Grumpy Rumblings 2022 Year in Blogging

January 2, 2023 — nicoleandmaggie

Can’t believe another year has passed.  Let’s look at some stats!  I will note that some of these stats may be undercounts because wordpress stats has been wonky much of December this year and hasn’t been recording any thing it’s been tracking for some weeks.

Traffic is down compared to last year.  Posts are down a bit (202 this year compared to 209)), and comments are also down.

These are the posts that got the most views in 2022:

Four of these are from 2022 (Last year only two were from 2021!) and, for the first time, the post from students trying to plagiarize a really common composition assignment not only isn’t #1, it isn’t in the top 10. We have lost the market on plagiarizing a short essay about a relative’s wedding. (It still got 480 views though.)  Some of our other common standbys are still in the top 10 though (liberty tabletop review, percent vs. percentage point, our parenting philosophy, etc.)

According to our stats, here’s another five of the most popular posts from 2022:

Ok, what I’m getting from this is either I have had a really bad year OR there are suddenly a lot more people hate reading us and a lot fewer search engines finding us.  Are you hate reading or just sympathetic? Was my year really as terrible as it seems from traffic? Let us know!

Top referring sites were (same sites but slightly different order from last year):

Most visitors came from The United States. Canada & the UK came next.  Germany is inching up.

Our most commented post was Add me to the numbers of people who got covid for the first time this past month (note to self for next year:  this stat is now hidden under “insights” which is now a tab on site stats) (Thank you previous self!  Also, self next year, it’s been further hidden in the comments part– you have to scroll down and change to comments by posts and pages where it says comments by authors) (Thank you previous self!)

I can’t get the most active commenters for the year, only for what appears to be all time.  So what I’m doing is looking at how many pages of comments each person in the top 6 (which is all they show) gave this year (each page has 20 comments) :( These were the most active commenters of all time, sorted by the number of comments in the past year, but I may be missing newer active commenters or regulars who have changed the email they login with over the years.

1.  Debbie M 9 pages
2.  Revanche@agaishanlife 9 pages
3.  First Gen American 7 pages
4.  CG 6 pages
5.  Alice 4 pages
6.  Bogart 3 pages

Debbie M has a bunch more on that 9th page than Revanche, but it was pretty close.

Yay Debbie M!  This means you get to tell us where to donate the proceeds from our most recent month’s sales (plus a bump because amazon sales are also way down).    Either tell us and link up in the comments (if you want more exposure) or email us at grumpyrumblings at gmail if you want it to be more secret-like.

Any blog commentary or highlights from the grumpy gallery?  Also, congratulate Debbie M in the comments.  :)

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Grumpy Rumblings 2021 year in Blogging

January 3, 2022 — nicoleandmaggie

Traffic is again a little up compared to last year.  Posts are down a bit (209 this year compared to 210(!)), and comments are also up.

These are the posts that got the most views in 2021:

Two of these are from 2021 (Last year none of them were from 2020!) and, of course, the #1 post is still from students trying to plagiarize a really common composition assignment. We have cornered the market on plagiarizing a short essay about a relative’s wedding.

According to our stats, here’s the most popular posts from 2021:

  • I am not ok
  • Why I don’t want to list my pronouns
  • RBOC from March 1, 2021 (I think this is a first for an RBOC)  This one has a lot of complaining that is also in I am not ok above.  People like complaining!
  • Link Love from Jan 2, 2021 (I think this is a first for a Link Love).  See above comment about people loving complaining.
  • DH’s Delta Trainer/Co-Pilot Review  (DH is still going strong with this and would 100% recommend if you want to get into shape and have time to do so– if there is interest, I can do a post updating.)

Top referring sites were (no change from last year!):

Most visitors came from The United States. Canada & the UK came next.

Our most commented post was Why I don’t want to list my pronouns (note to self for next year:  this stat is now hidden under “insights” and is no longer on site stats) (Thank you previous self!  Also, self next year, it’s been further hidden in the comments part– you have to change to comments by posts and pages where it says comments by authors) (Thank you previous self!)

I can’t get the most active commenters for the year, only for some undetermined amount of time. :( These were the 5 most active commenters on that unspecified amount of time:

1.  Revanche@agaishanlife 60
2.  Debbie M 36
3.  First Gen American 30
4.  Three way tie for 4th:  mnitabach, omdg, Matthew D. Healy 27

Yay Revanche!  This means you get to tell us where to donate our most recent month’s proceeds from amazon sales.  Either tell us and link up in the comments (if you want more exposure) or email us at grumpyrumblings at gmail if you want it to be more secret-like.

Any blog commentary or highlights from the grumpy gallery?  Also, congratulate Revanche in the comments.  :)

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Grumpy Rumblings 2020 year in Blogging

December 30, 2020 — nicoleandmaggie

Traffic is actually a little up compared to last year.  Scalzi noted this trend too on his Whatever, so maybe blog traffic is generally up with the pandemic?  Posts are up a bit (210 this year, counting this one), and comments are also up.

These are the posts that got the most views in 2020:

I think these probably show an increase in people finding our blog via googling and perhaps a decrease in conversations across blogs (or twitter) bringing in traffic.  None of these are from 2020 (which is a first– usually there’s at least one popular post for the year) and the #1 post is still from students trying to plagiarize a really common composition assignment. We have cornered the market on plagiarizing a short essay about a relative’s wedding.

According to our stats, here’s the most popular posts from 2020:

Top referring sites were:

Most visitors came from The United States. Canada & the UK came next.

