I have released a new version of the Useless Stats plugin for WordPress.
This new version has a lot more stats for tracking what times and what subjects generate the most interest (dicussion) among your readership. This is just trivia for a niche blog like mine, but for some of the more mainstream blogs (Technology or Politics) or for blogs that are used as a source of ad revenue, this data could actually be pretty useful as a way to target your efforts.
The new version adds a pane to the Management tab in the WordPress admin interface. On this page are charts just like the ones you see below. Finally, there is a section of html that you can cut & paste into a post (or wherever) so you can show these charts to others, as I have done.
Read on to see some of the charts that Useless Stats will generate for you:
Useless Stats for Twenty-Sided
Generated June 15, 2006
- First post was made on September 1, 2005.
- This blog is 286 days old.
- Average of 1.43 posts per day in the past week.
- Average of 2.17 posts per day in the past month.
- Average of 1.30 posts per day since the start of the blog.
- Average of 5.70 comments per post in the past week.
- Average of 5.28 comments per post in the past month.
- Average of 3.05 comments per post since the start of the blog.
This shows how many of the blog’s posts are published on each day of the week. This can be useful to see what days you are most productive, or when you tend to slack off.
(8%)
(13%)
(15%)
(18%)
(16%)
(17%)
(10%)
This shows what how many of the blog’s posts are published in each month.
(10%)
(13%)
(15%)
(17%)
(16%)
(7%)
(0%)
(0%)
(6%)
(1%)
(4%)
(6%)
This shows how much discussion is generated on average for posts published on various days of the week. This is useful for determining when users are most responsive. For example, you may find people are less likely to leave comments on weekends.
This shows how much discussion is generated on average for posts published for each category. This is useful for determining what subjects generate the most interest among your readers.
Could Have Been Great

Here are four games that could have been much better with just a little more work.
Chainmail Bikini

A horrible, railroading, stupid, contrived, and painfully ill-conceived roleplaying campaign. All in good fun.
Rage 2

The game was a dud, and I'm convinced a big part of that is due to the way the game leaned into its story. Its terrible, cringe-inducing story.
Games and the Fear of Death

Why killing you might be the least scary thing a game can do.
Charging More for a Worse Product

No, game prices don't "need" to go up. That's not how supply and demand works. Instead, the publishers need to be smarter about where they spend their money.
Is this going to be updated to work with 2.3.1? I just tried it and got the error:
WordPress database error: [Table ‘wrdp1.wp_categories’ doesn’t exist]
SELECT cat_ID, cat_name, category_count FROM wp_categories WHERE cat_ID > 0 ORDER BY cat_name
Warning: max() [function.max]: Array must contain at least one element in /home/demp/public_html/y/wp-content/plugins/useless_stats.php on line 193