It turns out, 833 comments (this one makes 834). My activity came in somewhat sporadic, concentrated 'bursts' ... and then somewhat tapered off (a la this November, and most of October when I was more doing grassroots field stuff). I lurked for probably a year before I started commenting, and then diaried sometime after that. The way it goes, I suppose.

Pretty amazing that aznew got up to almost 1500 comments in less than a year, basically since the VA primary. Very prolific, Al!

I have a couple diaries at least I plan on writing in the next few weeks before the lights go out, and hope to provoke some meaningful discussions of grassroots politicking here for '09 and '10.

In the meantime, as I'm baking up a mean pecan pie for tomorrow, I'm thankful for the efforts of everyone in this community helping to turn Virginia and the US blue. It feels like we got our country back.

what I lack in quality I try to make up for in quantity.

In all seriousness, writing diaries and commenting does not come naturally to me, but I made an affirmative decision in 2008 not to lurk, but to be a participant in discussions in the blogosphere. I had been lurking for a while before I jumped in, and I'm glad that I did so.

I started to write about the Democratic presidential primary, on the side of Hillary, which put me in a minority on this community. But I always felt treated with respect during that sometimes contentious debate, and that kept me coming back. I was most impressed with how sometimes, when the criticism of me  would get personal, or someone would suggest that I should be ignored because of my views, that other commentors who strongly disagreed with me came to my defense.

And some of the people with whom I debated most ardently then (Hell, I remember one time Lowell and I went at with dueling Troll ratings! :) ) I consider online friends and look forward to meeting in person.

So I urge people who lurk or just want to read, that while there is nothing wrong with that --  I do so at plenty of blogs for different reasons -- if you ever have the urge to jump in join the discussion that you do so.  Hopefully, you will find a community that is as decent and respectful, for the most part, as this one.

I can't believe I made over 1000 comments.

I personally would like a blog that requires people to post using their true identity.  Not everyone likes that idea, but I think people will be more careful with their words if their identity is public.  The quality of the blog would go up.

I did some lurking myself.  I didn't comment on most entries specific to the state of Virginia because I'm an outsider.  Was interesting to watch Virginia politics from afar.

I feel so lowly with my 12 diaries and 250 comments about.  Next community I'm gonna kick it into overdrive!

How did you dig out the stats for all these diaries? I've often longed for an easy way to see diary and comment stats on Soapblox, but I've found it to be quite a pain.

Impressive work, and congratulations on 3+ successful years.

into the database and create and run the SQL queries yourself.  If you've got a very modest amount of DB/SQL experience it's fairly easy.  If you don't, well, I recommend finding a friend who does.  It's the only way to parse the data at this level that I know of.

solicitation there will have to be an easier, audited way to establish circulation, if blogs are to become a mature media, it seems to me. How else to make it pay for itself, and not be forever a hobby? At least those which want to be journalists, or am I off base here?

there's Sitemeter, Google Analytics, etc.

give you a breakdown on the kind of viewer: age, sex, income, location, or such info? Don't you need that data to sell advertising successfully? Target audience and all that.

Strikes me that te publisher, editor, or other mainstay running the blog has to have an income and so as to be able to eat and pay their rent, and advertising is the usual way a publication accomplishes that, at least in our market-driven system.  Either that, or the publisher has to be independently wealthy.  This is turning out to be an important point when I think about it. Lowell, God bless your understanding spouse, I don't know how you kept at it as long as you did (selfless dedication and determination?)

Unless you do a survey of some sort, or set up a system in which people provide that information, you won't have most of it.  It's not really relevant, anyway, since 99.9999999999999999999% (probably missed a few "9"s there) of blogs aren't even close to the traffic levels needed to earn their proprietors a living.

As to how I kept at this, it's very simple: I saw the situation our country, planet, environment, etc. were in, found it intolerable, and decided to try and make a difference. Also, I took a significant financial hit, but my wife and I were able to handle it...

to see what may (or may not) come. Print newspapers are losing money and shrnking in size and numbers; people have begun to turn elsewhere for news; television news is by and large entertainment, a joke; picking though the web for coherent news is annoying and ultimately ineffective. So is there are chance here for blogs to fill an increasingly vacant niche? If so, they will have to pay for themselves... unless we can depend in the future on other altruistic persons with working and agreeable spouses or individuals with a private income. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the RK community you created, Lowell, really, really wants another gathering place.

It seems to me that for a blog to pay for itself, it either has to sell advertising (the Google model); market something related (like the blog author's own books, or a professional practice of some kind); or sell stuff right there on the blog site.  Or maybe do all three.  One lesson from the RK experience seems to be that the Google model doesn't work for a blog intensely focused on Virginia politics, i.e., you can't sell enough advertising even if you are hugely successful.  

For Virginia-sized states and smaller, it therefore seems like a truly self-sustaining blog would need to sell merchandise of some kind on the site.

just not nearly enough to support even one blogger, let alone a team of bloggers.  The issue is simply that 99.99999999999% of blogs don't receive even close to the amount of traffic necessary to attract sufficient advertising revenue.  The key is building traffic, but there's only so much that can be done in that regard, as we here at RK found out.  And it's not really "Virginia-sized states;" RK gets as much or more traffic than the top progressive blogs in California and Texas. I doubt even medium-sized national blogs like OpenLeft and MyDD make much money...

Would you be able to provide a few more details on the process?

I'm not sure what accounts for the difference between visitors who comment and those who don't.  

If there was more demographic visitor data it might be possible to answer that question, and tailor an RK version 2.0 accordingly.

As far as the more general question, why do people come to RK?  It's just a great resource.  I think the high-water mark in terms of activism was the 2006 Senate race.  RK provided more information about the race than any single news service, and it also provided a much broader picture of what was going on statewide.  RK played a central role in Jim Webb's election to the Senate, which is an amazing statement considering that it was an organizing resource for only perhaps a few dozen bloggers and a few hundred to a thousand people spread throughout the state.  

In terms of reporting on local issues and campaigns and state politics, RK provides ongoing coverage that isn't available elsewhere.  Even for those who don't care to comment, the blog fills a niche that isn't being served by more established news media sources (this isn't a knock on those news media services -- they have more overhead costs and cover a broader range of topics).  

The fact that the front-pagers are active in state politics and know the players involved -- and have access to them -- gives those of us who follow state politics as an avocation additional information.  It makes it a little easier to be an informed voter.

Hopefully, someone fills the void when RK goes dark -- it's definitely served an important function.

I never thought of myself as a lurker, but I guess my contributions here have been pretty minimal.  Maybe a dozen diaries, most of which didn't make a splash, and I'd guess 50 to 100 comments.  I certainly have contributed nothing compared to the top ten.  I guess I spread myself thin, and anyways need a break from these things in order to keep some perspective and sanity .... which is one of the reasons I have so much respect for people like Lowell and others who manage to publish 3 or 4 or 5 quality diaries a day.  

I clocked in at 60 diaries, 779 comments.  

We've all had our contributions to make and look at how  blue we've turned Virginia as a consequence.  So let's all pledge to keep contributing, whatever the new venues we find to do so.