Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts

Subject: Stuff
From: Max
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 01:10 PM

Max's Test Thread - mfvkvfm3466

30,000 visitors from smart phones this month. Maybe I should get to work on a mobile site.

Really, really cool real-time view of mudcat activity.

Each time an ad is clicked on mudcat, about $0.25 is raised for operating costs (primarily electric and bandwidth).

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: Max
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 04:41 PM

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: bobad
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 04:52 PM

That's pretty cool!

Zooming in on the location map I see someone is logged on from the middle of Lake Superior -- I wonder if that person is on a laker. Is there shipping on the Great Lakes this time of the year?

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: bobad
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 04:56 PM

Sure is a lot of data there when you start clicking on stuff.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: Max
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 05:34 PM

Got a smart phone? Try mudcat.org/mobile.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: Noreen
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 05:59 PM

I tried it, max- but trying to read a thread, (google mobile version), got an error message:

"we encountered an error adapting the page you requested for your phone. The problem has been logged and we'll investigate soon. Please try again."

My phone is not one of the latest though so it may not be intended for me
:(

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 07:20 PM

Interesting stats site - I am reminded of my motor sport days ...

Vrooom!
Vrooom!

Noreen - there may be problems adapting some of the old messages that have various different character encodings. there have been several esoteric threads on this recently ...

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 07:26 PM

While watching, a page called something like 'what sort of flute used on the Titanic' flittered by. It's not a current thread. a simple filter search on those 2 terms didn't find it. Someone must have been looking at it, but that entry on that page also failed to pop it up directly... interesting, now I have to find that thread, damnit!

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 27 Mar 11 - 07:30 PM

Hmmm, clicking on the obviously currently popular "No such thing as a B-sharp" thread, producing much grinding thrashing and virtual smoke, but no data appeared in the page... I assume this is still work in progress...

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 28 Mar 11 - 05:18 AM

Looking forward to trying this out later - Mobile Mudcat is the future :)

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: Noreen
Date: 28 Mar 11 - 05:44 PM

grinding and thrashing is obviously to some effect, as I got through today on my phone.

Good stuff, Max. :)

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: Noreen
Date: 28 Mar 11 - 05:47 PM

hmmm.... too much thrashing! :D

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: frogprince
Date: 29 Mar 11 - 08:43 AM

Who is this Max guy, and why hasn't somebody told him that this should be under BS? And how dare you all express approval of this kind of change to the 1999 tradition!

A little closer to seriousness, I wouldn't have suspected that the revenue per click from ads would be anywhere near that high; I'll
try and chip in a little more "voluntary admission price" now.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: Dan Schatz
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 06:09 PM

I love the idea of a mobile site. I didn't get any error messages but it is still clearly in its early stages - right now I can only read the first message in a given thread and there's only 35 threads listed. STILL, it's an amazing development which I was hoping would one day come.

Max, I've said it before and I'll say it again - you're a true hero. THANK YOU for all you do.

Dan

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 06:35 PM

Isn't it fascinating how Mudcat and the database gradually went from 'quaint & interesting' to 'kinda nice and stable' to "really important!" in a few short years.

Quite a place....

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 06:52 PM

Really fascinating -

The first site I've ever seen that won't open in plain old IE!

John

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 07:10 PM

LOL! That tells me something....

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: Max
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 09:02 PM

What's that John? Has my fiddlin' gone awry? It's important to me that it works with all inferior and outdated software, so if I've changed something for you, I should like to know all the details.

Oh, by the way, did the taxes today, and thanks to the Friends of Mudcat over there in the UK, we did just fine this year. Even Steven, just the way I like it. Thanks them and all the rest who click, contribute, volunteer, shop, etc, to keep this old girl afloat. It is an honor to be among you.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: Max
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 09:05 PM

Oh, I see John, it's the Chartbeat stuff. Not surprising, IE really is a terrible piece of software. SuperNerds don't even try to support it anymore. Firefox or Chrome are much faster and more stable.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: Max
Date: 31 Mar 11 - 12:12 AM

I've also recently blocked certain people-search sites from indexing mudcat content. Just like the search engines, they send out robots/spiders/worms looking for name matches to provide "background data" to cheap background-check sites that seem to be becoming more popular. I'm blocking their robots as I discover them.

