Readers talk a lot on Dakota Free Press. Who talks the most? Here are the 50 commenters who clicked “Post Comment” most frequently in 2017:
Thirteen of you, from Leslie down on this chart, average a comment a day or more.
In 2017, 772 distinct commenters (as identified by e-mail address) submitted 21,775 comments, for an average of 28 comments per commenter.
Of course, to keep up with you all, answer and ask questions, update stories, and debunk bushwah, I punched in another 3,306 comments.
Now number of comments isn’t the same as number of words. Who typed the most words into the comment section?
I counted characters typed and divided by 5.1, the average length of words in English. The inclusion of hyperlinks and other odd bits may skew that calculation. But on that quick and dirty math, I calculate that 18 of you commenters, from Jenny down on the chart, wrote more words on Dakota Free Press in 2017 than George Orwell wrote in Animal Farm. Grudznik, you beat Aldous Huxley in Brave New World. Porter, Mike, Jerry, you wrote more than 100,000 words here. Jerry, you hit over one million keystrokes in 2017 and averaged 615 words a day.
The total word count for the comment section, excluding my own comments, was 1.99 million words, or 31 median-length novels on Amazon.com. A quick scan of my post archive indicates I published only 1.28 million words in 2017. You all wrote more in the comment section than I wrote in my original posts… and that’s o.k. with me. Keep those comments coming!
600+ comments. I have to find something better to do with my time.
Whoops. There I go again.
I take objection to the inclusion of the coward grudznick, whose submissions are, with almost no exceptions, not worthy of being called commentary.
Bob, I assert above no qualitative assessment, only quantitative. The fact that Grudznik posted more comments and words than you says nothing about your relative merits as commentators. (Common? Come now: Bob Newland is a unique spud!)
But I will say here that the 600+ comments Ror produced were worth his time and ours.
I mainly regurgitate topical news of interest so dementia doesn’t take me (prolly a misuse of Corey’s fantastic work product) e.g.:
“President Trump and his allies in the Senate campaigned on the promise to remake our federal courts….
Republicans go for ideological extremes while Democrats steer toward the middle of the road. Think plain vanilla Merrick Garland as President Obama’s last Supreme Court nominee and 1.) the norms GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell broke to thwart his nomination, and 2.) then going on to CHANGE Senate rules to win confirmation of Trump’s extreme choice of Neil Gorsuch. (REMEMBER WHO IS ADVISING HIM TO MAKE THESE EXTREME CHOICES)
3.) The Senate is also toying with the idea of getting rid of blue slips (DID THAT HAPPEN?), a traditional process where the home Senator of a judicial nominee can raise an objection to a nomination.
4.) Still breaking the rules GOP’s Trump has … abandoned the practice of past presidents, refusing to submit nominees to the American Bar Association panel for evaluation before they are announced; a majority of the 15-member panel has found nearly 8 percent of his nominees not qualified.”
So far the Senate has confirmed one Supreme Court justice, 12 nominees to the federal appellate courts, and six nominees to the federal district courts. A dozen confirmations to the federal circuit courts is a record for a first-year president.
http://www.brennancenter.org/blog/vet-them-now-or-vet-them-later
Leslie is front-runner for most words in 2018!
And for me, I visit this site for the content produced by Cory, but I linger for the conversation the content creates. Sure as heck beats social media.
Recall saying Obama was the best thing to happen to the nation and the world, at the time –so Putin’s Puppet President Trump (C)is the worst thing to have ever happened to the nation and the world. Watch as he is also manipulated by the still virgin King of North Korea.
https://www.cfr.org/blog/kim-jong-uns-dialogue-offer-and-south-koreas-choice
Kim himself who wants to hold South Korea’s hosting of the Winter Olympics hostage to his demand for global acknowledgement that the North has become a nuclear weapons state. Sound like anyone else we know (hint 800,000 Dreamer HOSTAGES)? . https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/01/kim-jong-uns-trap-for-south-korea/549470/
Blue slips are gone goslings, Leslie. My ex FIL’s last BIL just passed at 93 with full blown dementia.
Whorin Atch and Bud Schuster both are stepping down from the senate at the end of this year. “One L” Michelle Bachmann is awaiting a sign from gawd to tell her to run for Al Franken’s old senate seat.
Get some popcorn for Utah’s campaign. R Money Romnet wants Hatch’s old seat and Hatch and Drumpf both hate him with a Mormon and a moron passion.
I can be more succinct. The difference between writing and masturbation is who you’re trying to please. – Porter
“There isn’t time, so brief is life, for bickerings, apologies, heartburnings, callings to account. There is only time for loving, and but an instant, so to speak, for that.”
Mark Twain
I think the DFC needs more commenters. I am pretty sure there are a lot more readers who don’t comment and just take it all in. Cory, do you have analytics that tell you how many people read the DFC?
So on number of comments, the quantitative data proves I am the most prolific SOUTH DAKOTAN blogging here.
You can’t argue with facts, Bob. I win.
I strive to be clear, concise, organized, and right to the point with my comments.
