2008 Year in Review: Authors, articles, statistics and planning for 2009

2008 December 29
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By Andy Kaiser
Article ID: 1266

Digital Bits Skeptic, circa 2008: Barack Obama was about to become US President, people were complaining about Windows Vista and their 401K, and most of the world's economies were falling fast. Come closer, 2009, and tell us things will get better!

So how was 2008 for Digital Bits Skeptic? You tell me.

But first, let me start you off with some helpful information (be sure to listen to the podcast for more information than what you see below):

Authors and Articles

In 2008, Digital Bits Skeptic published 65 articles from 18 authors. That’s an average of 3.6 articles per author.

Author list (in no significant order)

David Annis (10 articles!)

Nick from Science, Reason and Rationality (10 articles!)

Anonymous

M Parrot

Joshua Walker

Navin Kumar

Matthew Green

Jason Y

Thomas Gentry

Amr Hima

James Lochbaum

Todd Fritz

Tammy Buchli

Peter Booth

Rodrigo Neely

Sebastian L

Tim Eisele

Andy Kaiser

Top articles (measured by web statisics and comments left on the article)

Article ID #127 – The Dyatlov pass accident and the fatal “unknown compelling force”

Article ID #1257 – Original versions of classic fairy tales

Article ID #122 – Oprah, plug in your toaster. Most appliances don’t use energy when turned off.

Article ID #119 – Photo evidence of ectoplasm and ghost orbs explained

Article ID #123 – Spider bites are an overrated menace

Standouts

Hardest to record: Article ID #1217 – Atheism in Hinduism – Man, was this one hard to record (and pronounce). You should’ve heard the outtakes – the original podcast recording was probably five times the size of the final article, due to my complete unfamiliarity with Hindu culture, and me breaking down laughing serveral times at my own idiocy.

Most surprising result: Article ID #125 – Human static electricity generators: Can a person’s body generate static electricity? – A quick and fun article that was unexpectedly taken very seriously by a lot of people.

Thoughts on improving DBskeptic in 2009

1) Find out a way to remove ads, yet still generate revenue to pay for the site.

2) Increase traffic, readers and listeners.

3) If traffic will support it, add a forum or some other method to discuss subjects off-topic from the articles.

4) Solicit listener and reader feedback: So you think I have a horrible reading voice? Then let me know so I can improve my podcasting equipment and voice technique. How good or bad is DBSkeptic? Is once a week publication too often? Is this the worst site design you’ve ever seen? Should there be more unscripted material, or do you like the scripted article format? Whatever, just tell me – I can take it. Click the “Contact” link to send me an email. Or leave your public comment at the end of this article.


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9 Comments
2008 December 29
Science, Reason and Rationality permalink

Hi Andy,

There seem to be some errors. There are 3 out of 10 articles listed in there which is not mine. These are the articles:

1. Apophenia: Definition and Analysis

2. Universities and academies fail to teach scientific thought and rationality

3. 2008 Year in Review: Authors, articles, statistics and planning for 2009

Nick
SRR

2008 December 29
DB Skeptic permalink

Ah, I see what’s happening: the search tool is inclusive for all search terms, not exclusive. I’ll work on this tonight and see if that can be fixed. Thanks for letting me know!

Andy

2008 December 29
David Annis permalink

I only counted 9 articles for me, although I submitted one that is not yet in the queue.

David

2008 December 29
DB Skeptic permalink

Hi David,

Here are the ten articles I’ve got from you. Let me know if there’s a mistake somewhere:

Sexual selection and how the peacock got its tail
Pascal’s Wager: gambling with an immoral god
Problems with nutritional supplements
If you can’t prove God doesn’t exist, why not believe?
Macro-evolution observed in the laboratory
What good is half an eye?
Religious deference taken to extremes
The problem with retrospective studies: Why what’s good for you changes
The limits of evidence-based medicine
Evolution makes testable predictions

2008 December 29
DB Skeptic permalink

Nick and David,

The built-in search tool isn’t very good at handling different formatting, like hyperlinks and italics tags. That’s what caused the problem you both reported on. So I’ve temporarily disabled the links above until I find a better, permanent solution.

Thanks for letting me know!

Andy

2008 December 29
Rob Steenwyk permalink

A forum would definitely be awesome, I know that I would like to participate in it. But yeah, a forum with only a few posts and them all being 2 months old is a sad sight to see. As soon as you see enough traffic (whatever that # is) I would really like it to be implemented.

Nice work on the quality articles David and Nick! Also a “thank you” has to be extended to Andy for getting these quality articles out there for all to read. Thanks a lot Andy, I have learned a lot from the site : )

2008 December 31
David Annis permalink

Andy,

I like the ads – I’ve found a few interesting sites that way and it lets people with different points of view share the cost. One ad even gave me an article idea.

Rob,

Thank you for the kind words.

2009 July 8
Andy Kaiser permalink

A late update on this, but I think it’s justified:

We spoke about being able to list all articles written by a particular author. We can now do this: On any particular article page, look near the top of the article, and you’ll see something like “more by [author's name here]“. Click the author’s name to get all the stuff they’ve written.

You can also get a list of all authors. Find that in the “View All” link at the top-right of every page.

Hopefully this helps people find their favorite authors and the work they’ve written.

Andy

2009 July 9
Science, Reason & Rationality permalink

AWESOME! Thanks Andy! You’re the man!

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