099 98 51 176 1973
Kristine 44,343 55 29 76 793
Melissa De Leon Mason 42,558 102 70 107 857
Taryn Nelson-Seawright 40,484 104 67 126 1636
Kris 34,286 90 64 102 659
Brad 27,363 109 63 119 604
[BCC Admin] 17,582 62 25 145 2021
S.P. Bailey 16,596 101 64 100 517
Feminist Mormon Housewives
Name Words in Comments on their Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
[Guest] 757,488 128 88 137 2139
fMhLisa 592,690 107 68 128 3404
ECS 274,485 120 86 120 1091
Artemis 186,842 101 67 105 940
JohnR 157,049 158 107 172 1295
EmilyS 153,692 124 91 120 1181
Quimby 147,323 120 88 117 1314
Rebecca 114,749 107 72 111 865
Janet 106,968 111 72 124 1098
G 61,483 118 81 122 1224
Starfoxy 49,748 121 95 109 819
Not Ophelia 23,405 127 74 153 1140
LAGirrrl 17,853 122 63 136 766
Times and Seasons
Name Words in Comments on their Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
Kaimi Wenger 471,420 98 58 121 1639
Julie M. Smith 414,430 108 69 123 1326
Adam Greenwood 190,180 94 55 127 2089
Nate Oman 186,900 106 65 127 1483
Jonathan Green 173,963 102 67 105 786
Russell Arben Fox 150,619 62 27 90 1068
Ardis Parshall 141,913 93 50 115 1136
Matt Evans 94,489 103 70 121 1281
Dave Banack 94,120 120 81 134 1607
Patricia Karamesines 92,887 130 70 186 1780
Kathryn Lynard Soper 90,915 112 71 126 1230
Frank McIntyre 64,464 110 68 154 2481
Rosalynde Welch 43,265 95 69 95 940
Wilfried Decoo 34,447 96 73 84 404
Jim F. 31,313 125 74 150 1169
Ben Huff 30,466 143 84 180 1484
Curtis DeGraw 20,798 82 47 92 626
Mormon Mentality
Name Words in Comments on their Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
Devyn S. 270,637 113 72 156 2449
DKL 157,216 88 48 110 1089
annegb 147,121 92 56 107 1281
Margaret Young 97,803 119 79 125 914
danithew 82,664 80 57 85 800
Dan Ellsworth 77,796 110 70 138 1363
Matt B 72,996 100 60 112 1213
a Random John 72,838 74 49 85 847
john f. 53,209 107 64 124 1357
Tagore 51,590 70 49 70 596
Proud Daughter of Eve 37,728 95 61 110 824
Wayne L. 24,434 158 105 175 1070
Amira 5,947 73 43 82 479
New Cool Thang
Name Words in Comments on their Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
Geoff J 334,710 123 87 124 1251
Matt W. 213,097 104 70 115 1739
Jacob J 124,373 126 91 126 1415
Blake 78,945 147 99 185 1856
Kristen J 11,103 62 42 64 408
Mormon Mommy Wars
Name Words in Comments on their Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
Heather O. 267,676 73 53 75 857
The Wiz 156,383 67 45 74 770
Tracy M 103,449 84 53 105 2187
Hollywood 74,443 75 56 69 641
Millennial Star
Name Words in Comments on their Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
Geoff B 316,920 124 78 146 2090
Ivan Wolfe 45,861 107 71 143 1621
John Mansfield 43,249 93 56 112 1266
Brian Duffin 25,509 75 47 90 765
Kevin Burtt (The Baron) 15,527 96 70 95 661
Keller 14,894 191 95 273 1574
Sarah 5,864 101 54 101 415
Zelophehad’s Daughters
Name Words in Comments on their Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
Lynnette 132,189 150 108 170 1915
Seraphine 112,182 146 115 126 943
Kiskilili 96,035 171 123 166 1317
Eve 55,797 122 82 128 1161
Vada 50,992 153 118 132 818
Ziff 47,187 134 94 124 817
[ZD] 9,322 114 78 106 558
Faith Promoting Rumor
Name Words in Comments on their Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
TT 137,390 131 86 152 1296
lxxluthor 70,920 141 89 165 1336
smallaxe 56,513 135 101 127 1013
Mogget 29,476 111 68 128 959
Nitsav 27,810 75 41 85 430
jupiterschild 24,969 136 82 130 673
Chris H. 12,209 123 80 147 1002
Nine Moons
Name Words in Comments on their Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
Rusty 142,149 76 46 97 1178
Don Clifton 52,486 89 63 86 575
Tom 50,819 92 64 89 503
Susan M 34,043 76 46 86 616
Lamonte 30,776 98 78 86 544
Seth 26,276 81 54 89 645
CJ Douglass 22,709 114 74 150 1662
Exponent II
Name Words in Comments on their Posts
Total Mean Median Std dev Max
Caroline 101,468 128 99 119 873
amelia 67,617 150 110 145 937
Deborah 53,028 99 64 107 1018
jana 40,165 117 84 111 900
Maria 32,980 128 98 120 919
Dora 28,358 150 125 121 868
AmyB 27,525 129 107 93 501
EmilyCC 23,338 96 69 98 872
Brooke 6,912 86 53 87 440

