We only recently passed the 22,000,000 mark last July but a few minutes ago we just hit 23,000,000. It continues to be a banner year for the site with a continuing increase in traffic, links on other sites, and new voices on the blog. These milestones are coming faster and they give us a chance to look at the spread of our regular readers and commentators. As always, I want to offer special thanks for our weekend contributors: Mark Esposito, Mike Appleton, Larry Rafferty, Charlton Stanley, Darren Smith, and Kimberly Deines. The increasing traffic on the site is gratifying and reaffirms that there are many people looking for mature and civil debate. Even among the top ten sites, I believe that we offer a unique forum of different views and backgrounds in the discussion of law and politics (and a few quirky items).
We continue to rank in among the most popular legal blogs in the world.
In the last 30 days, our ten biggest international sources for readers came from
1. United States
2. Canada
3. United Kingdom
4. Australia
5. Germany
6. India
7. France
8. The Netherlands
9. Mexico
10 Sweden
The list has remained unchanged except that Mexico replaced Sweden and Sweden bumped the Philippines.
The top ten posted in terms of readership in the last 30 days were:
1. New Orleans Police Officer Turns Off Body Camera Minutes Before Shooting Suspect In Forehead 2. The FAA vs. Model Airplanes
3. 10 Reasons The U.S. Is No Longer The Land Of The Free
4. FEDERAL COURT RULES STATE OFFICIALS VIOLATED THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS OF THE BROWN FAMILY IN THE SISTER WIVES CASE
5. Wonder Why The Folks In Ferguson Are Up In Arms About Their Police? Meet Sgt. Major Dan Page, St. Louis Co. P.D.
6. Swatting Hoax: National Report Publishes Another False Story
7. “12 Is About As Old As I Can Handle”: Former Illinois Rep Who Sponsored Child Porn Legislation Is Charged With Child Pornography Crimes
8. Teacher Admits To Sexual Relationship With 14-Year-Old Student But Is Sentenced To Only 30 Days In Jail
9. Sacrilegious Selfies: Pennsylvania Teen Arrested For “Desecrating” Jesus Statue In Sexual Pose
10. Police Officers Respond To A Report Of An Armed Man Disturbing The Peace and Fire Nine Rounds Killing An Innocent Woman . . . The Suspect Is Then Charged With Murder
I am particularly happy to report that two of the top ten in the last 30 days were written by our weekend bloggers, Charlton S. Stanley (#2) and Mark Esposito (#5). Congratulations Chuck and Mark and to all of our weekend contributors.
The most frequent commentators in the last 1000 comments were:
Paul C. Schulte
Annie
Olly
Anonymously Yours
Max-1
davidm2575
Nick Spinelli
Thank you to all of our regular commentators. I continue to have people come up (including yesterday at the Utah speech) to discuss how they are regular visitors on the blog. It is becoming an extraordinarily broad and diverse body of commenters from different parts of the world and different political and social backgrounds. It is a continuing honor to be associated with this site and the readers and posters that compose our virtual community. Thanks again.
Thank you Jon….I appreciate your effort into this matter. I am sorry I was singled out yet again, which does not surprise me…. Roflmao
Isn’t that the truth. South Idaho is not any easier.
Anonymously Yours, I have deleted two comments in violation of the civility rule. I am flying back from Utah so I will be admittedly out of contact, but I ask that everyone refrain from the personal attacks that violate our rule.
Paul, JT needs even more courtesy today because he is in the most difficult state in the Union to purchase an adult beverage.
Olly, was your 5:28 comment directed at me? LOL, I was agreeing with you with my 5:24 comment.
Oops you spoke too soon! Thanks, I’m enjoying the threads. 🙂
Ya think? You completely missed my point, but thanks for stating the obvious.
Aw, see now we’re all smiling at one another, that’s what’s so great about this blog’s comments section! And I suspect that this blog gets a lot of traffic because it isn’t impersonal.
Olly, I’m glad you’re here. You’ve been a great addition despite our rocky start.