As an additional metric, I would love to see the word clouds of the top ten commentators; it might give an interesting visual of what topics were most prominent in each person’s comments.
Ryan, DFP is the epitome of social media. The blog was first. And let it live long and prosper. If you meant better than “other” social media options, my apologies.
Paul, Ryan, I agree that blogs are generally included in the definition of social media. But it’s interesting that Paul would consider the original form to be the epitome. Don’t things usually evolve from prototypes to more complete forms?
Ryan may have some basis for separating blogs from social media. I certainly view my activity and interactions on Dakota Free Press from my activity and interactions on Facebook and Twitter. Maybe that’s just because DFP is all mine and I like it more. ;-) But Facebook and Twitter don’t seem to accommodate sustained conversation about complicated issues.
I’m also not a corporation using your data to sell you stuff. Maybe there’s the “epitome” distinction: pure social media is about human interaction. Deep down, Facebook just wants to sell you stuff.
Rorschach’s comments are always worth his time to write and my time to read.
Don’t things usually evolve from prototypes to more complete forms?
I offer into evidence the party of wingnuts as contradictory evidence. They appear to be de-evolving in front of our very eyes, your Honor.
I suppose I have never looked up what the definition of social media is, but to me it is more about sharing personal information, pictures, opinions, thoughts, insults, prejudices, etc. Sure, there are plenty of businesses on social media, but not for the purposes it was “designed” for – they just use it as a TV commercial that doesn’t end, like Cory alluded to.
If blogs are “social media” just because people comment and engage in back-and-forth conversation, I would say there isn’t a distinction between “social media” and any other types of media because pretty much all news sites allow comments these days. You can even write into your local newspaper and put your opinion in black and white if you forgot your myspace password.
Can’t argue with facts, grudz. You are a coward.
John Sweet, good question about the ratio of commenters to readers. My database doesn’t break those numbers out clearly. But I can make these observations:
The majority of people who subscribe to my daily e-mail digests have not appeared in the comment section.
On Facebook, my December 13 post on the holes in Noem’s estate tax story got 14,381 views, 3,100 clicks, 370 reactions (Like, Angry, etc.), 157 shares, and 117 comments. (Note that my comment count above does not include Facebook comments or Twitter replies.)
I’m also happily surprised by the number of people I meet around the state who say they read the blog but whose names have never popped up in the comment section.
Mike, point taken!
Ryan, your handy definition makes sense. Social media includes all of the two-way channels. As you note, letters to the editor make our newspapers social media… although a very slow version.
Radio call-in shows would also qualify as social media… though interestingly, 90% of the times I get up to turn off NPR’s On Point come when they turn to some meathead caller (today’s example: some guy asking whether the bad weather out East is a product of weather manipulation).
Joe Nelson- not a complaint or a direct assault on you, but if you would allow yerself to take a more scenic route on occasion, to deliver your point, you’d find how much fun humor can be, even when yer dead serious.
Again, not an assault, but some commenters take themselves waaayyyyyyy too seriously.
mike from iowa,
I am all for use of satire and humor to get a point across, unfortunately not every one has the same sense of humor. I also don’t want to be, or be perceived as, a troll.
I do get a laugh when people pigeon hole me into certain political ideologies :)
I hear brevity is the soul of wit.
I don’t know what that means, Cory, but I see humor in just about any situation. I suppose I look for it. Humor keeps me from being and old, shriveled up prune of a grouch. If I can’t laff at me, who can?
Jezuss, you tossed some of that Shakespeare stuff at me.
Cory, I concur. My two favorite comedians, Steven Wright and Emo Phillips, are masters of one-liners/bait and switch jokes.
Joe, if you like Wright, check out Margaret Smith for a female perspective much like Wright:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElLm3S7HXHM
Hey what about Barry Crimmins, I still watch him when I can.
Mike, I welcome humor of all lengths.
I regret to inform you that I have learned that commenter #20 on both the comment count and word count lists, Don Coyote, died in 2017. Hats off, friends, to someone who vigorously disagreed with me on several points, but kept coming back to read more.
RIP, Don Coyote
I am sorry to hear about Don Coyote. Coyote always came across to me as insufferable, arrogant, and acid-tonged, but Coyote was a worthy adversary in a debate and he kept things interesting. An echo chamber is not the best environment to develop important ideas and put them to the test, and often Coyote was the devil’s advocate that questioned our commonly accepted ideas or Cory’s commonly accepted ideas, as the case may have been. I frequently did not agree with Coyote, but I was frequently interested in what he had to say.
I welcome devils and their advocates who are willing to challenge our beliefs in good faith.
Mr Coyote didn’t spew hot air just to spew hot air. He vigorously defended his opinions believing he was in the right. Sincerest condolences to his family. He is one from the wrong side of the tracks I will miss.
M F I, are you sure Coyote was from the wrong side of the tracks?
I wouldn’t stake my life on it, but I generally disagreed with his positions. I am a generally disagreeable cuss by nature.
It matters not, now.