RD.net - again

[Styrer]

While I know most of you have recovered and moved on from the RD.net fiasco, I realise I have still not quite done so. Sorry.

I've left a post there, responding to a stirling old FP member there who seems in dire need of a hearty hug by this site's members. Am I out of my mind by still dwelling on this, or have I raised any points with which any of you here might agree?
Mordacious1's spark-off comment is at the end (as per the now mad way RD.net shows these things).


Mordacious1

Extremely well said. The utter ripping apart of topics by erudite members prepared to grant their time to do so was precisely what made the former Front Pages so brilliantly conceived and educational. There was really nothing else like it on the web, and the former site was for me, as it was for you, the premier site to visit every day because of this. The sheer amount of brain power, erudition, intellectual and creative fecundity on show each and every day, in happily and engagingly pressing service of Richard Dawkins' own ideas of reason and rationality, were their own creative reward.

I lament the loss of furious argument, of massive confrontation, of strenuous effort made to assert one's point with whatever frowned upon intellectual or lingustic resourses, of the sense of enlightenment, of the sense of increasing knowledge because of all these former things. Above all I miss the companionship, even if it was communicated by a swift 'fuck off'.

Richard has seemingly happily let this all go. Reciprocally, I let go of him too, after years of unadulterated support.

He's shown himself to be nothing more than an intelligent, self-serving douchebag, who happens to speak the truth. While I have the utmost regard for his truth claims, I have absolutely no regard any more for Dawkins the man.

Styrer

Comment 14 by mordacious1 :

Comte

Sorry to pick your thread to rant (especially since I enjoyed reading your article) and my rant isn't about your piece, so again I apologize.

My question is about whether the some of the comments I've been reading lately are typical of the old forum? I never went there too much, so I couldn't say. Maybe Tyler and Irate would know. One complaint of the old front page, was that it was dominated by several frequent posters and that others were intimidated from posting there. That may be true, but let me say that at that time RD.net was my #1 site on the net, far above anything else I visited. Now it is barely holding on at #12 . We now have a new set of "frequent posters" and frankly, they suck (not all of them, but quite a few).

Also, most threads don't get past a few posts. It's hard to learn anything that way. Previously topics were analyzed in-depth by erudite posters. When the thread was finished, whatever the topic was, you knew most of what there was to know about it, if you read the comments all the way through. Now I don't even bother.

If /Mike wants to delete this, he can be my guest, I don't care. Formerly, I would have PM'd irate and Tyler and left it at that, but that function no longer exists. OK, you guys get my point...I'm off to read Pharyngula.

[Trolldor]

RD.net - proved it was exactly the same as everywhere else.

[charlou]

While I know most of you have recovered and moved on from the RD.net fiasco, I realise I have still not quite done so. Sorry.

I've left a post there, responding to a stirling old FP member there who seems in dire need of a hearty hug by this site's members. Am I out of my mind by still dwelling on this, or have I raised any points with which any of you here might agree?
Mordacious1's spark-off comment is at the end (as per the now mad way RD.net shows these things).


Mordacious1

Extremely well said. The utter ripping apart of topics by erudite members prepared to grant their time to do so was precisely what made the former Front Pages so brilliantly conceived and educational. There was really nothing else like it on the web, and the former site was for me, as it was for you, the premier site to visit every day because of this. The sheer amount of brain power, erudition, intellectual and creative fecundity on show each and every day, in happily and engagingly pressing service of Richard Dawkins' own ideas of reason and rationality, were their own creative reward.

I lament the loss of furious argument, of massive confrontation, of strenuous effort made to assert one's point with whatever frowned upon intellectual or lingustic resourses, of the sense of enlightenment, of the sense of increasing knowledge because of all these former things. Above all I miss the companionship, even if it was communicated by a swift 'fuck off'.

Richard has seemingly happily let this all go. Reciprocally, I let go of him too, after years of unadulterated support.

He's shown himself to be nothing more than an intelligent, self-serving douchebag, who happens to speak the truth. While I have the utmost regard for his truth claims, I have absolutely no regard any more for Dawkins the man.

Styrer

Comment 14 by mordacious1 :

Comte

Sorry to pick your thread to rant (especially since I enjoyed reading your article) and my rant isn't about your piece, so again I apologize.

