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DFP Commenters Increase Output, Write Equivalent of 32.6 Novels in 2018

By Cory Allen Heidelberger on 2019-01-01

Dakota Free Press fielded 29,099 comments from 698 distinct commenters in 2018. Who talked the most?

DFP Top Commenters 2018
DFP Top Commenters 2018

52 individuals, including myself, commented at least once a week on average. Kal Lis and Francis Schaffer just made the list with 60 comments each in 2018. 16 of us—down to O at 505 and Rorschach at 427—contributed at least one comment a day.

We can also look at the length of comments. I use the same quick and dirty formula as last year: count every character typed in every comment and divide by 5.1, the average length of words in English. Excluding my own comments, I find that you, dear readers, contributed over 2.1 million “words” to the comment section, up 5.8% from last year. Your contribution to the comment section is the equivalent of 32.6 Brave New Worlds.

67 of us wrote more than 2,500 words in the comment section in 2018:

DFP Top Commenter Calculated Word Counts, 2018.
DFP Top Commenter Calculated Word Counts, 2018.

I posted 3,464 comments under my 1,546 posts in 2018. That’s 9.5 comments a day, responding to and posing questions, adding context and sources, refuting blatant nonsense, and keeping things on track. Here are each of our top commenters’ totals, with their percentages of the conversation:

Commenter Comments % cumulative %
Cory Allen Heidelberger 3464 11.90% 11.90%
mike from iowa 3313 11.39% 23.29%
jerry 2460 8.45% 31.74%
Jason 2012 6.91% 38.66%
Debbo 1829 6.29% 44.94%
Porter Lansing 1488 5.11% 50.06%
OldSarg 1208 4.15% 54.21%
Roger Cornelius 1206 4.14% 58.35%
grudznick 963 3.31% 61.66%
Donald Pay 707 2.43% 64.09%
bearcreekbat 574 1.97% 66.06%
leslie 555 1.91% 67.97%
Jenny 553 1.90% 69.87%
Ryan 519 1.78% 71.66%
o 505 1.74% 73.39%
Rorschach 427 1.47% 74.86%
Robert McTaggart 358 1.23% 76.09%
Kurt Evans 319 1.10% 77.18%
Darin Larson 224 0.77% 77.95%
Adam 214 0.74% 78.69%
Dana P 212 0.73% 79.42%
happy camper 205 0.70% 80.12%
John Kennedy Claussen, Sr. 200 0.69% 80.81%
owen reitzel 185 0.64% 81.45%
Robin Friday 180 0.62% 82.06%
John 179 0.62% 82.68%
T 174 0.60% 83.28%
Nick Nemec 152 0.52% 83.80%
Dicta 149 0.51% 84.31%
Clyde 123 0.42% 84.73%
Stace Nelson 108 0.37% 85.11%
Debbie 103 0.35% 85.46%
grudgenutz 102 0.35% 85.81%
Anne Beal 98 0.34% 86.15%
Daniel Buresh 93 0.32% 86.47%
Richard Schriever 93 0.32% 86.79%
jimmy james 89 0.31% 87.09%
Steve Pearson 88 0.30% 87.39%
TAG 86 0.30% 87.69%
RJ 85 0.29% 87.98%
Curt 84 0.29% 88.27%
David Newquist 84 0.29% 88.56%
Evan 71 0.24% 88.80%
Loren 71 0.24% 89.05%
Roger Elgersma 71 0.24% 89.29%
Buckobear 70 0.24% 89.53%
tara volesky 67 0.23% 89.76%
96Tears 64 0.22% 89.98%
Francis Schaffer 60 0.21% 90.19%
Kal Lis 60 0.21% 90.39%

This chart shows an outsized example of Pareto’s principle: just over 90% of our 2018 comments came from just 7.45% of the commenters. If I take myself out of the math, the percentages remain about the same: 90.03% of non-Cory comments came from 7.78% of the commenters not named Cory.

You can compare word counts and number of posts in the following table. You can also see the top commenters’ equivalent output in terms of novels (Brave New World, the median-length novel on Amazon.com, at 64,531 words) and inaugural addresses (Barack Obama delivered 2,406 words in 2009).

