Welcome, New Users, to Daily Kos. This Diary is intended to help you orient yourself to the site and ask questions about how to use it.
In the Body of this diary you will find some links intended to get you participating more effectively. Also in the Body this week is a discussion of Stats.
After that you can ask me any question you want. I don't know all the answers so if you stump me, you do. I invite those wiser than I to contribute and correct (or raise a ruckus, just don't scare people).
No permission slips needed, join us at the deep end of the pool for adult swim.
If your user id (hover your mouse over your name in any comment, look at the status bar in the bottom of your browser) is larger than 236892 you probably haven't had the opportunity to participate in one of the Welcome New Users diaries here at Daily Kos.
That would be 1522 of you, more or less.
Before we begin, a brief word from our sponsor:
Everyone is encouraged to review some of the previously written goodness that survives here in the DKos archives.
* Other diaries in the Welcome New Users Series.
* The Welcome New Users dKosopedia page.
And finally, as DarkSyde eloquently stated:
With the exception of trolls, we're glad you're here!
Note:
The realm of Welcome New Users has evolved. For now, it will be hosted alternately by smileycreek and myself, LaughingPlanet. We hope that any attempt to revive this effort is appreciated by those who got the ball rolling, and especially the person who wrote literally dozens of such entries over the years.
OK, so...what do you mean by "stats" exactly?
I'm glad you asked!
Have you ever been to the bottom of the front page?
Or do you just hover at the very top, looking at only the latest front page story, the rec list, and maybe the 1st handful of recent diaries?
C'mon...you can tell me! I can keep a secret (unlike some people).
Well, if you had looked at the end of the front page (or any page on Daily Kos), you would see this:
Yeah, yeah. So what?
Well, there is a hidden gem tucked in there among the gibberish that hearkens to the credits at the end of the movie that follow the cast.
This little item. 
It is a hotlink, believe it or not.
It links to another site with a wealth of information about everything having to do with site visits, pageviews, and so on. Don't feel bad if you are just learning about this. I just noticed it within the past few months myself.
The site is called Sitemeter 
The biggest number there might be this:
PAGE VIEWS- Total 1,699,126,931
We are gaining on McDonald's rather quickly, it seems. Or I would hope, at least.
Some people care about such things, I swear. In fact, the impetus for this diary was a series of comments posted during the death throes of a previous Welcome New Users effort wherein a self-proclaimed "geekiest of geeks" expounded at length upon "page views" vs. "visits"
You can bounce around that site to see pretty little charts like this one. Clicky the picky to see plenty of others.
Why would I bother with another website when 8 days/week jotter posts stuff like this?
Yesterday 212 Kogs posted 212 diaries of which 210 were recommended at least once by a cadre of 3304 recommending readers and viewed by 9290; 135 diaries were recommended by 10 or more readers, 62 by 30 or more, and 17 by 100 or more. Commenters (2608) visited 212 diaries; 146 had 10 or more commenters, 51 had 30 or more, and 12 had 100 or more.
Well said!
Few people are bigger fans of jotter than myself. In fact, I was caught on camera hogging him all to myself at a recent gathering of the SFKossacks for exmearden.
It is quite a treat to check the numbers in High Impact Diaries to see what was the big hit on any given day. It is especially helpful if you have posted a diary yourself and you would like to know how it fared versus all the others.
Of course, if you know how to use the search function, you can just do that yourself anytime you want.
This section of jotter's daily digest is my fave:
DailyKos diaries = 212; 212 per day; 8.8 per hour
Active Kogs: 4361 (writes a diary, recommends a diary, or comments on a diary)
Lurkers: 5010 (only view diaries)
It lays firmly to rest the trope about "over 235,000 users" here. In reality, it's a couple thousand, along with tens of thousands of banned trolls, sockpuppets, and other myriad non-users.
So... those nearly 2 billion page views listed above...?
Yeah, that's you!
and me too
Depending on how many of that roughly 10,000/day number is rotating, the 30 million hits per month breaks down to 3,000 hits each unless there is a massive turnover each day.
BTW, kos himself posted a little stats diary recently which highlighted the fact that we are the most loyal tribe on the Internet to the left of Drudge:
Daily Kos has most loyal news community on the tubes
In their 2010 State of the Media report, Pew used Nielsen's database of 4,600 news and information websites to analyze web media usage patterns. Among their findings:
Two political sites, Daily Kos and Drudge Report, stand out with vastly higher numbers than the average site.
So given the Pew/Nielsen analysis, we can objectively claim the most loyal and active community in the entire news and information internet.
That's quite amazing, and a testament to what we have all collectively built here. Kudos to all, with a sincere thanks from me and the rest of the Daily Kos team.
OK...I was promised a jotter interview here...
Yeah, yeah...we all know you have skimmed the rest of the diary just to get to this point. Thanks for waiting.
heh.
The jotter interview
I actually gave smileycreek the first question. She wondered aloud if jotter is a real person, or some kind of supercomputer/demigod. Funny, because I had always wondered the same thing.
It wasn't until I read the comments in his daily High Impact Diaries feature wherein people were thanking him that I began to think he was an actual human.
Then, I got the chance to meet him IRL (mentioned above).
Yet, still, the results to smileycreek's question are inconclusive.
I have determined that jotter is part supercomputer and part demigod. The rest of him is a really nice and very smart guy.
