Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Huh? Fellow claims no one cared about “Don’t need God” physicist Sean Carroll’s recent post …

Denyse O\'Leary
June 24, 2011
Cosmology, Culture
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Uh, they did care; response was pretty good. Post here (June 7, 2011).

But, one “Larry Tanner” who self-describes as follows,

“Larry Tanner” is my nom de blog. I am married, a father of three beautiful children, and enjoying life in New England. I work with robotic technologies, teach classes in English literature, and ghostwrite non-fiction books for a rabbi – and I self-identify as an atheist. I’m currently working on a Ph.D. on matters of literature, textuality, and probabilistic reasoning.

was complaining (June 8, 2011):

However, I am surprised that that Carroll’s post has not generated more discussion at UD than it has: only about 23 responses in 24 hours.

Hi, Larry, I’m Denyse O’Leary, and that’s a nom de reality, okay? It’s an easily demonstrated fact that there is no particular relationship between readership and comments. We track both.

Stats? Yeah. Got stats. Been ‘bout three weeks: (Visited 2,852 times, 126 visits today) 62 responses as of 11:00 pm EST June 24, 2011. At #6, the Carroll guest post seems likely to overtake current #5 any time. (That’s at 2909 just now, but not growing.)

If you’re so big on science, “Larry Tanner,” have you considered admitting realistic statistics like viewership into your playpen? Statistics that actually tell us something about viewer interest?

Naw. Too much monitoring. Better you should sleep on the problem and then outgas without real information.

File under: Yuh. Another “science” guy holds forth.

Comments
Pardon: I am lost on the Cat ref beyond the classic Quantum dilemma. G kairosfocus
Thanks much, kairosfocus, we'll work with your figures. Surprisingly, some posts that get high figures attract few comments. Sometimes it seems as though half the people who ever read an otherwise unremarked post commented. As long as everyone's happy, we are. One reason we installed the counter is that some people had assumed that there was a reliably close relationship between viewership and commentship. Not with us anyway. By the way, for how many versions of Schroedinger's cat may I put you down? Elizabeth Liddle, that really is Sean Carroll. News
Mrs O'Leary: Seems to me that posts and threads at UD tend to come in two types: (I) Normal threads that seem to move at about 10 reads/visits per comment post. (II) High viewership posts that move at a much higher ratio of visits to comments. I suspect the latter are cases where a lot of people find the issue interesting feel that commenting is going to be too hot or maybe too involved to handle. take that as a crude model. G kairosfocus
It might have been a livelier thread had Sean Carroll actually taken part. Or did I misunderstand a nom de UD? Elizabeth Liddle
Great! Then the only thing we're missing is a blog set up to complain about our mistreatment of Sean Carroll. Well, it can't be "Banninated" - believe the name's taken, and can you imagine him carrying on in the combox around here? I know! We shall threaten to kidnap Schrodinger's cat, if he does not become a more regular contributor. Ah, I see it now. Three alarmblogs spring up overnight. We then announce that we HAVE the cat. That we will give it to anyone who offers to look after it for life - but not to Schrodinger or Carroll. Yes, that works. Now can you handle the front end, whip up the frenzy? I'll tip off the Toronto Humane Society and set up a distribution system. Sweeet! Empty adoption cages, hordes of self-satisfied people, ... much more traffic for Uncommon Descent ... O'Leary
Hi Denyse, I really must apologize for not responding sooner, but I've been working on another major post. I'll have a response to Professor Carroll's paper up in the next couple of days or so. vjtorley

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