“Uncommon Descent” and “The Skeptical Zone” in 2015

(crossposted from here and here)

(Edited Feb 2, 2016 to add eight figures)

Since 2005, Uncommon Descent (UD) – founded by William Dembski – has been the place to discuss intelligent design. Unfortunately, the moderation policy has always been one-sided (and quite arbitrary at the same time!) Since 2011, the statement “You don’t have to participate in UD” is not longer answered with gritted teeth only, but with a real alternative: Elizabeth Liddle’s The Skeptical Zone (TSZ). So, how were these two sites doing in 2015?

Number of Comments 2005 – 2015

year 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
UD  8,400 23,000 22,400 23,100 41,100 24,800 41,400 28,400 42,500 53,700 53,100
TSZ  2,200 15,100 16,900 20,400 45,200

In 2015, there were still 17% more comments at UD than at TSZ – 53,100 to 45,200.

UD-2015-02

Though UD is still going strong, there is a slight downwards trend (yellow line) in the daily number of comments.

TSZ-2015-02

The upside trend at TSZ is much stronger, but is fuelled by the very weak participation in the first couple of months of 2015. This can be seen when comparing the number of comments on a monthly base, too:

UD-2015-04

TSZ-2015-04

There are many ways how both sites interact with each other: the editors on both blogs may react to the same event, rising the number of comments on both sites. Or an editor, disgruntled with one site, may take his energy to the other one. Overall there is a slightly negative correlation (adj. R²=.256) between the number of comments per week:

UD-2015-06

There is one big difference between both sites: the number of posts. On TSZ, there have been 265 threads with comments, while this number was 1741 at UD (there were another 200 without any comments). Therefore, the number of comments per thread is smaller at UD than at TSZ:

UD-2015-05
At UD, most of the posts (16% or 271 out of 1741) gathered between five and eight comments (or 1,700 – 3.2% – of the 53,100 total comments in 2015), while at TSZ, most of the threads (20% or 56 out of 265) have between 65 and 128 comments (or 5000 – 11% – of the 45,200 comments)

TSZ-2015-05

This difference is shown in this stream of comments. With the notable exception of the thread Mystery at the Heart of Life, even the busiest posts aren’t active for longer than a month at UD:

UD-2015-03

In fact, an average an article at UD will get comments over an period of 5.3 days. This average is 23.7 days for TSZ. Certainly eternal threads like Moderation Rules and Noyau play a role here, but other mainly philosophical topics are discussed over great periods of time, too.

TSZ-2015-03

 

My personal favourites of 2015 unfortunately got very few comments: Winson Ewert’s offer to Ask Dr. Ewert at UD, Tom English’s excellent reply A Question for Winston Ewert at TSZ, and then Dr. Ewert Answers, again at UD – which were commented less than eighty times in total. I had hoped for a discussion about the mathematical aspects of Intelligent Design (see my posts). Unfortunately, the design-side didn’t show any interest in anything other but an token interaction. Another chance missed.

Note: UD and TSZ both use WordPress, so they should have numerous ways to get statistics for their sites. I could look only from the outside, crawling the threads and comments. Though I’m fairly sure to got the all the visible data, I cannot guarantee to paint the real picture absolutely accurately.

Some Additional Figures

In 2015, there some 45,000 comments were made at The Skeptical Zone. Here are the top ten of the commentators (just a quantitative, not a qualitative judgement.) I’ll stick to the color scheme for all of figures in this post… “The Skeptical Zone” has a handy “reply to”-feature, which allows you to address a previous comments (with or without inline quotation.) It is used to various degree – and though some don’t use it at all, nearly 50% of all comments were replies.