Okay, that’s it. I’m sorry I didn’t have any fun plots this time. I hope those of you who blog at one of the blogs in my sample at least had fun looking your own numbers up in the tables.

Update: I’ve now combined J. Daniel Crawford’s stats across his posts at BCC and FPR.

36 comments

  5. Ha! And here I was worried about being too long winded! I think that DMI Dave wrote about the perfect blog post only being a few paragraphs. Perhaps I internalized his advice without meaning to.

    Or perhaps my posts are just packed with meaning.

    Unlikely.

  7. Ziff, Your data is incomplete. I don’t see my insightful and brilliant guest post at Z’s Daughters reflected in these statistics. I know that post would have put me over the top as Best Blogger. Oh, wait, I’m confusing this post with the Niblets results.

    After this post, I think you have well earned the title of The Official Numbers Wonk of the Bloggernacle 🙂

  8. Very impressive, Ziff, and thanks for the link to my “instant permablogger” post, which I had entirely forgotten about. I would never have guessed I put up 157 DMI posts in 2007, but I’ll take your word for it.

  9. I’m dizzy from all this — so far all I’ve absorbed is that I’m wordy, deviant, and mean. Or something. But thanks for something fun to look at and consider.

  11. Incredibly interesting. I’m wondering what conclusions you will end up at, and what you think the numbers really ‘mean’ in terms of relationships between post length/frequency, readership, and blog development.

  13. Rusty, go ahead and pull my comment mean down! I think this type of post probably falls (loosely) into the same FYE category I suggested might be used to describe some ExII posts. It’s not really discussion-provoking, more just to give you something to read that might be interesting. (Also, in truth, I’m really just going for longest post of 2008. When I put this into Word, it said it was 7179 words.)

    John C., sorry, I should have known! I tried to make all the connections across blogs that I knew of, but clearly I wasn’t complete. I’ll merge your stats together under BCC when I get the chance.

    a Random John, I think your “packed with meaning” explanation is completely reasonable. Better to write posts that get to the point than long, rambly ones. I think it was Lynnette I talked to recently who suggested that some of our posts get out of control in length when we over-write them, trying to imagine every possible response to them and write the responses into the post. 🙂

    Sorry, ECS. I think your guest post got lost here because it was posted under the ZD admin account. But I certainly agree that you should have won best blogger. Well, either you or Eve. 😉

    Ardis, on the bright side at least you’re a standard deviant, and not one of those weird deviants.