....
LaughingPlanet:
How did you become the official stat man for Daily Kos?
jotter
You might want to check your sources.
I just show up every day, I'm in no way official.
.
.
.
.
LaughingPlanet:
Is it true that you intentionally devised the search function to be confusing for new users or was that just an unintended bonus?
jotter
If left entirely to my own devices and given infinite budget, time,
and resources the search function would know in advance your every
want and results would appear in the very instant of desire.
Because I'm just that thoughtful.
However, due to the limitations of linux, perl, lightspeed, and
memcached, not to speak of python, swish-e, and physical reality, I've
fallen somewhat short of that goal. The differences are left as an
exercise for the reader. Is it hopelessly optimistic to suppose any
of said readers have read the search documentation?
LaughingPlanet:
What does the crucial search item SID = "2010" stand for or mean?
.
jotter
It is a quirk of the search system we're using that you can't have
an empty query, it won't match anything. So, what to suggest as a
default query? I hoped that sid=2010 would pique the curiosity of
searchers, so they might actually read the search documentation. You
seem to be saying that doesn't always (often?, ever?) work. Oh well.
Here goes then.
In order to work with (store, retrieve, shlep around from place to
place, etc) the text (comments and diaries) that is the real content
of the site, it is necessary to attach various handles. The main
handle for each diary is called sid (StoryId). It starts with the
year and month and day the diary is published, such as
"/2010/3/30/....". So sid=2010 will match the handle any diary
published in 2010. Which means I have to update the default every
year. Such a burden!
While I take a break to go to the bathroom, here's a question from Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse:
How can we find the number of viewers for diaries that don't make High Impact Diaries list?
jotter
You can't.
That might change in DK4.
LaughingPlanet:
That wasn't a long enough break. Now the front of my pants are a mess and I haven't had time to think of a good question...
Do you think we will ever actually see DK4?
jotter
Of course we will.
It is only a matter of time.
LaughingPlanet:
How will DK4 affect your High Impact Diaries feature?
.
jotter
I'm not really sure. The possibilities range from "not at all" to
"they will go away". Ideally the best features will show up in a
hosted statistics page so I'm relieved of the terrible burden of
cutting and pasting daily, and debugging infrequently.
LaughingPlanet:
What's up with your blogroll? Graphviz? Fafblog? Pajek? I can't
even pronounce those "words"!
jotter
Just pretend they're Indonesian. Now, wasn't that easy? Pajek is
the Czech word for spider, it is a graph visualization and analysis
program written, oddly enough, by a Czech. Graphviz is graph
visualization software from AT&T/Bell Labs. Fafblog is the best blog.
It is the only source for Fafblog , for example "The future's a lot
like the present only it's older and more used up".
LaughingPlanet:
There are lots of terms for your minions: "jotterbugs", "impactarinos", "stat heads" (I lay claim to coining the term "impact nerds"). Which is your favorite?
jotter
Everyone who shows up, comments, recommends, reads, or merely shakes
their head in amazement and wanders off, is an individual human being
who spent some of their time on earth gazing at something I set free
into the world. They are all important to me. They have their own
names (and/or screen names). I thank them all. Since I don't think
of them as a group, but as individuals, I don't need a group name, and
I don't prefer one or another. But some seem to think of themselves
as part of a group. That's ok with me. They are free to choose one
name or another, or perhaps more than one. Affiliation is the essence
of community.
LaughingPlanet:
OK, fine. I will begin using the term "jotterbots" then even though our community overlord has suggested the suffix -bot is an HR'able offense.
Last question. This is more of a request than a question, but...If it's not too much trouble, if you could list any diaries I write at the top of your lists from now on that would be great.
jotter
Sure no problem. Did I ever mention that the very tippy top of the
lists are actually above the top of the page and have all negative
numbers? No? Well, keep your eyes open! That' s where yours will
be. And I totally get your reference to Office Space.
LaughingPlanet:
Thanks for your time.
.
jotter :
And yours.
.
Recurring Suggestions
• Try to read a variety of different authors on topics that interest you. Letting one or two authors summarize an issue often leaves too much to be desired. I've often found my opinion changed as the result of a diary that responds directly to one I recommended.
• Recommend lots of diaries and comments. What does it cost you? Nothing. People work pretty hard on their work here. Giving them a pat on the back is a tiny thing that means a lot to some folks. The worst thing that can happen is that the diary you recommend pushes another diary off the rec list which was already there. Keeping the rec list fresh is not a bad thing.
A few recurring diaries that I recommend without a 2nd thought include High Impact Diaries, Top Comments, IGTNT, and Overnight News Digest (OND).
• Play nice. There is no "Edit Comment" button. Once you hit "Post Comment", it is there FOREVER. The golden rule does apply to the internet despite myraid reams of evidence that might lead you to believe otherwise.
Suggestion of Teh Month [sic]
• Instead of typing your comment Subject first, simply add it to your comment body while you elucidate your thought.
Subject: Last
Comment: First
The comment body section (with Firefox, at least) underlines your spelling errors. Then, when you're done, a simple highlight, cut & paste gets you a Subject without typos! Just be sure your whole Subject fits in the space allotted. It doesn't allow as many characters as a whole line of comment text.
Non-sequitur of the month
Funny thing I just noticed...
bink's Blogroll
* Jotter's Blogroll
+++++++++