While the previous figure showed who made replies, this one shows who receives them. Editors at “The Skeptical Zone” are also allowed to make postings and create new threads.
How popular are these threads? Here the number of comments editors gathered with there threads. Quite another question: A comment can be a short remark, a well-thought argument, or just a orgy of copying-and-pasting. How much text did the commentators write? Here is the length of the plain texts given in the comments – again, just a quantitative, not a qualitative deliberation.
A boxplot of the byte-length of comments made by the top 10 contributors.
This figure gives an impression of how many comments were attracted over time by threads sorted by the editors who had created them.
And here is the network of those who created – or received – at least 50 replies.

154 thoughts on ““Uncommon Descent” and “The Skeptical Zone” in 2015

  1. DiEb:
    Wow, that worked. I hope I have not taken liberties unduly. Feel free to delete this post otherwise…

    I wouldn’t worry. They’ll let anybody create threads here, even me! 😉

  2. Thanks Dieb.

    I was tossed from UD , July 26, 2014, then Barry briefly lifted the bans on all participants to get web traffic going.

    TSZ is the best venue on the net for these discussions.

    I know through the underground forums like reddit/r/creation, UD is no longer that popular as an ID source.

  3. Joe Felsenstein:
    Typo in post:TSZ, not TZS.

    Thanks – I’ll try to change it.
    … and I can’t. So, thought I’m thankful for spotting all my spelling (and grammatical) errors, they are here to stay.

  4. Jerry Coyne, at his blog, finds that his readership is much more interested in theology than in biology (I am excluding cats from the definition of “biology”).

    Here, it is philosophy versus biology, and once again, biology loses.

    Now make that mathematical biology, and people can’t run away fast enough.

  5. Unfortunately, the design-side didn’t show any interest in anything other but an token interaction. Another chance missed.

    I think CSI should be de-emphasized. The TSZ crowd has done an outstanding job highlighting its problems of utility.

  6. Joe Felsenstein,

    Once I’ve thought – naively – that Dembski, Marks, et. al. would love to have an opportunity to discuss their ideas – even if it got heated: that’s the way most mathematicians work. Nowadays I realize that their papers aren’t written to be discussed, but to be venerated by those with no maths at all…

  7. Since 2005, Uncommon Descent (UD) – founded by William Dembski – has been the place to discuss intelligent design

    Half right–it’s been the place to demonize “Darwinists” and to chant the various slogans of ID.

    Discussion isn’t necessary when you have all of the answers (that matter) already.

    Glen Davidson

  8. From the colored bar charts, it looks like the rise in TSZ comments is highly correlated with Mung and FMM’s participation at TSZ. Seems TSZ comment traffic is helped by having controversies to shoot at.

  9. Rich:

    UD’s numbers were inflated last year (was it last year?) by the great but short live amnesty.

    It was October 21, 2014:

    http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/ud-announces-general-amnesty/

    After I was tossed on July 26, 2014, I told the underground forums what happened to me and that I no longer endorse KF and Barry Arrington’s and thus UD on the whole even though I think the other authors are fine (JohnnyB, Cornelius Hunter, VJTorely, etc.)

    What I told the underground forums soured some of the YECs there and they were regulars.

    One of the forums is the private CRS YEC Only/Mostly forum. The other is reddit/r/creation and a private non-visible creationevolutionuniversity.com forum. Some of the guys on the forums are Radio show hosts who were my friends. They drove some traffic to UD.

    So I think what happened in July 2014 did put a slight dent in UDs numbers and Barry could feel the YEC participation declining.

    I think I’ll send a friendly reminder about Barry’s last stunt (saying I quit the ID movement).

  10. petrushka: Moderation issues: 40,000
    Everything else: 5000

    The correct data lies directly in front of you:

    From Table 1: 45,200 comments over all
    From Figure 9: 1,900 in “moderation issues”

    Figure 9 shows also that “moderation issues” was especially strong in Dec 2015, but never dominated the comments absolutely.

  11. Just joking.

    Of 1,900 moderation issues posts, I’d estimate maybe a hundred were useful.

    The rest were broken records.