I also noticed a frequent search on one of our more... hot-button members so I blocked all member searches from all search engines.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: Snuffy
Date: 31 Mar 11 - 02:34 AM

This message has suddenly started appearing on every thread:
Internet Explorer has modified this page to help prevent cross-site scripting. Click here for more information ...

Is this a result of recent changes?

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: Joe Offer
Date: 31 Mar 11 - 02:41 AM

I've noticed that, too, Snuffy. I'm using Internet Explorer 9, which is just out. I'm wondering if it's the new browser that's having script problems.
-Joe-

P.S. You haven't been around as much as you used to be. It's nice to see you.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: Snuffy
Date: 31 Mar 11 - 03:23 AM

Hi Joe. I'm still around quite a bit, but mostly reading - not posting as often as I used to: I guess I must have already posted everything I know, so there's nothing left in my brain to communicate. :-)

I'm still on Internet Explorer 8, so my set-up hasn't changed, and I've not (yet) got this message from any other sites. That's why I thought it might be something that Max has changed.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 31 Mar 11 - 04:00 AM

At ChartBeat

I get an error message that says the content can't be displayed in IE.

Next comes an instruction that I have to use another browser.

That's followed by a rather wimpy "but you can download (some Chrome plugin) that will allow you to see the site in IE."

(I'm using Internet Explorer 7, in Vista Pro.)

Actual paste:

We currently do not support Internet Explorer to view our dashboard. Please use Firefox, Chrome, or Safari to view the dashboard.
Alternatively, you can install Chrome Frame and continue to use Internet Explorer.

John

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 31 Mar 11 - 06:17 PM

Interesting stuff... so will it show you how many hit a particular thread gets over a period of time?

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: Max
Date: 13 Apr 11 - 11:41 PM

Spleen, yes I can see hits over a period of time for everything. EVERYTHING.

Other facts:

The ads that Google calls "Rich Media Ads" which I assume are the annoying ones, generate $1.57 every time they are clicked. All other type ads average under $0.20.

April should be the first month we cross 1.5 million hits for a single month.

My estimated economic impact for allowing members to opt-out of advertisements is only an 8% drop in ad revenue. I can do that.

Fraternity Chants, Cadence/Marching Song threads and the Scots Glossary are consistently in the top 10 most visited content.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: My guru always said
Date: 14 Apr 11 - 06:02 AM

So glad that it's breaking even now, didn't like the Ads at first, but now I'm quite happy that we've got them. Might even be tempted to click a few for the sheer hell of it!

Mind you, even breaking even now we could never catch up with the debt (cash, time, stress and gratitude) that we owe to Max (and the Elves) over the years.....

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 14 Apr 11 - 07:20 AM

Since my previous post on this page, Microsoft pretty much forced me to swap IE7 for IE9 and I started getting the flag saying "IE has modified this page to protect you."

That flag didn't come up on the thread index (Lyrics & Knowledge) front page, but did appear on all individual thread pages.

As of last night's scheduled Mirosoft update, the flag no longer appears at mudcat so far as I can see. I haven't checked yet to see which of the 17 patches in the update may have made the difference.

FYI - and not really a complaint:

For some time it's been convenient to save pages as "web archive" (.mht) files. Saving as "complete html" also worked but gets a file and a linked folder, and it all falls apart if either or both are meved, as to a backup.

Either of the above worked quite well here through 02 OCT 2010, but as of 03 OCT 2010, neither saves a usable file for me (IE7 or IE9).

I haven't found a reason for the change, but suspect it's in IE's "XSS Filter" that blocks completion of the save due to a missing script object/target.

I can still save a page here as "html only," which keeps it to a single file that (probably) will hang together and is readable and of course I can copy & paste specific (text) content that I want to save, so this isn't really that much of an inconvenience.

The "Page Save" behavior was not changed by last night's update.

John

Subject: RE: Mudcat Statistics and Other Nerdy Facts
From: bradfordian
Date: 14 Apr 11 - 07:41 AM

Come on chaps and chapesses, let's click a few of those ads now and then, it's good money to Max for very little effort on our part!

bradfordian