Commenter words (calc) comments words/comment Novels Inaugurals
Cory Allen Heidelberger 303,136 3,464 88 4.7 126.0
jerry 288,576 2,460 117 4.5 119.9
mike from iowa 183,173 3,313 55 2.8 76.1
Debbo 120,892 1,829 66 1.9 50.2
OldSarg 117,965 1,208 98 1.8 49.0
Donald Pay 111,696 707 158 1.7 46.4
bearcreekbat 96,403 574 168 1.5 40.1
Porter Lansing 95,022 1,488 64 1.5 39.5
Jason 80,359 2,012 40 1.2 33.4
Ryan 63,001 519 121 1.0 26.2
Roger Cornelius 58,761 1,206 49 0.9 24.4
Kurt Evans 52,067 319 163 0.8 21.6
leslie 49,654 555 89 0.8 20.6
grudznick 49,204 963 51 0.8 20.5
o 45,516 505 90 0.7 18.9
Robert McTaggart 36,859 358 103 0.6 15.3
Jenny 32,187 553 58 0.5 13.4
Rorschach 28,555 427 67 0.4 11.9
Darin Larson 27,745 224 124 0.4 11.5
John Kennedy Claussen, Sr. 26,157 200 131 0.4 10.9
happy camper 19,872 205 97 0.3 8.3
Dana P 19,257 212 91 0.3 8.0
Adam 18,000 214 84 0.3 7.5
Stace Nelson 15,797 108 146 0.2 6.6
David Newquist 15,188 84 181 0.2 6.3
Clyde 14,610 123 119 0.2 6.1
John 13,970 179 78 0.2 5.8
Joe Nelson 13,842 48 288 0.2 5.8
Robin Friday 13,690 180 76 0.2 5.7
TAG 11,756 86 137 0.2 4.9
T 10,912 174 63 0.2 4.5
Daniel Buresh 10,853 93 117 0.2 4.5
Debbie 10,427 103 101 0.2 4.3
Evan 10,372 71 146 0.2 4.3
Anne Beal 10,264 98 105 0.2 4.3
Dicta 8,775 149 59 0.1 3.6
96Tears 8,772 64 137 0.1 3.6
Nick Nemec 8,283 152 54 0.1 3.4
Richard Schriever 8,050 93 87 0.1 3.3
Roger Elgersma 7,699 71 108 0.1 3.2
John W. 7,623 20 381 0.1 3.2
Kal Lis 6,680 60 111 0.1 2.8
Michael L. Wyland 6,500 47 138 0.1 2.7
John W 6,276 34 185 0.1 2.6
owen reitzel 6,270 185 34 0.1 2.6
tara volesky 6,198 67 93 0.1 2.6
David Bergan 5,741 30 191 0.1 2.4
Steve Hickey 5,440 40 136 0.1 2.3
jimmy james 4,840 89 54 0.1 2.0
Craig 4,742 19 250 0.1 2.0
Paul T 4,654 25 186 0.1 1.9
Francis Schaffer 4,653 60 78 0.1 1.9
RJ 4,428 85 52 0.1 1.8
Bill Adamson 4,376 4 1094 0.1 1.8
Steve Pearson 4,063 88 46 0.1 1.7
Curt 4,004 84 48 0.1 1.7
grudgenutz 3,772 102 37 0.1 1.6
John Tsitrian 3,641 42 87 0.1 1.5
Patricia Shiery 3,456 15 230 0.1 1.4
Aaron Aylward 3,081 20 154 0.0 1.3
Greg 2,824 50 56 0.0 1.2
Eve Fisher 2,817 39 72 0.0 1.2
Loren 2,800 71 39 0.0 1.2
Lori Stacey 2,633 21 125 0.0 1.1
South DaCola 2,601 46 57 0.0 1.1
steve novotny 2,518 13 194 0.0 1.0
Robin 2,502 17 147 0.0 1.0

One other way to put all this data in context: If we all lined up at the mic to speak our comments, and if I slowed down to match the national average speaking rate of 174 words per minute, it would take us 231 hours—9.6 days of nonstop speaking—to recite every word in the 2018 Dakota Free Press comments sections.

Published in South Dakota

11 Comments

  1. Donald Pay 2019-01-01 10:22

    So, I averaged about 2 comments per day. That’s about right. I have been on a Madison, Wisconsin blog for 17 years, and that’s what I average there. I spend probably a half an hour per day on average writing comments on each blog. I have never been one to limit what comes out of my pen, so I have a relatively high word count, but it is a lower count on average than a letter to the editor. As I expected, Jason has a lot to say, but what he actually says is vanishingly small. In other words, there is no substance to what he says. Ignore him.

  2. Porter Lansing 2019-01-01 10:32

    SOMEDAY, there’ll be Artificial Intelligence that can analyze the year’s output and determine how much of each person’s post was on topic and how much was each person talking about distractionary and misleading info and how much was each person talking about themselves.
    Make America Great … support new things and ideas (no matter where you live and where you share your mind’s bounty)

  3. 96Tears 2019-01-01 11:02

    People used to travel by horse in 19th Century America to attend meetings of political parties, farming organizations, state legislatures, veterans associations, etc. It would take them two or more days to arrive, and when it became their turn to talk, it was not unusual that a single speech could last an hour or two. After adjournment, they would jump back on the horse and travel two or more days to return home. Voila, your Dakota Free Press allows our inner blowhards to empty our opinions and share our knowledge without the travel. Judging by your stats, there are many among us who are capable of two-hour stemwinders. Happy New Year to you, Cory, and thank you for providing an intelligent and well-informed destination to express ourselves.

  4. Buckobear 2019-01-01 11:31

    I’ll try to do better in 2019 ……. and thanks for including me in the “SD Blogsphere” list.

  5. mike from iowa 2019-01-01 12:39

    Mostly thanks go to Cory for allowing us the privilege of hacking our guts out here in his time and blog. Thanks go out to all posters for keeping the entertainment going along fairly well most of the time.

    I learn more stuff here nearly every day than if I was enrolled in school. Some (most) is true and reliable info. Some is not. If I had the wisdom to0 know the difference w/o talking precious time to look stuff up. Maybe in another hunnert years.

    I have learned stuff from everyone. Just don’t let it go to your heads, Trolls.

  6. Kal Lis 2019-01-01 14:21

    111 words per comment average? I must become less wordy.

    Hope everyone has a great 2019

  7. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2019-01-01 20:47

    I welcome stemwinders, 96Tears. Go long, but go well… well enough to make it worth driving two days there and back to hear you.

  8. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2019-01-01 20:56

    Donald, I like your comparison to letters to the editor. Aberdeen American News limits us to 300 words per letter, only one letter every three weeks. What typical newspaper would provide you the same opportunity you get here to express your thoughts on matters of publci importance?

    Now imagine what the world would be like if every citizen took the time to compose one or two brief, thoughtful letters to the editor every day.

  11. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2019-01-01 21:06

    Wordy, Kal Lis? Sure, your 111 words a comment is ahead of the average of 83 words per comment, but if commenters were employees and DFP’s stock price depended on quality output, I’d be knocking on your office door and saying, “Hey! Pick up the pace! We need more of your good stuff! Shoot for 200!”

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