Olly, I don’t see anything rising to the level of personal attack, but that would be the purview of Professor Turley. 🙂
Darren,
Kind of ironic that the only thing missing is a JT civility comment or we will have perhaps demonstrated why this blog is so successful. 🙂
Darren, I saw the discussion as a debate on fact vs conjecture and the importance of not presenting conjecture as fact. It was civil for the most part. However it is unfortunate that the discussion happened on this thread.
In celebration of this blog’s success is it really respectful to our host to use this thread for more personal attacks, of which he has so often objected to?
“So now comes the assertion that commenters here do not know black people”
If you want to get all technical and parse words and not jump to conclusions you may want to understand that Nicks statement was not an “assertion” that commenters here do not know black people. An assertion is a declarative positive statement. He didn’t say that. Nicks was more on the lines of an inference or theorization or assumption.
So now comes the assertion that commenters here do not know black people. Does anyone see a pattern of assuming what people know and don’t know based on conjecture and super duper powers of discernment? My last comment on this, but it’s been a sticky point in the comments section and a point of frustration for many other commenters, for quite sometime.
Paul, I have black friends who think the rioting, looting, and other horseshit was a disgrace and embarrassing. I have always hung w/ black people. They are MUCH more diverse than you and most folks would ever realize.
Olly, I do not directly engage many people here. If I did, this place would be MUCH more partisan. But, I’m human. Super human, of course, but human nonetheless. So, I think by my not adding the tit for tat w/ the titty/tatty contingent, I think I earned indulgences to make vague and obtuse comments about cultists, liberals, etc. Again, EVERYTHING is relative. The archives prove it is much less partisan and vitriolic here now than it was pre Jan 2014. But, someone like yourself, who was not here in those dark days, would be much less appreciative of that. I get it. There were just me, DavidM, Bron and maybe a couple other non liberals here just 10 months ago. That’s how much it has changed in becoming less of a left echo chamber. We few non liberals went through hell. Olly. The record reflects that.
Nick – I think someone needs to narc this thread out. It could use a civility warning. 😉
Also DBQ inference and a statement of fact, based on one’s super super powers of discernment are two different things.
Nick,
You don’t know as much as you think. Sometimes I don’t like MY demeanor. You have a style that defines you; heck, we all do. Sometimes it’s unnecessary to even look to see who wrote a post because the style gives it away. This blog needs the personalities and experiences to make it interesting. I just would like to see less partisan rhetoric. Whenever that rears its ugly head then I lose interest very quickly.
I don’t think anyone here disagrees with the importance of diversity and demographics. No one here actually has any definitive knowledge about the demographics of the readership and commentership and making a broad assertion regarding such is mere conjecture.
“I suggest that making broad assertions about strangers usually marks the maker of such assertions as having questionable methods.”
Words to live by and should be remembered.
Demographics do matter, in that a wider or more diverse group provides wider and more diverse viewpoints and more diverse life experiences upon which to draw opinions. This is one of the charms of this blog. The diversity of opinions. Unlike some blogs which are echo chambers, there seems to be a diversity of opinion from many different sectors. The ability to discuss and keep things civil is also one of the drawing points to the Turley blog. Knowing who to engage and when to stop engaging is also a skill to be encouraged.
Since I don’t have xray vision and can’t possibly know who people are (nor do I want to know), what their ages are, what their gender is, or much of anything else about anyone, I can only go by what I infer from what and how people write, and by what people say about themselves. I also infer a generally middle to upper class background for most, relatively well educated and ages ranging from very young to very old. In any group there are always outliers and that is a good thing. Too much homogeneity is boring.
Making assertions regarding the demographics of this blog takes a great deal of conjecture. It’s not possible to know such details about people who one merely interacts with on a blog’s comments section. I suggest that making broad assertions about strangers usually marks the maker of such assertions as having questionable methods.
annie – there are linguists who can listen to you and tell you every place you have ever lived. Actually, the NYT ran a test you could take that pretty much did the same thing (in my case it picked the town I was living in exactly). There are words and references, speech patterns and habits that help others discern things about the writer or speaker. For instance, over time you have given out private information that gives the reader clues about you.
That might be so Paul, but it’s unserious to present as fact assertions about people that are NOT based in fact. Again conjecture is different than fact.