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The Oil Drum celebrates 4M unique visits and ~10.4M page views
Posted by Prof. Goose on February 26, 2007 - 11:15pm
Some time soon, likely tonight or in the morning, theoildrum.com--since we moved over to the "new" format around the end of August 2005 (TOD 2.0)--will have accumulated 4 million unique visits and around 10.4 million pageviews (which doesn't count our RSS feed numbers unless readers click over, by the way...).
(Here's some minor factoids if you're curious: TOD 1.0 got about 200k visitors and 300k pageviews by the time it was decommissioned; it was a little over three months ago that we were at 3 million unique visits; we will have had around 260k visits for the month of February, which is over a 50% gain over what we had the same time a year ago; people average 7 minutes on each visit here, which is unheard of in the 'sphere. Feel free to check out our Sitemeter here...it's always available in the right sidebar.)
This site is the many people who make this team function; that includes you, the reader.
The Oil Drum is a team that works to bring you a good product every day, to raise the bar on the discourse on the myriad topics that we cover here; and we will not lie, it is a difficult enterprise. These people might make it look easy, but it is a difficult and time-consuming endeavor doing what we do, but we do it because we all passionately know that it is important: we all must strive to promote more informed discourse about, and understanding of, the future of our energy supply.
It is a difficult enterprise that recently was made even more difficult by a notable deterioration in the level of discourse at this site. This was something we had to confront--and confronting it was not something we enjoyed, but we determined our actions to be necessary for the integrity and future of the site. (We can assure you that it will be dealt with in the future as well--we also have some tools coming to help with that, most of the delay in the implementation of which having to do with technical aspects/other arcana of the site that SuperG has had to deal with.)
The Oil Drum is a wonderful place, filled with passion, ideas and tensions (and theories and data); those ideas and tensions all get sorted out, and they always will--but sometimes it takes a while, sometimes it requires taking a breath and saying to yourself, "am I actually contributing by typing this response?"
That being said, I think we all have witnessed the change in the level of discourse that has occurred since steps were taken. It is important to remember, however, that in a community like this, it is truly up to ALL of us in this community to maintain that level of discourse, to be civil to each other, and to otherwise enjoy the experience of learning from each other, even when we disagree fundamentally.
As we continue to grow there will be more challenges and even more rewarding conversations.
The people who work and write here deserve much more laud than they receive, and I have to say it is a beautiful thing watching these people accomplish what they accomplish--all with no payment other than the currency of doing what they believe is important.
We all learn from, and give to, this site every day, and it is my hope that we continue to improve while maintaining the high standards of discourse and evidence that TOD is known for.
So, thank you dear readers for being here, and thank you for being a part of what we do here: improving on the silence.
Contact
- Content: editors at theoildrum dot com
- Tech support: support at theoildrum dot com
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
And thank you to all the staff and contributors at TOD. Might I also add that since the very necessary 'changes' brought in a week or so ago the level of challenging and meaningful discussion has returned to what it was some months ago. Action was needed and I am very glad it was taken. I look forward to TOD remaining my first port of call for all info relating to PO and many other energy related matters.
Agree. The much needed last minute intervention has restored TOD to health.
I think this is mealy mouthed and unworthy of a site and a group of people who normally deal with unpleasant facts straight on.
You banned Hothgor, dmathew1, and Freddy Hutter because they were clogging up the comments with rubbish. A good move, and I congratulated you on the decision earlier. So why not just come out and announce it rather than dancing around the subject with a bunch of candyass prose? If I wanted obfuscation I'd read the mainstream press.
Love you guys, but couldn't let this pass.
thank you for comment. as the mealy-mouthed candyass who wrote it, I will express my appreciation of your attempted compliment and move on.
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As a "lay person" not in an oil or energy related field, I can't thank the TOD and all involved enough for the extraordinary effort in putting together this blog. It is my first stop each day on the web. The first source I read on the issue of peak oil was Kunstler's book, "The Long Emergency" in June 2005. That led me to research the issue on the web and that led me to TOD. I don't know what I would do without it. Maybe get more work done? :)
Many thanks to the Oil Drum crew for keep this site rolling along with a high level of consistent quality content and discussion. Thanks also for doing what is needed to maintain a level of civility that is so lacking in many other sites.
Congratulations to everyone at The Oil Drum. The quality and variety of the essays at TOD is incredible. The comments are pretty darn good too - hurrah for your recent efforts at improving the tone there.