My question is about whether the some of the comments I've been reading lately are typical of the old forum? I never went there too much, so I couldn't say. Maybe Tyler and Irate would know. One complaint of the old front page, was that it was dominated by several frequent posters and that others were intimidated from posting there. That may be true, but let me say that at that time RD.net was my #1 site on the net, far above anything else I visited. Now it is barely holding on at #12 . We now have a new set of "frequent posters" and frankly, they suck (not all of them, but quite a few).

Also, most threads don't get past a few posts. It's hard to learn anything that way. Previously topics were analyzed in-depth by erudite posters. When the thread was finished, whatever the topic was, you knew most of what there was to know about it, if you read the comments all the way through. Now I don't even bother.

If /Mike wants to delete this, he can be my guest, I don't care. Formerly, I would have PM'd irate and Tyler and left it at that, but that function no longer exists. OK, you guys get my point...I'm off to read Pharyngula.

I'll be surprised if those messages were allowed to stay up.


RDF and RD have turned out to be a big disappointment for many, many people.

[lordpasternack]

In a bored moment I traced a rough line of best fit through RD.net's traffic stats on Alexa, trailing as far back as I could. It's quite a fascinating sight. I ignored the anomalous spike that occurred around late April, coinciding with the announcement of the new site, and likely a result of lots of people dropping in to have a curious look, and then obviously being mostly underwhelmed.

traffictrend.JPG (22.71 KiB) Viewed 2515 times

But of course, the quality is so much better now, isn't it? Isn't it?

[lordpasternack]

rdnettraffic.JPG (15.94 KiB) Viewed 2384 times

No further comment.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Where do you get that info, please?

[Trolldor]

Alexa?

[lordpasternack]

Where do you get that info, please?

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/richarddawkins.net

Click to see stats, and particularly "reach" - and then choose "max" from the drop-down menu under the graph produced, to see the full picture over the past two-year period.

It's still not too late for them to complete the reversal of all the traffic gained during the prevailing trend of 2009-2010. Let's see if they can make it!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I wish that could do subdirectories.

[Feck]

The' time on site' shows more how 'very exiting' it is .

[lordpasternack]

The' time on site' shows more how 'very exiting' it is .

Most appropriate misspellung of the year award goes to...

You're correct though - it really does capture the very precise moment when we were all enraptured to the point of defecating ourselves following the unveiling of the labour of love we had already been piqued about, and were anticipating with baited breath...

rdnettraffictime.JPG (18.85 KiB) Viewed 2358 times

[Trolldor]

At least four minutes, with 54% of views being one-time visits, and being most popular to young, childless males with only some college.

[PsychoSerenity]

The "bounce" seems quite high. Over 50% of visits are a single pageview.

The pageviews really shows the amount of activity.



If I remember correctly the big spike in march (which shows up more on the "reach" graph) was when he said he wanted to arrest the pope. But since then it's just continued very slowly down.

[Feck]

The' time on site' shows more how 'very exiting' it is .

Most appropriate misspellung of the year award goes to...

I missed the h out of site as well .

[lordpasternack]

The "bounce" seems quite high. Over 50% of visits are a single pageview.

The pageviews really shows the amount of activity.



If I remember correctly the big spike in march (which shows up more on the "reach" graph) was when he said he wanted to arrest the pope. But since then it's just continued very slowly down.

So, both traffic, and actual activity of those individuals giving the traffic, is down?

Hehe... See, I had planned, several months ago, to send Richard Dawkins an email with the traffic trend graphs - showing a nice, fairly symmetrical graph, with it's maximum point where it's been since February 2010. I actually told Tigger this intention in person back in June. And he told me just to send the graphs as they were at that time. But that wasn't good enough. I was going to need the complete picture over the whole of the year, and particularly till the anniversary of the "revamp" of the site. It was going to have to form the nice, complete, almost symmetrical slopes. My little plan relied incredibly heavily on my being right, of the future panning out to my expectations. (Although if I were wrong, it would have been a case of quietly eating words I'd never uttered, admitting to myself that I was unusually wrong this time, and moving on...)

It still relies on me being right for just a little longer, I suppose. But here's to my unequivocal clairvoyancy and sweet, bittersweet vindication, at last! Thanks for not foiling my divinations and schemes, O fate. I know ye better than ye know yourself.