    Steve, that’s a great question. This all certainly would be more interesting if I could work toward some conclusion. I know I’m taking the wimp’s way out in saying this, but I think that to get a really good idea of what these things mean for how blogs develop, I would have to collect longitudinal data, and look at T&S, BCC, FMH, etc. from their beginnings, or at least across a few years. For this sample, I intentionally chose only blogs that had existed for all of 2007, so they probably didn’t change a whole lot over the year.

  14. Ziff, I suspect your right about needing a deeper sample to come to any real conclusions — and even then you’re just looking at posts, not comments or intangible community-building items that can contribute to blog growth or popularity.

    I can tell you anecdotally that my posts have gotten shorter over time; it’s probably painfully obvious that stuff like the Friday Firestorms are there, at least in part, to ensure that I at least post something on a regular basis. My reading of how other major bloggers have progressed over time tends to follow similar trends.

  18. So what is the verdict, should I concentrate on writing shorter entries? Some of the lack of comments on my posts were due to M* being in a downturn. I have 8 posts on the FAIR blog and I average between 10-11 comments but I have reduced my average post length to 930 words.

  19. Keller, good question, but I’m not in a position to answer it well. I’m sure different readers prefer different things. As a frequent bloggernacle reader, I can tell you that I like to read a variety of post types depending on my mood–personal essay types, short conversation starters, inflammatory argument inciters, longer research pieces, FYE posts, all of it. I guess for someone like me, the joy of the bloggernacle is that there is so much interesting material of different kinds being written all the time.

    From the perspective of a writer seeking an interested audience or a reader seeking interesting material, another advantage of the bloggernacle is that there’s a lot of interconnection between the blogs. I suspect this makes it easier for readers to find the kind of writing they like most and writers to find the audience they’re looking for. So if any one person writes a particular kind of stuff, and anyone in the bloggernacle is interested, reader and writer will probably eventually meet up.

  20. Okay, I’ve now combined stats for J. Daniel Crawford across posts at BCC and FPR. Thanks, John, for alerting me to this error.

    So, does anyone else want to fess up about using multiple names and confusing my feeble brain? Are Steve Evans and Matt Evans the same person? Is Kevin Barney really fMhLisa’s alter ego? 🙂

  21. Very cool, Ziff. It’s nice to know that I am officially the wordiest person in the bloggernacle. Yay, me! 🙂

    I do wonder to what extent this is affected by the informal T&S rule of closing comments after #100 in most cases. If we didn’t have that rule — I guess I might have even _more_ than 470,000 words in comments to my posts. Yikes.

    Is there an easy way to track the major commenters? I.e., “DKL made 2000 comments, Julie made 3000, Stapley made 2500” or the like? That’s probably too complicated, isn’t it?

  22. I bet the posts with the most comments deal with sex, (including same-sex marriage), gender roles, or some kind of complaint.

  23. Ziff, don’t forget to add in stats for HP.

    ECS, you’re not supposed to reveal the FMH secret!

  24. Kaimi, I’m sure you’re right that y’all’s closing comments noticeably reduces the numbers you get. Possibly dramatically, since it’s usually only the posts that look like they’re on their way to 200 comments that get closed.

    I actually do have data on who made the comments, but I’m only just starting to look at it. You’re right that it’s a lot more complicated. Much of the problem is that while people post under very consistent names, they often comment using several different names and I’m not sure how well I’m going to do at combining them. I may find that I just have the same problem I did with J. Daniel Crawford’s post data, but now over and over.

    Speaking of that, I see I somehow still have him listed as two separate people at BCC. Sorry JDC! I really will get this right eventually. Perhaps I should give up on the whole idea of analyzing comments if I have this much trouble with posts. 🙂

    Eric, if I understand right, you’re referring to another of JDC’s aliases? Sorry to be thick-headed if it’s something else. Anyway, thanks for warning me; I don’t think he’s posted under that name, although I know he’s commented using it.

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  27. I just quadruple-checked all my posts, and I tell you, I did not write 10,472 words. I wrote 10,474 words. I demand that you change your table to more accurately represent my Bloggernacle contributions!