Bart / Energy Bulletin
Congratulations as well.
I notice that those who sought to denigrate and deride have disappeared entirely. While I don't greatly miss them, I wonder if something a little less drastic might not be in order. It will always take some time before a threshold is reached at which someone is considered intolerable. During that time the level of discourse goes down. The result is a continuing series of slow declines followed by sharp rises in the level of discourse.
Perhaps it would be better if each contributor had a "volume control" ( on the number of posts / number of characters per day ) that was "adjustable" by the community at large. The control could be turned down but not off.
The volume controls would allow a continuous "adjustment" by TODers of the level of discourse. Such a mechanism would save the moderators the unpleasant task of censuring users and provide some satisfaction for average TOD users as well.
Once again, thanks for having the courage and dedication to make this site the best on the web.
Regards,
jp
I first found the Oil Drum while researching SST anomalies in the North Atlantic, which happened to be one of the various topics being discussed on this site. Through this site I found "Oil, Smoke and Mirrors" which introduced me to Peak Oil. From there Hubbert's Curve, Deffeyes, Campbell, Heinberg, the list goes on. This site is a pivotal resource. The discussion in the comments section itself is a wealth of information by people from various fields of endeavor all brought together connected by this subject. From engineers to anthropologists, enlightening each other in the knowledge of their wide ranging disciplines. This is what Scientific Inquiry is supposed to be like. It is through the sharing of multiple disciplines that new understanding may arise. The internet will be the thing I most miss; the new Renaissance in the final days of civilization as we know it.
I hit reload a thousand times but still can seem to read the story :)
Thanks to all involved. Its a pleasure to share ideas and purpose with you all. Special thanks to Super G and Prof G whos tireless work behind the scenes provides the platform for the rest of us.
Question:
Huh? To read an average post on TOD must take 10-15 minutes (especially mine!) Does this mean that people usually skim? Or that the median visit is different than the mean? (lots of people come to look at the pictures and quickly leave?) I never knew that stat. Says alot about peoples attention spans or our busy lives or both.
thanks. *blush*
at most sites the time that people stay there and read is MUCH shorter...there's no distribution for the stat, so I imagine that it is pretty skewed...
I'm with you Nate, I can never get loose from here in 7 minutes, but there is another factor....I read Drumroll in pieces because I chase out the links, then come back, and chase out the next interesting one, so it cuts my visits into much smaller looking chips than they actually are...:-)
But congrats to TOD for opening up a whole new area that didn't formerly even exist on the web, and connecting us all to a wide ranging variety of ideas, thoughts, concepts, and sources...I accidently backed into TOD while doing research for a paper in a continuing education class at a Community College, and it may be the one of the best things I got out of the class!
It's been and continues to be great fun, and a continuing education class of it's own! :-)
Oh, to your other observation, "To read an average post on TOD must take 10-15 minutes (especially mine!) "
Hey, I resemble that remark! My rule on that subject...."If you want brevity, read a bumper sticker!" :-)
Roger Conner Jr
Remember, we are only one cubic mile from freedom
I don't know what it means. I can never get off in 7 minutes. Half an hour if I rush--and then I come back later. Yes, TOD is much improved in recent days. More like its old self.
I'm on this website for about an hour a day, sometimes two hours if I want to read a thread completely. Usually I don't say anything, I don't want to worsen to the signal/noise ratio.
I expect there are a lot of people like me here. You usually only have to wait a bit before somebody makes the point you were thinking of making, and better!
Carbon - UK
I was searching my thoughts for an appropriate addition to the heartfelt "Thank YOU..."--and the most appropriate I could come up with was "...for your life-changing work." I can't imagine anyone spending time, as a contributor or a fly-on-the-wall not having their views changed to some degree. My appreciation for The Oil Drum transcends that of any other website (or media outlet fwiw) in that I have learned so much, and been exposed to such a wide range of opinion. It downright edumacational!
I, too, appreciate the recent decisions vis-a-vis our discourse; the return 'to focus' has been great.
I will continue to read, think, contribute only when it contributes (except this!), and most importantly spread the word about the site and our energy challenges in general.
We haven't sold the business and relocated (yet!), but we have divested of all of our gasoline-burning vehicles (now 1 Bio truck and two CNG vehicles--and yes, I read Dave's excellent Red Queen article!) Change is a constant...
Congrats, and carry on...
With over 4 million unique visits, TOD has been a smashing success, so is there enough to share?
