Back on March 15th, 2009, I was amazed to find that WUWT hit 10 million on the internal WordPress hit counter.
I started the WUWT blog in late November of 2006, and it took me over two years to get there
Now just six months later, I’m amazed again:
Despite the many people of the alarmism bent who dislike what we do here, WUWT continues to be popular. As always thanks to the many many readers, the guest contributors, and especially to our moderators dbs, Charles, and Evan who keep the flow of conversation going smoothly.
I’m grateful to all of you for the continued success and support. I’m especially grateful to those who spread WUWT links on other websites, helping to drive traffic here.
Now my most important question: what could WUWT do different or better?
– Anthony
Well done all. I know how much work goes into this. You should be quite proud of yourselves–now get back to work!
The WUWT blog is the only one that has kept my interest for months, or more accurately, years on end. I’m a near daily visitor – good grief, I’m glad I’ll never know the exact number of hours I’ve spent reading and learning here – I probably could have gone to college and earned a degree in Meteorology or Physics in that amount of time!
Anyway, keep up the good work and thank you!
Kate
Congratulations Anthony and helpers. Where else can an idea be peer reviewed in nanoseconds, or just a little bit longer?
Keep up the good work, you have set the global standard!!!
Congratulations to all on a fine site and those that contribute to its energetic but moderate tone.
This letter from the Financial Times http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/95837fce-a7d9-11de-b0ee-00144feabdc0.html I feel sums up the WUWT readership. The path that this 70yr old reader followed to become critical of AGW is similar to my path, and I have also read the same books. Her point was not just to read critical material, but have enough scientific knowledge to make an independent judgement about what seems to be correct and plausible and to retain one’s curiosity for new ideas.
For sake of stability I would like to see more linear readership growth……hate to reach a ‘tipping point’!
Now my most important question: what could WUWT do different or better?
You could purge The Tips & Notes section. It’s overloading my cache and locking the browser.
Thirty million hits by 1 Jan 2010?
REPLY: Doubtful, but reader can always help by placing links on other blogs. – A
Congratulations, Anthony!
You have established a “skeptic magnet” in the marketplace of ideas that was sorely lacking even a couple of years ago. You have attracted some world-class talent to your outlet along with a monster audience for that talent’s work. In so doing, I think your place is secure when the history is written of how an entire planet had gone stark mad over a fallacious scientific theory and was eventually restored to rational thinking. Any historic reconstruct of how that tide was turned will surely prominently feature you and your Internet site. I hope that history includes your stellar moderators, without whose even-handed performance the lively attraction for an audience would not exist.
Thanks for a great web site and tremendously stimulating company. It’s fun to be challenged by so many issues, and to watch so many trying to tackle the mysteries of the universe. Take targeted ads for instance. Recently, I was dunned here by some ads for French bidets. I wondered if, like Hansel dribbling cookie crumbs behind, I brought these advertisers here as a result of my peripatetic wanderings through home-improvement sites… or if I’ve merely joined a higher class of people when I click on WUWT.
We’re all pilgrims, I suppose.
Thanks again, and congratulations on your great success!
Congrats; I have a question — has NOAA or NASA or any other government agency releases a carbon cycle diagram anytime since 1997?
I find one fron 1994 and one from the period, 1992-1997 but nothing later; they have different values but identical positive additions to atmospheric CO2.
Surely there must be something newer or did that close the door on followups.
[REPLY – Try the DOE (middle of the page).
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/chapter1.html ~ Evan]
Excellent, gents, gracias! Nothing.
I’ll add my congratulations and deep thanks to you, Anthony, and your great team dbs, Charles, and Evan. I know that everyone appreciates you since at every milestone you also receive the thanks of the AGW proponents, who also appreciate the even handed moderation here. Reminiscing… I recall some of the trials and tribulations that you went through over the last couple of years. With the team you have in place you have done a magnificent job. Since you asked, I’d say that you might start looking for your next moderator before it gets as hectic as it has in the past… (I have a feeling you already have a couple in mind)… The sheer volume of articles and comments has really cut into my sleep time. 🙂 But I’m not complaining… Keep ’em coming you, your team, the contributors, and the commentors, from pro and con, are what make this site special. You’re changing the world.
Mike Bryant
Now my most important question: what could WUWT do different or better?
1) A “Science for Dummies” page of some kind for younger readers (by that I mean college-age). Maybe a brief primer on why most of us here believe what we do, or don’t believe what’s been shoved down their throats since they were in grade school.
2) Wore my new ICECAP t-shirt to the bowling alley the other night, several people got a laugh out of it. Hint-hint. 🙂 I know it can be a pain, but maybe it’s something you could do once or twice a year. Besides, it would help pay for your expenses or any projects you’re working on.
Congrats. And thanks for keeping us informed.
Anthony and moderators, I want to congratulate you on 20 million and counting !! I have said many times how important this site is to me. To have a voice is so important after being shouted down for so long. It now appears that the only definitive method of debate was their ability to shout. Regarding what comes next for this blog; I trust Anthony’s instincts in this matter and fully support whatever it is he would like to do, even if it is to remain the same. Obviously what is being done here works very very well.
Well done, Mr W. Been waiting for this day with great anticipation. You have taken on a thankless job which has nevertheless informed many thousands of the, to me, incredible asininity of the current “scientific” establishment. As an old soldier, I find the attitudes and actions of many who oppose you extremely childish. The bottom line is: If you can’t prove your point, shut the hell up. Anyone may argue whether this attitude is scientific, but generations of people in the trenches have lived by its verity and great events have been evinced. I find common cause with you and wish you continued success.