    The net result is that Lizzie’s rules remain, and a few awkward decisions were reversed. Much ado about nothing that most of us can remember.

    Net contribution to the overall discussion, less than zero.

  12. I just sent this to the underground forum. I hope it will help ensure fewer people visit Uncommon Descent:

    Intelligent Design weblog disses a YEC

    Some of you may have been reading the Uncommon Descent (UD) Weblog, especially while I was a volunteer author and commenter there for 10 years.

    The owner of the site, Barry Arrington and I had a falling out, and on July 26, 2014 Barry dismissed me as author of UD because I tried to post a simple report of Mark Armitage’s lawsuit being filed. Barry told me to leave and that his ID weblog wasn’t a place to discuss YEC (even though I didn’t even use the word YEC in the Armitage story, I merely highlighted Armitage’s microscopy studies).

    This month (January 2016). He also recently falsely accused me of leaving the ID movement and gave me absolutely no opportunity to respond to his false accusations at the UD weblog since he suspended my commenting privileges. This is his bearing of false witness against me:

    “Sal Cordova Withdraws from the ID Movement

    January 15, 2016 Posted by Barry Arrington under Intelligent Design
    56 Comments

    After spending the last few years pretending to be an ID proponent, all the while bashing every other ID proponent and disparaging most ID ideas, Salvador Cordova has finally come clean and formally withdrawn from the ID movement. Here. He did it over at The Skeptical Zone, of course, where he has found a home with more like-minded folks.”

    I no longer endorse the UD weblog for ID proponents or creationists because the owner of the blog (once owned by William Dembski but now owned by Barry Arrington) has shown complete lack of integrity in the way he dealt with me.

    ID was very important to me on my journey to getting restored to the Christian faith and it made it possible for me to begin considering the case for creation which I now profess. But Uncommon Descent has deteriorated as a venue for ID.

    Thanks to all the members who visited Uncommon Descent in the past to read what I wrote, but I’m no longer an author there. I participate now in a dialogue at an anti-creation blog, TheSkeptical Zone, where I get to debate and learn many things from my opponents. That venue has been a source of criticism and correction I feel is necessary to further my understanding.

    Along those lines, I’m also happy to announce I’ve been accepted to the NIH graduate school to study “the Language of God” (to quote the NIH director Francis Collins).

    One moment that was very moving to me when I was visiting the NIH Nobel Laureate hall, to my utter shock I saw prominently display this passage which relates to the NIH mission and it’s founding in the city of Bethesda Maryland (named after the Bethesda of Jersualem):

    ” Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda[a] and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. [4] [b] 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

    7 “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

    8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.”

    The NIH is located in the Bethesda area and is committed to healing the sick and learning about the Language of God. Though the NIH has strong ties to evolutionary theory, they are doing a great deal unwittingly to dismantle it because the language of God speaks volumes and the NIH is proclaiming it to the world.

  13. DiEb, what’s a good email to catch you at? I’ve got a Fisher-Pry Adoption / diffusion curve for you.

  14. Richardthughes:
    DiEb, what’s a good email to catch you at? I’ve got a Fisher-Pry Adoption / diffusion curve for you.

    Gah – having pulled it up I’m not sure it’ll work unless we create an arbitrary total market / possible viewership cap.

  15. Rich,

    Gah – having pulled it up I’m not sure it’ll work unless we create an arbitrary total market / possible viewership cap.

    I can help. The total market/possible viewership is the entire world population, plus the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost — and any aliens who are freeloading on our WiFi.

  16. Unless I’m mistaken, isn’t TSZ sort of the outcast offshoot of UD? Are we sort of the — ahem — not-so-legitimate offspring? Would there be a TSZ if it weren’t for UD?

  17. walto: All of them from your own 280?

    Did I post 280 times in moderation issues? Don’t recall such a thing.

    My posts in moderation issues are mostly to bitch about people spending too much time bitching about moderation issues.