    AB

  28. Many apologies, Aaron B. I should have been more explicit about the error in my measurement method. I estimate that you wrote 10,472 ± 8,229 words. 🙂

    Jacob, you all really do attract gigantic comments at NCT! I’ll be sure to make a note of that one if I have the energy to do something similar to this next year.

  30. This is pretty interesting data.

    What it basically says to me is that there are about 50 people that comment a great deal on a lot of blogs, maybe 100 more that occasionally comment, and probably about 500 to 1000 readers that repeatedly log in to multiple different blogs. Not the 10s of thousands of readers that has been alluded to on so many other blogs.

    What do you think about readership numbers?

  31. Good question. Certainly you’re right that, in these data, quite a small number of people wrote the vast majority of the posts.

    But there are several qualifiers to consider.

    First, I’m sorry that it’s not very clear in this avalanche of tables, but I’m only looking here at posts, not comments. All the numbers of comments stuff is listed by who wrote the post, not who wrote the comments. I have data on who wrote the comments, and I hope to look at that soon and post about it. I expect that a far larger group of people comment regularly than post regularly.

    Second, I don’t have any data on page visits to figure out how many people lurk without commenting. Based on how many people comment here and there, prefacing their comments with “I’m going to de-lurk briefly” I think it’s probably quite a bit larger than the number of people who comment. This also matches my own experience. I comment here at ZD fairly regularly, but at the other blogs I read, I mostly just lurk and I hardly ever comment.

    Finally, my sample is pretty limited. Sure, it includes the big three (FMH, BCC, and T&S), but it ignores far more blogs than it includes. For example, I didn’t include any of the following group blogs: Blog Segullah, The Cultural Hall, FAIR blog, Feast on the Word Blog, Juvenile Instructor, Mormon Matters, A Motley Vision, Our Thoughts, Sunstone Blog, Tales from the Crib, or Waters of Mormon. And that’s not all of the ones I missed. Plus, all of this doesn’t even consider the even greater number of solo blogs.

    So I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised if the total number of readers were in the tens of thousands, but my data will likely only show how many people comment in my limited sample. As with the posts, it will probably be a fairly small number of people who write most of the comments. But again, I can’t tell how many people are lurking and reading them.

  32. Devyn and Jonathan, you asked how long this took. I honestly have no idea. It took lots of time, but I enjoy this type of stuff so much that when I’m working on it, I’m blissfully unaware of the world around me, much to my wife’s dismay. 🙂

  33. Ziff,
    This stuff is awesome! It’s like the opposite of the Niblets, based purely on data.
    Thanks for putting this together.

  34. Now I’m wondering if I can get busy and beat Heather down in ’08? How dare she write nearly twice as many posts as me!

    I’m actually embarrassed about how little I understand these numbers. I seem to vaguely recall once knowing what means and medians and deviations meant, though I can’t remember when i learned it. I need a statistics for idiots book so that I can understand this stuff.

  35. Good question, Lisa. Sorry I didn’t explain more clearly. The mean is just the average. So for example in the first FMH table, you wrote 31,396 words in 106 posts, so the mean is just 31,396 divided by 106, or about 296.

    The median is the middle value when they’re all lined up in order. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but of your 106 posts, maybe the shortest was 50 words or something, and then there were some in the 60’s and 70’s and up to the 100’s and 200’s and 300’s all the way up to your longest of 1313 words. The middle post that list is 223 words long.

    The standard deviation is (roughly) a measure of how far your post lengths are from your average post length. So if it’s high, you write long posts and medium posts and short posts. If it’s low, you write posts that are all of a similar length. There’s a link to the Wikipedia article on the standard deviation from the words “std dev” in the heading of every table if you want to read more.

    Thanks Jessawhy, Kevin, Tracy, ECS, Steve, Dave, Devyn, Rusty, danithew, and anyone else I might have missed who had nice things to say. I’m glad you enjoyed my number crunching. Thanks so much for the positive feedback.

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