Congrats, Anthony! This site has been a wealth of information.
I have learned a lot here and I always enjoy signing on.
Keep up the good work.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Wait a second, have you been manipulating the raw data for your site hits?
Just ribbin’ ya. Congratulations! Your site is a beacon of light that shines upon the dark corners of the otherwise noble human endeavor that is science.
“Now my most important question: what could WUWT do different or better”
If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. You are suffering the Michael Jackson syndrome. You do not have to have the endorcement of everyone on the planet to be successful. Your rule for success is to be YOURSELF. PERIOD. And, more importantly, IF you start changing your “being” to get more adulation, well then, you end up like Michael AND the OBAMA FREAK!
Just keep up the good work!
Great job, one of the best on the web!
[size=14][i]what could WUWT do different or better?
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[color=#3333FF][u][i]Please[/i][/u][/color], Number comments.
It’d make it easier to follow discussions.
4e7 before the end of ’09!
I know what I would like, although there are so many problems that it will never happen. I’d like as may of us a possible to record temperature properly (following guidelines) using a simple device (the ones you advertise seem very appropriate) every 30 minutes in as many locations as possible and get the data collected and analysed.
The problem will be that it will take 10 years or more before it means anything. I’d still love to see it happen, and I’d be first in line to start. It would be fascinating to compare with the ‘official’ figures!
For me, an every morning, WUWT is the first port of call on the internet to see what new and interesting facet of the global warming / climate change debate will be up today.
We all spread the fact that a lot of data and articles, often sourced from other origins, if they appear on WUWT will have a veracity that will stand close scrutiny and can be quoted with confidence on other climate blogs.
Why is WUWT so popular and increasing in popularity?
1 / New and interesting and very diverse data, information and content each day and often more than one article.
This content is couched within a firm and skeptical outlook but is done with a moderate tone.
Keeping this pace up with the posting new material is a feat on it’s own!
2/ Increasing amounts of easy to read content from both science based sources and from other well qualified sources in the climate and science fields.
3 / An element of gossip and scandal and the outing of political machinations and the associated scandals in the climate science field which keeps everybody on their toes as getting caught out with fiddling the books in science can and often does spell the death knell for a career.
It is human nature to gossip and do a little toe dance when somebody else gets caught out so a bit of scandal and gossip now and then keeps everybody really interested.
In doing so, WUWT actively promotes and reinforces the concept that science should and must aim to operate at a very high level of integrity.
WUWT [ and Climate Audit ] does all of the above really well.
4 / The accuracy and veracity of the content and information headlined on WUWT has proven, over time, to be excellent, allowing WUWT to be quoted elsewhere with full confidence that the information will stand hard scrutiny.
5/ / Excellent moderation allowing a free flow of diverse opinions in comments but with tight a criteria which does not allow rants or extreme language or extreme attitudes or to be too derogatory of those that may hold different or even opposing views.
Extremism just puts most people right off except for a particular psychology that seems to revel in such extremist statements and views.
Unfortunately, extremism is a characteristic of many climate blogs but WUWT is notable for its lack of extremism in it’s headline information and in it’s comments section.
6 / Excellent and often very highly qualified commenters who are a major part of the success of WUWT.
These diverse commenters also exhibit a common down to earth, plain language touch and are accepting of all sorts of odd comments and questions from us laymen without putting down those of us who may not be as well informed or qualified.
Anthony has made it clear that this is the way you will be allowed to comment or you will leave and that is a huge plus for those of us who are only laymen in this climate debate.
7 / From 4 above; The numerous commenters provide a wide range of links to other sources which I find very useful and interesting in a lot of instances and which often lead onto other interesting facets of the climate debate.
8 / Always in a plain language format that is easily understood by almost any interested layman.
Trying to decipher some of the science lingo on some other blogs is a feat in itself.
9 / Layout and format is very simple, clear, attractive and without any unnecessary and extraneous clutter and consequently, a very easy read.
Equal to the best and easiest layouts and reads that I have seen on a blog.
10 / Ultimately the characteristics of a blog will reflect the character of it’s owner.
WUWT is a highly intelligent, wide ranging in it’s views, tolerant with limits of the vagaries of human nature, clear in it’s expressions and goals and one of the most notable contributors in the whole climate debate.
So Anthony, from another of your many admirers, please accept my congratulations and sincere thanks for your work and output.
ps; Please, please provide a full quote review panel for the comments box so we can fix our stuff ups before they go to the mods.
I haven’t posted much here but I visit numerous times every day. WUWT is by far the best climate blog (at least for us laypeople – sorry, CA, you are also great but often somewhat above me).
Congratulations Anthony and thank you for your indefatigable efforts.
> Now my most important question: what could WUWT do different or better?
Most of the things that come to my mind are really things that WordPress could do better, and I don’t want to list them as it would distract from stuff that is feasible. One thing I’ve been thinking of doing, though it might be easier from your side of the wall, is to make a monthly index of all the topics.
One thing I frequently do, probably to the annoyance of some, is when someone posts some exciting thing they just read about is to find the WUWT article from a couple months before and post the link to it. (I generally use the WordPress search tool, one of the few things it’s acceptable for.)
It would be nice to have a monthly list of all the titles to let people browse, maybe a full list and then sublists by categories. (E.g. this one is “Announcements.”) If it’s no easier to do for you, I’d be tempted to write a program to produce it from my view.
Thanks, guys. We moderators play our small part; we try to allow as much freedom as possible on all sides of the issue short of severe personal abuse or running off the rails.
Kudos to Anthony, who has done something here really special and very important.