NOTE: I've decided that this feature should be adjusted and rebooted and (ideally) automated and (ideally) placed within a group dealing with site stats if someone other than me wants to found one. My present intention is to do this not in "real time," as I've been doing, but to measure it after the fact -- which shouldn't be that hard to do, with the current rate of diary postings -- and post it daily. Like jotter's reports, it's not really a timely feature, but one that creates a useful statistical record. New statistics for this past week will be computed that comport with the new statistics described below.
My plan is that there will be two reports per day (probably combined into one diary.) One will cover the period from midnight to noon, Eastern Time, which tends to be relatively slow, and the other will cover from noon to midnight, Eastern Time, which tends to be relatively busy. (Other possible dividing times could work, but dividing the calendar day in half like this seems the most intuitive.)
The current Diary Flow Rate (and the usually top-of-the-fold information) is below the fold.
What's a "Diary Flow Gauge"? Read this diary on the concept. See this previous diary, for example, to see the introductory material that I'll now start omitting.
The basic purpose of these diaries is to gauge how the pace of diaries here. This can also be used to calculate a "conversion rate" -- how many published diaries make the ReceRec list. (To assess this, I find the 100th ReceRec diary on the Diaries list and see the rank of the latter -- if it's #114, then 100 of the past 114 diaries made the front page.)
To bring people up to date: what I have been calling the "RecRec" list (which goes by the full name of the "Recently Recommended" list) will now be called the "ReceRec" list (pronounced "Reese Wreck"), at least by me.
Note that if you hit this link (also in an icon at the bottom left of each page) you'll see sitemeter stats for the site. Good news is: visits are pretty much constant since last month and page views are up!
As of 10:58 a.m. PST on 2/18/11:
The 50th oldest diary on the ReceRec list was published at 6:44 a.m., 254 minutes previously.
The 100th oldest diary on the ReceRec list was published at 8:35 p.m., 863 minutes previously.
The 100th diary posted on the Diaries List was posted at 2:08 p.m., 650 minutes previously.
Temporary longitudinal table:
Recently Rec'd (RR) 50th and 100th diary, Diary List (DL) 100th diary (measured in minutes since diary in question was posted)
2/14 day: RR(50) 210 ... RR(100) n/a ... DL(100) 754
2/14--15: RR(50) n/a ... RR(100) n/a ... DL(100) n/a
2/15 day: RR(50) 478 ... RR(100) 916 ... DL(100) 579
2/15--16: RR(50) 382 ... RR(100) 578 ... DL(100) 524
2/16 day: RR(50) 400 ... RR(100) 945 ... DL(100) 821
2/16--17: RR(50) 278 ... RR(100) 549 ... DL(100) 492
2/17 day: RR(50) 325 ... RR(100) 886 ... DL(100) 793
2/17--18: RR(50) n/a ... RR(100) n/a ... DL(100) n/a
2/18 day: RR(50) 254 ... RR(100) 863 ... DL(100) 650
Conversion factor: RR(100)=DL(126); 26 diaries of past 126 did not make ReceRec list.
We do seem to show a continuing speeding-up trend, with RR(50), RR(100), and DL(100) times all decreasing during the "day" measurement and the conversion factor of % diaries making the ReceRec list declining.
See, this is what makes these statistics worth keeping, ye doubters!