    I recall making a few posts to support moving moderation related posts to moderation issues rather than to guano. That’s really the only change I support.

  18. It’s an unwritten rule around here that moderation issues are discussed in the moderation issues thread. *stern face* 🙂

    Regarding statistics, there is a plugin “WP statistics” that has been running for seven moths or so. Unique visitors have been on a largely gentle upward trend over that period between 400 to 600 a day, ignoring spikes. I don’t know if it’s visible to other than admins or if there’s general interest for public information on this. Anyway thanks to DiEb for taking the trouble to provide all this.

    Looking at Alexa, while UD has the bigger readership, there is a noticeable difference from TSZ in attention span!

  19. Congrats to both. These matters should get lots of attention and more. Posters tend to end up being only the those who can keep up with these complicated issues.
    On UD comments tend not to be a few sentences. TSZ has more quick lines as I see it. Its seems more different people are on UD. likewise on uD subjects come and go quicker. Less debaters between a couple of people.
    Anyways in the future kids will do high school projects on the origin fights, they will know the winner, and these blogs will be in their papers.
    Its historical and so watch your reasoning and your words.

  20. Robert:

    On UD comments tend not to be a few sentences.

    Why did that make me think of vjtorley and kairosfocus?

  21. Alan Fox:
    Looking at Alexa, while UD has the bigger readership, there is a noticeable difference from TSZ in attention span!

    You will get that result when you keep banning people.

  22. Isn’t it past time for The Skeptical Zone to stop feeding at the tit of Uncommon Descent and grow up?

  23. Mung:
    Isn’t it past time for The Skeptical Zone to stop feeding at the tit of Uncommon Descent and grow up?

    I agree. Uncommon Descent is a tit.

  24. stcordova: From the colored bar charts, it looks like the rise in TSZ comments is highly correlated with Mung and FMM’s participation at TSZ.

    I have had some very successful threads that weren’t censored.

  25. Mung: I have had some very successful threads that weren’t censored.

    These are the best kind. If only the home team shows up and declares themselves winners by default, you won’t sell many tickets.

  26. First off Joe, Jerry Coyne doesn’t even allow opposing viewpoints to post on his blog. And of course most of his comments are about theology, his is a religious blog. Same thing here.

    Now, if we counted real comments, here, and not the times when Richards trips on his cat and hits the copy button to post butthurt again, the actual number of comments here drops to about 12.

    Its even even close.

  27. phoodoo: Now, if we counted real comments, here, and not the times when Richards trips on his cat and hits the copy button to post butthurt again…

    hahaha!

  28. Alan Fox: It’s an unwritten rule around here that moderation issues are discussed in the moderation issues thread. *stern face*

    What was the point of this comment?

  29. Mung: It’s not like anyone here ever called for a boycott.

    And how effective was it? Most of us were already banned.

  30. phoodoo:
    Adapa,

    No Coyne does not allow opposing viewpoints on his blog.You are either unaware or just making that up.

    If you’re referring to Why Evolution Is True, of course he does. Sometimes he even starts new threads responding to such comments.

  31. Flint,

    No, that’s not accurate. If one accepts evolution as true, but questions some information about the specifics, he might allow that. But he does not allow opposing viewpoints.

  32. phoodoo:
    Flint,

    No, that’s not accurate.If one accepts evolution as true, but questions some information about the specifics, he might allow that.But he does not allow opposing viewpoints.

    I guess we’re reading different sites. I see disagreement there all the time.

    I suppose if you think evolution does not happen, and are (of course) unable to account for the incredibly enormous wealth of observation, tests, research, etc. to the contrary, he might consider your noise to be, well, noise, I don’t know. Kind of like an astronomy blog not wanting to encourage input from flat-earth bozos or astrology nuts.

    However, I am not aware that there is any policy against disagreement there. And within reasonable limits, there is a LOT of disagreement between Coyne and his commenters, and between different commenters.

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