Uncommon Descent in Numbers - 2nd edition

Three years ago, I put up some pictures showing the number of comments and threads at Uncommon Descent. Now seems to be a good occasion to up-date some of this information.

1. Google Trends

Look for yourself: The phrase Uncommon Descent was most searched for in 2008. After that, everybody had bookmarked the site, so further googling became unnecessary. The same holds true for The Panda's Thumb - both sites are equally popular...

2. Threads per Month

The number of new threads per month peaked in 2011, but is still on a high level - though it seems to be decreasing. What makes all the difference is "News" - a.k.a. Denyse O'Leary - adding her news items. While in 2011/2012, those often were left uncommented, since 2013, they attract the attention of her fellow editors (though I got the impression that some commentators use them for their off-topic-remarks, while others just cannot let the copious factual inaccuracies stand uncommented.)

Again a proud number as a headline at Uncommon Descent: 10,000!

Again a proud number as a headline at Uncommon Descent: 10,000! The whole thing reads:

This is the 10,000th post at UD. We would like to thank all of our loyal readers, lurkers, commenters, writers, webmaster, contributors and all the others who have made this a wonderful run so far!

So congratulations! But I just have to pour some water in Barry Arrington's wine:

1) It comes actually a little bit late...

The last announcement of a milestone was the thread on Uncommon Descent's 9,000 post on May 14, 2012 - I commented on this event here. At this time, more than 200 threads were created per month, so the 10,000-ceiling should have been shattered in August 2012 (or September 2012) at the latest. What happened? Denise O'Leary - who put on thread after thread under the witty name "news" - left and took here energy over to The Best Schools' Blog, where she now baffles a non-existing audience (which isn't allowed to respond). I don't know why she did so, but it cut the number of threads per month by 75%.

2) The loyal commenters aren't that loyal any longer...

More than 3,300 editors have commented on Uncommon Descent. But over the last months, the number of unique editors per month is decreasing: in October, November and December 2012 it fell even below 100 - the smallest numbers since mid-2005!

3) But at least the number of comments is up - somewhat...

After a period of drought in the first half of the year 2012, the numbers have risen again. Most comments are made by the regulars, therefore the number of deleted comments became very small in November and December 2012. Not small enough though: a couple of my remarks never appeared...

9,000!

9,000! is the proud headline of a post by Barry Arrington at Uncommon Descent. The whole thing reads:

The post before this one was UD’s 9,000th. Thank you to all of our readers for your support as we celebrate this milestone.

So congratulations! But a comment by SCheesman pours a little water into the celebratory wine:

I wish I could celebrate, but I fear 9000 is a reflection of a vast inflation in the number rate of postings in the last year or two, with a corresponding decline in comments.
I owe a good deal of what I know today about ID from UD, both from a scientific and theological perspective, and used to enjoy the long threads and back-and-forth between proponents and opponents.
But now, many, if not most posts get nary a comment, and the ones engendering some debate often are lost in the crowd. Since the recent purge of participants who failed to pass what amounted to a purity test, it’s been pretty quiet here. The most lively recent discussion featured a debate between OEC’s and YEC’s. Now I enjoy that sort of thing (like on Sal Cordova’s old “Young Cosmos” blog), but it’s hardly what UD used to be known for.
Maybe the new format gets more visitors than it used to, but I’d be interested in seeing the stats, including comments per post, posts per month, unique visitors etc. over the last few years.
I miss the old days. I expect a lot of us do.

I'll try to satisfy the curiosity as good as I can.

Posts per month