Our most commented post was Spoiled rich white boys:  Sophomore English hasn’t changed in 60 years (note to self for next year:  this stat is now hidden under “insights” and is no longer on site stats) (Thank you previous self!  Also, self next year, it’s been further hidden in the comments part– you have to change to comments by posts and pages where it says comments by authors) (Thank you previous self!)

I can’t get the most active commenters for the year, only for some undetermined amount of time. :( These were the 5 most active commenters on that unspecified amount of time:

1.  Revanche@agaishanlife 45
2.  Jenny F. Scientist 44
3.  Debbie M 37
4.  omdg 32
5.  Steph 29

I think this is a first time for Steph on the leader board!

Yay Revanche!  This means you get to tell us where to donate our most recent month’s proceeds from amazon sales.  Either tell us and link up in the comments (if you want more exposure) or email us at grumpyrumblings at gmail if you want it to be more secret-like.

Any blog commentary or highlights from the grumpy gallery?  Also, congratulate Revanche in the comments.  :)

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I don’t just seem like I’m perfect on the internet: Why being a crab in a bucket is really not the way to help your self-esteem

January 6, 2020 — nicoleandmaggie

Grumpy Readers,

I am amazing. I truly am.  I have achieved more than I ever could have dreamed of as a child.  I try to make the world a better place.  I am continually living and growing and working and doing what I can to make my utility curve hit my budget constraint, wherever that is at the time.

YOU are amazing too.  I mean, assuming you don’t post racist memes or put kids in cages or donate to anti-LGBT causes because you don’t want people who are different to be happy.  (One would think that would be a pretty low bar, but hey, it’s 2020 and Trump is president.)  But there are other things about you that make you amazing, not just the absence of being a horrible person (horrible people sometimes hate-read, but they don’t tend to stick around, so we’re fairly confident in assuming you’re not one of them– if you are, maybe stop being horrible?).

Think on some of the ways in which you are amazing for a moment, and while you do it, pretend that the patriarchy doesn’t exist so when you start on the, “but..” part after the amazing part just shut that down and end it with a period.  There are so many ways– and they are all valid (unless they include hurting vulnerable people).

There’s research that shows that people are, on average, happier when they’re off Facebook, and that the reason they’re happier is because they’re not comparing themselves to other people as much.  But something hidden in that research is that it’s only true on average, and only true for a certain kind of people.  Some people are VERY affected by comparing themselves to others and some people are not affected at all.  And that difference has to do with personality traits, not things like income or types of friends (probably– there’s still more research to be done in this area).

I strongly believe that this need that some people have to feel better than others, high on the relative scale of worth rather than just high in terms of levels is one of the reasons that we have so many social ills today.  Some people are racist because they want to feel better than a group of people no matter how terrible things are for them.  They are sexist for the same reason.  They want to keep the poor from eating because people not like them are undeserving and shouldn’t eat.  Or from marrying because they themselves are not lgbt.  Or from being included because they consider themselves to be an exclusive sort of prosperity-gospel Christian and others are non-Christian.  From this viewpoint, there’s only so much awesome to go around and they need to keep other people from having it, particularly people who are different.

But that doesn’t have to be how it works.  Awesome grows more awesome.  Making the world a better place creates more benefits for everyone, except people who get off on being bigots.

And you, grumpy readers, are not those people.

You know that if you focus on relative awesomeness there will always be someone who appears to be better in one aspect or another.  That can’t be a healthy measure of one’s own worth.  It’s much better to plant your own garden and focus on your wants and your goals.  The argument that everybody has problems they’re hiding so you should feel good about yourself is a good way to keep people down.  The only way to win that game is to not care if other people don’t have problems, and instead to focus on yourself and make comparisons to yourself.  Learn from other people– don’t pull them down.

Grumpy nation, when someone on the internet or in real life seems pretty awesome, that doesn’t mean they have inner demons or a horrible family life or etc. etc. etc. that they’re just keeping hidden.  Maybe they’re just pretty awesome.  And maybe if you want to be like them, you can learn from what they do.  And if you don’t want to be like them, you can be secure in that choice.  Sometimes people have instagrammable holiday decorations because that’s what they value, and maybe that’s not what you value.

Where people end up is a combination of so many factors– structural advantages, luck, effort, preferences, and so on.  We can work to reduce structural disadvantages.  We can remember the importance of luck.  We can change our effort level, or remember why we don’t actually care enough to do so and be mindful of the things we do care about.  What we don’t need to do is pull someone down because they have something we wish we had.

So I’m not going to say that it only seems like I have a charmed life but in reality there’s things going on behind the scenes… because really there’s not.  Each day I think of my blessings with astonishment.  As a child, I never actually believed my life could be this comfortable.  Or maybe you don’t value the things I value and value other things and that’s fine too (assuming you don’t value bigotry– then that’s not fine)!  Remember that when someone else brings perfect Christmas cookies, you get to eat the cookies without having put forth any effort to make them.  And that’s much better than feeling threatened by someone else’s perfection.

In this New Year, if I have any hopes for the grumpy readership, it is that you will think upon how you can use your awesomeness to make the world a better place.  Because there are people with so many disadvantages who are under attack because bad people feel threatened by them.  We have the privilege and the power to fight.  Let’s make 2020 a year of action.

Happy New Year!

What is at least one way in which are you awesome?  (Warning:  NO but/although/even though/etc. allowed.  Just put a period without a disclaimer.)  What are your hopes for helping the world in this New Year?  What are some suggestions for what we can do?

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