Most here now know that the Wall Street Journal has started an energy blog of their own. Let's not forget to drop in, and post some cogent, wise and witty comment to let them know they have an interested and astute audience that is sure to grow! (beside, you don't want Gail, Bob Shaw and I hogging the forum do you? ;-)
Thanks again for all you do, Roger Conner Jr.
http://blogs.wsj.com/energy/
(P.S.) This is how revolutions are made, by the way, it is said that when Lenin returned to Russia, he converted 30 people on a boxcar, and when Lech Welesa climbed the fence at the Gdansk shipyard, the Solidarity Union had less than 10 members....within a year, it had over a million! The TXU news, WSJ, Simmons on Bloomberg.....the "bug" is spreading....:-)
I thought this took as a hyperlink the other day, if not, copy and paste...
http://blogs.wsj.com/energy/
RC
There was an upgrade last night. That is probably why your link is not clickable. Also, that's probably why someone upthread had trouble seeing this story.
Hyperlinking is now fixed, as you can see above.
BTW, the WSJ blog site has an automated spam-removal system which appears to dislike hyperlinks. I got bitten by it and had to have a comment manually reinstated.
Congratulations guys. This is the definitive site for energy related matters on the web. I also read EB and LATOC, but this is "core".
Thanks for all the great work. I am doing a Masters degree (Sustainability Science) and I am quite a bit ahead of the curve on energy compared to where the University is, mostly because of what is written here.
Most of the articles are very polished and the site in general is of a very high professional standard.
Thanks once again, I for one really apopreciate it.
Yeah, thanks a lot. Like, you've totally destroyed my love life. I don't remember when I last saw a movie. I eat crap. My formerly muscled form is bulging over the belt. Does the sun still rise?
Thanks a lot for so much information on this essential topic
This site is helping me to improve my English and to understand that America is not only GWB.
The more I learn about PO the more I realize the complexity of the subject. I suspect that you are in the way to reach the 5 million unique visits very soon!
From Lisbon
Thanks Prof G, Super G, Leanan, and all contributors. What amazes me about TOD is that you get all this for free, unlike some groups that charge mucho dinero for their analyses.
Whoa...Super G...I just got done clicking around some other threads and I have to say...YOU ROCK!!!
This site loads much faster and I like your subthread architecture much better. Not sure what you did, but things are way improved.
Thanks for your unheralded efforts.
Switch brain off.
As man’s difficulty in finding oil increases, he will need to expend more energy. As he expends more energy to produce it, the value of oil will rise. As the value of oil rises, he will produce more currency to equal the energy value of the oil. As currency increases in volume, the value will decline. As the value of currency declines, the relative value of all other goods and services will rise. As the value of goods and services rise, his consumption will decline. As his consumption declines, the economy must decline. As the economy declines, he will have less energy to expend to find oil. As he expends less energy to find oil, his energy will decline. As his energy declines, his strength will decline. As his strength declines, his ability to move will decline. As his ability to move declines, his need to think will rise. As his need to think rises, his intelligence will rise. As his intelligence rises, the ignorant men will decline. As the ignorant men decline, the men who need this information will decline. As the men who need this declines, the posting here will decline. As the posting here declines, the empty space will rise. As the empty space rises, his need to be here will decline. As his need to be here declines, his napping time will rise. As his napping time rises, his thoughtfulness will decline. As his thoughtfulness declines, his intelligence will decline. As his intelligence declines, his diligence will decline. As his diligence declines, his carelessness will rise. As his carelessness rises, his concern for PO will decline. Then he’ll just forget the whole thing!
Switch brain on.
Sorry for the interruption!
Congatulations! Those are nice stats.
I'm very appreciative of the work that the "oil guys" do here, it is a daily read for me again, thanks to the changes made.
What I find most amazing is all the work that goes into providing "fuel" to the public. I still think fuel is a bargain for the work it does.
Thank you for TOD and its contributors.
D
Re: Bargain--I'd pay money for it.
These new(shorter) lines are nice - easier to follow.
Prof. Goose, you wouldn't, by any chance, be obsessed with infinite exponential growth, would you? ;-)
Anyway, congratulations on a highly successful site.
Sooner or later we'd have all of humanity spending all of their time reading TOD (like the erstwhile situation with telephone operators).
The obvious solution would be to have everyone's computer read TOD automatically, just like the invention of the crossbar switch. That would let the stats keep rising.